Orangeside

Decidedly mediocre. Food wasn’t bad but then I saw them receive a delivery of the ingredients they use to make the food. I’m not sure it would be possible to buy cheaper bulk ingredients. Liquid butter alternative, premade hash browns that looked as if they legally weren’t allowed to be called potato. Also, very overly priced. Coffee is bad. Cups are dirty. Won’t be coming back. Won’t be recommending.

I have never been more disappointed. No donuts for 2 days in a row now. I should have asked for the gentlemans name whom either acts as the owner or manager of this place. He is lazy, indifferent, and a horrible representation.

delicious bacon pancakes

This a great place for breakfast, very clean and great service, I had a meat lovers skillet with cheddar cheese it was awesome, fresh squeezed orange juice was the best. I gave this place 3 stars for one reason, the Mgr or owner what ever he is, several times talked down to his employees very loudly so that everyone in the restaurant and other employees could hear it. They all just shook their heads. He has a great staff, I was asked 10 time during my meal if I was ok and want more coffee! No reason to treat your employees like that. Other then that great!

When considering where to go on Sunday when there are few options, kindly remove this establishment from your list. The only service you will get here is via cellphone. You will have to try very hard to find the level of incompetence demonstrated by host, busboy and manager. Never was spoken to by a waitress so maybe that speaks for itself. Only in this hole have I observed a busboy take 5 minutes to clear a table, 4 minutes to walk to the kitchen and still not wipe the table and put silverware on it. When the manager noticed we were at a table that was not wiped, he rudely asked why we were there. When told the moronic host told us to sit there he seemed to become more irate with us as if we would lie. I would sooner stab my eyes out with 19 inch knitting needles then return to the rearside. May rats descend upon them and poop in their Android like faces.

RUDE! HORRENDOUS service. We waited at the door for 10min while we watched multiple tables be cleared but not cleaned. Then we’re told to sit at a dirty table, after asking multiple times to have it wiped we were told by a different person to «just go sit somewhere else then». Once we went to a different table, this same person mocked us by wiping the clean table again. I would have left at that point if anything else had been open on a Sunday.
Food was mediocre at best. Not worth the awful service. It took an hour to come with a half full restaurant and all I ordered was a fruit bowl, while my husband ordered French toast.
If you can, pick somewhere else to eat!

Had lunch here the other day and had the French dip. It was very good. The following morning I got breakfast sandwich and coffee. Surprisingly the coffee tasted excellent. Good experience

Let me start by saying, the food here is very good and their donuts are delicious. I’m not sure if that’s what they are famous for but they are certainly worth checking out and are very reasonably priced at just under $ 2 a donut. I would love to
give this place 5 stars however it’s really more of a matter of being extremely under staffed. Here on a Sunday at 10:40 (time now is 11:20 and still have no food), there were 3 other tables when we walked in. It is now packed, there are two waitresses who are both running the counter, serving and running food, bussing tables, restocking glasses and making coffee.
A note to the owner of this establishment: if you want to stay in business you MUST hire more help. This is extremely unacceptable and we will not be returning (which saddens me because the food and donuts are so yummy) until you’ve hired more help. Which I’m assuming is happening in the kitchen as well since we have been here for almost an hour now with no wait and still have no food. I’ve now got an extremely hungry toddler and annoyed husband. He actually had to take my son for a walk outside because he was not able to sit any longer! Your wait staff is very overwhelmed but handling it. You can see the stress in their faces!
It ended up taking over an hour to get our food and we were here an hour and a half for breakfast!
I just got around to posting this but it was from a few months ago. I forgot to his submit. I hope things have improved for you by now.

Really disappointed. Came for doughnuts and they were out of them by 11am. Decided to stay for brunch and food took forever… and it was sub-​par. My family of 6 had two decent dishes — egg nog french toast was good, as were the eggs benedict. But the biscuits and gravy was horrible. Biscuits were the worst I’ve ever had — not even edible. Rock hard and crumbled when you tried to eat them. Scrambled eggs were horrible as well. Dry and chopped up. Kids meal options were good and they had books for kids to read.
Server was very nice, but seemed too busy and forgot a bunch of things. Food took 45+ minutes to come out. Bathrooms were freezing and door didn’t shut right. Wouldn’t come back.

they are sooooooo damn good, great prices and friendly staff, so glad they are on Whitney ave now. They will for now on be my SWEET SPOT!

We came on Halloween morning. Parking was close and easy. We paid and went in, sat down right away. This place was the only place open in the area, which is kind of hard for business I’m sure. The had a Huge pumpkin outside which I’m sure drawn a lot of attention to the place. I heard lots of great reviews about the donuts and we already know Daisha and Katie love their donuts.
The waitress was great and she served us coffee right away. We then wanted donuts, we saw the fun ones online, but our selection wasn’t to cool. Everything was plain and didn’t have much jazz. I got the small cinnamon and sugar for Katie and then I took the old fashion donut, because they looked amazing, yet they were yellow inside– different. Normally they aren’t yellow inside we wondered if they switched the signs or something, but I don’t like pumpkin and didn’t seem to taste the pumpkin if it was. Anyways we wanted better choices, but she lives there now so we can always stop in again.
Food: I got biscuits and gravy with eggs, I asked for the eggs to be scrambled hard, but they were defiantly a little slimy which isn’t my favorite thing at all. I liked the gravy mixture and normally I don’t get the meat version, but it was still tasty. I liked the buscuits a lot, they were flaky, fluffy, and seemed to be really cooked in the back.
coffee was tasty I had three cups and I wasn’t even wired. I really liked it here.
Atmosphere: It was cute, clean, and very organized.
Need: community board would be perfect and an IG page. I think this place would really do well with both. Its close to the train station, a school, and just seems like a weekly kind of business place.
if you are in the area defiantly stop on in and say HI. They are very friendly ladies and staff who were there.

