Marketplace Café

Location: 3^rd floor of Nordstrom, inside/​outside seating available!
Service: I think you’re supposed to wait in line, order food, then get directed to a seat. There, a server will take your receipt, bring your food, and then give it back. It’s a pretty confusing system and I’d much rather have self service or complete service. I was dining alone, and she took 15 minutes to get my water and my food came out cold (I saw it on the counter for 10 minutes before she grabbed it). I love Nordstrom + their other café locations but won’t come back here.
Food: sandwiches are decent, ingredients definitely not fresh.

My wife likes to shop, and loves Nordstrom. Thank goodness they have a café or I wouldn’t be able to handle her marathon shopping excursions. So we have been eating at the Nordstrom Café in Walnut Creek about once a month for ten plus years. It has always been great. Food has been consistent and service excellent. Up until recently!!! They must have had a management change because the service has gone down hill and the long time regular employees have mostly left. So why the one star review? Because this past Saturday my wife, one of our daughters and I went to the café. The ladies had been shopping, I skipped breakfast and was feeling faint. My wife and daughter got in line to order (2 parties in front of them, not a long line) and I net feeling well went and sat at an open table. I had been sitting for about 30 seconds when a woman who works at the café approached me and asked if I had ordered yet. I told her my wife was ordering and she walked away. About another 30 seconds went by and she came back and «asked, where is your wife, which one is she in line?» Where I was sitting in the café I could not see the ordering station so I told her again my wife was ordering, that she was next up in line when I left her. The lady then rudely snapped, «you will have to leave, I need this table for someone else».
I left alright!!!

The best cilantro lime chicken salad I’ve ever had. Everything about this salad was so delicious. This is probably the 5^th time I’ve had it and I love it. I’m not even interested in anything else. My friend loves the chinese chicken salad tool This is the perfect place to eat while shopping but can get crowded by noon so go early! Excellent service and very friendly too:)

Food is very good. We enjoyed a wonderful salad & a very good sandwich. Service left s lot to be desired. After ordering food inside, we went outside to eat. As it was warm we wanted to eat in shade. There were vacant but uncleared tables in shade. No staff seemed willing to bus table and made sure they did not make eye contact so they could be asked to do so. We remained standing for a long time and finally cleared table ourselves to eat. Don’t think we’ll ever return again!

Food at a Nordstrom? Unexpectedly good! And the outdoor seating is a bonus.

This is my go to place. Been lunching here for last 15 years. I love Nordstrom and their café is awesome. Can’t go wrong plus you can order half portion of most items.

Ordered the daily special spicy chicken banh mi and it was amazing! The tomato basil soup was ok. The lemonade however was awful, way too much lemon syrup and little water. Service was great and it was a beautiful day to sit outside on the rooftop.

After a long day or beginning of your shopping trip– You can’t go wrong with Nordstrom café. My favorite is the cilantro chicken salad. However I order it with NO chicken substituted with shrimp, The flavors of this salad are explosive and delicious. The shrimp are grilled and seasoned perfectly (almost like Benihana style)
The perfect time to go is during the day when the weather is nice and you an sit outside soak up some fresh air and sun and enjoy your lunch. the staff are always nice, fast and accommodating.
I would not eat DINNER here or look for a wide variety of different foods other than pizza and salads.
Also lastly please make sure to look at the menu first order with the cashier, pay and take # to the table, server will come to your table and then bring your food– make sure to leave a tip although easy to forget because of paying before you are sit down.

On our visit here, we had to wait in line to order then find seating on our own. I’m not sure how it is on less busy days, but that’s the system we followed. The man by the door could be a little more friendly, because the only thing he cared about was making sure we were in line. It’s not our fault we were unsure of how to order. One line looked like it was for to-​go orders only.
Once we finally sat down, we didn’t wait too long for our food to arrive. My margherita pizza was delicious. The crust was baked perfectly. If you’re starving, I’m sure one pizza will be enough for one. Otherwise, it can be shared. The shrimp pasta was also great. All of their portions were the right amount.

Good if you like cookies or soup.
I really enjoy Nordstrom Café. Lately though, this woman who works there has been giving me a hard time pretty much every time I order pick up there. She’s always cutting me off asking if I want soup or cookies. For instance, I called the other day, she took my order for a pizza. I told her that I’d like ranch and it was to go, she seemed to ignore the ranch part. She asked if I wanted to add soup or cookies. I politely said no, thank you. When I arrived, the same woman was at the register and asked again if I wanted to add cookies to go. I said no thank you again. She then handed me my box of pizza with no ranch. I asked for a bag and ranch and she seemed bothered by that.
My simple issue is, I don’t mind when someone is trying to upsell something. I get it — you want your café to make more money for the day, maybe you have a goal to meet, but before we get to upselling, please sell me the things I came to buy.
Anyway, the food is good here. I’d rather not deal with hassle of getting ranch here though. By the way, I really like ranch with my pizza, it makes or breaks it.
If I want cookies or soup, I’ll be coming here.

I always share one salad and the Tuscan chicken plate. The salad is always very tasty and well dressed. They are pretty generous with their portions as well.
But the five stars is for the Tuscan roasted plate with rustic vegetables. It’s about $ 15 but it feels like a $ 30 meal. They give you a huge piece of roasted chicken (the skin is crispy and the meat is so juicy). It seems as if they just served you half of a chicken. And the vegetables are simple yet so delicious. They give you grilled zucchini, bell peppers, carrots, corn on the cob and a couple Yukon potatoes. I always eat every last bite. This is definitely my go to lunch place in walnut creek.
Plus the chocolate they give you at the end is the perfect way to end your meal!