My first visit since their new location. Great space. I noticed 2 of 3 people going by stopped in. The owner Jacob is great funny too. Songs whenever he brings out the HOT PLATE. Tiffany is new but a wonderful waitress. Met Jill too. Great place and food delicious worth the money. Will be back.

This is 2 stars but if we had a different waitress I would have probably given 3.
Our waitress took ages to take orders and to bring orders over because she was constantly on the computer dealing with a problem… argh…just bring our drinks over please. Kept having to ask twice for things… water, creamer…
Skillets are a lot of food. We came in specifically for the skillet with avocado which go ordered but it didn’t come with the avo. Food was quite nice but a lot and very cheap. Don’t get the smoothies… fake awful ones.
Not recommended but in a pinch it’s fine.

Slow service! They seemed to be understaffed on a Saturday morning. Waitresses were polite but not very charming and welcoming. We got scrambled eggs and the egg white omelette.
Scrambled eggs: good. Nothing much that can go wrong there.
Omelette: the omelette itself was great. But the hash browns it came with were cold and tasted very stale.
Overall: ok. But nothing special.

I came across a $ 5 for $ 10 voucher for Orangeside. I looked them up on Unilocal and was intrigued by their SQUARE donuts! I started to salivate when I saw pics of the «Turtle» and Peanut Butter Donut and Almond-​Buttercrunch Caramel???
Hopping in the car and making my 40ish minute trek down to New Haven as soon as I could to get my little hands on these babies was exciting. To my disappointment, they were closed for party reservations. That sucked.
Then I tried again another day, luckily it was open but when I walked in, the first thing I saw was the tiny case in which they held the donuts. Or at least I thought it held the donuts because there was… I kid you not… literally 5 donuts available. I scanned behind the counter to see if there was more but no. I asked if they had any Turtle or Almond-​Crunch or ANY special donuts at all that day but they were all out! I left out of there with three donuts: 1 raised & glazed and 2 chocolate glazed, since this was all they had and all I could get from my voucher. The donuts were about 5×5″ but they tasted like Dunkin’ Donuts. I was not wowed.
Even if I did come at a bad time, I expected them to have more of their popular donuts in stock. If a customer were to come, they should always be prepared.

I came here for breakfast the other day while I was in town for a conference. I had The Orangeside with scrambled eggs. The eggs tasted like they had way too much butter and were not fluffy like eggs usually are. The whole wheat toast had much more butter on it than I would care for. The hash browns were okay.
I also got a chocolate coconut donut which was okay. It was similar to any cake donut you would get at other places. I also got the Samoa donut. I found it to be drier than the chocolate donut.
I was there during the week and there were only a few other people there. As was already mentioned in other reviews the place runs in a disorganized manner and the service was kind of slow. I think they should have had an additional person working there. Instead they only had one waitress who took all the orders from the customers at the tables, the walk-​in customers, answered the phone, and rang up each customer. Maybe they were just short staffed that day. I would return again.

UPDATE:
Service ³⁄₅ — still slow (BYO water next time), still friendly | Food ⁴⁄₅ | Ambiance ³⁄₅
Came here for brunch to show a friend something unique about New Haven that isn’t pizza. My scrambler was delicious – especially the potatoes which were pan-​fried to perfection. We were both satisfied with the meal, but left the place parched and thirsty as our water cups never came despite multiple attempts at hailing down the two (or three? It was hard to tell who had what roles) waitpersons.
In summary… affordable, solid brunch *when you have time to spare.* Add at least 30 minutes to your average brunch time.

Even after their move to a bigger location, Orangeside always seems to have this vibe of barely controlled chaos even when they’re not incredibly busy. That’s not to say the service is poor, but it can definitely be more of a pick your own table and shout coffee orders from halfway across the room kind of place. That said, the experience doesn’t really detract from the quality of the food. Their signature square donuts are as good as everyone claims (the Samoa and Dutch crumb are insane) and I’m a huge fan of their dirt-​cheap egg sandwiches for a quick breakfast. The coffee is diner standard – nothing amazing, but palatable and fairly strong.
The positives of Orangeside are more than enough to keep me coming back. Give them a try, and if you’re not completely uptight about the service, I think you’ll find that the food makes it worthwhile.

Square donuts! I’m only reviewing the donuts and service at Orangeside. I didn’t have any of their other food.
Donuts are delicious. They have a fairly good selection, ranging from jelly-​stuffed donuts, to old-​fashioned glazed, to Christmas frosted donuts. If you want just want a regular olé’ donut, they have original glazed donuts as well. The party I was with was all about the caramel crunch donut.
Service could’ve been better. We waited around forever before we were seated, even though there were empty tables that just needed clearing. I think they’re understaffed, unfortunately. Will be back for donuts though!

My coworkers and I (from NYC) had a nice breakfast at Orangeside. Although most people were taking their coffee and (square) doughnuts to go, we opted to eat in. The staff was very attentive and welcoming and the food was nice and hearty.
The breakfast bowl (eggs, protein, potatoes all plopped together) was the perfect start to a long day. The yogurt «surprise» wasn’t so surprising (I think it was raisins and nuts). The breakfast sandwich was good as well.
If we ever make it back to Orangeside we will definitely try the doughnuts.