I finally decided to give this place a try considering all the wonderful reviews on Unilocal.but I was let down with poor service and bad pasta !
I went in for lunch and there was no wait to get my order in. I was surprised of the flow of the café. Place your order and pay at the front. A recipet is given to you in a black book to place on your table. A server comes and takes the black book to get your order.
I decided to try the Chicken Tomato Alfredo pasta and a lemonade.
It took the server 10 minutes to come to my table get my receipt. Then another 10 minutes to bring over my drink. Mind you, that the server was bring items over to another table that sat down after me…
I finally receieved my lemonade. The lemonade was cold and the right amount of sweetness. A few minutes later my pasta arrived. The portion of the pasta was small. At first glance I couldn’t see any chicken. I took a bite and the pasta was cold. I found the chicken burried underneat the pasta. The chicken was overcooked and very rough tasting. The chicken was noticeably frozen.
I waited for the server to check back on me so I could send back the pasta but she never came back. I finshed my lemonade and would have loved a refill but the server was no where to be found.
After waiting what seemed to be forever, I left… So much for wonderful service !!! This place really gives Nordstrom a bad vibe !!
One star for convince of being inside of Nordstrom and one star for tasty lemonade !

This is a great place if you’re looking for a nice break after a long day of shopping!
My girlfriends and I love eating here whenever we are in the area, especially at this location. The service is wonderful and the staff is oh so friendly.
My most recent, and now favorite dish, is the cilantro lime chicken salad. If you’re someone who enjoys a lot if flavor in every bite, this is for you. This resembles a southwest salad in someways. I’ll definitely be ordering it again!

This is a quick service café where you order at the register, sit down, and let a waiter serve the order to you. A hidden gem on the third floor of Nordstrom.
I had the California Grill sandwich, which was great. My wife had the wild mushroom ravioli, which she loved.
Excellent fresh-​squeezed lemonade.

Oh good lord. I’m used to frequenting the Nordstrom Café in SF where I work and it’s like this one is an alien species. First of all, the salad I order in SF was served very sloppily here and the server Sarah practically made me serve myself. No water, no utensils, no offering of dessert.
I am so sick and tired of lazy, rude staff in Walnut Creek I can’t even tell you! It’s like no etiquette central. Compared to where I come from? New York? These places would never survive, not even for one day. I know this is a store café, but still, the SF one is magnificent. My wife was so appaled at the servive that she made a joke about the women who jumped over the side of the building having dealt with Sarah that day. Don’t come here if you are depressed? You will surely leave feeling that way!

$ 12.00 for a quarter glass of warm sour wine? REALLY?
Food is so inconsistent and they are always out of everything.
The attitude in this place makes one want to never come back.
It’s basically serve yourself!

So, the tomato soup is BOMB.
And I love the sunny patio for lunch with the girls in between shopping takes.
But the service is ridiculously slow.
I’ve waitressed for years, and you should never make someone wait 25 minutes for a bowl of soup. I think our diet cokes took ten minutes to get us started.
The food is delicious and you can’t beat the proximity to the floor I shop the most at, but… meh.

This place has delicious food and friendly staff!
I can only think of good things to say about this café.
So, as soon as you get to the 3^rd floor, left of the escalator, there it is — the long line speaks for itself. There are plenty of tasty options on the lunch menu. I tried the pear salad with the chicken panini, and of course my usual pinot noir. The food was absolutely scrumptious! I wish I could have that salad every day. The sweet pears were perfectly ripe over greens, topped with crumbled blue cheese, walnuts and vinagrete. The panini was toasty and gooey with just the right amount of cheese. And their only pinot noir option was smooth with floral accents.
I have to come back for more!

I shop at Nordstrom. A lot. But until yesterday, I’ve never eaten at the Café. I just always assumed that it would be overpriced and lackluster.
So when I came here for dinner, and saw that the chicken apple and goat cheese salad that I was eyeing was $ 10.25, I was wary.
But then my salad arrived. Chock full of organic baby greens, romaine lettuce, chicken, goat cheese, spiced almonds, apple, red onion, apple chips, and champagne vinaigrette, it was literally one of the best salads I’ve ever had. It was also enormous; some time during the meal, I referred to it as the «neverending salad».
The service was also excellent. Sit outside on the patio, and see the tops of the pretty apartments around Broadway Plaza!
My sister LOVED her California panini as well, and my mom got the mixed berry salad, and she ate every bite and finished my salad as well.
This salad powered me through and invigorated me to hunt through the sales piles and found me a beautiful white quilted Marc Jacobs on sale. This salad may just be magical.

I don’t mind giving 5 star if they really deserved it. Been here a lot of times and I’ve always loved it. The service is fast and waiters and waitresses are friendly. A big warm youthful smiles greet you as you get to the entrance of the café and they would gladly welcome you by letting you sit whichever table you like. If you request for a particular area, they will gladly check it’s availlability and would be back with you in a split of a second.
The foods were pretty good and the prices were reasonable. Although most people thought it doesn’t have huge selection of food, I don’t expect it to be. Most café don’t. The best thing about this place is, they have daily specials which you may have to ask for it as it is in a separate menu. They have different courses served everyday. What else could you ask for daily non-​monotonous courses and at the same time, get to have your favorite dishes everyday in their main menu?
I ordered some fresh mixed berry salad with some chicken and blue cheese on it and it was divine. All for less than $ 12 bucks.
I will keep coming back here!