Mad Batter Bakery & Cafe

I get it, Mad Batter, you want to "be Asheville" in Cullowhee. Sadly, your extremely niche marketing style has made your potentially great restaurant into an overpriced and not-very-eclectic place in a location that demands more.

Your breakfast menu is your best quality because it fulfills its purpose to serve fresh(ish) pastries at a reasonable price. Your coffee leaves a lot to be desired because it is not consistent. One day it's perfect, the next too weak, the next burnt like Starbucks.

Lunch and dinner is where you fall short. Your menu is filled with pretentious versions of traditional meals and sandwiches. Also, you expect your customers to pay $10 for a sandwich that is really nothing special besides the wording on the menu and the word "organic" thrown in.

Finally, Mad Batter, understand that you serve a college campus. You serve kids and young adults that can get 3x the amount of food for the same price of one of your meals. Obviously you stay in business because you serve so many faculty of WCU, but just know that you alienate the rest of the campus population.

For Cullowhee, middle of absolutely east bumble nowhere, this place was pretty good. Stick with the salads - they grow many of their veggies in their own gardens. My big issue was that the service (counter service) was ho-hum and, one visit, totally clueless about everything on the menu.

Mad Batter advertises local food and gluten-free menu items. I was psyched. Visiting with my GF daughter for the week, we were excited to move in and eat here repeatedly. However, our first visit, I asked about a menu item - Salad Sampler, I think - labeled V, GF.  It listed Spanikopita as one of the sampler items - I asked the server if they would remove that item - she said, no, it's gluten-free. Guess what? It's totally not gluten-free. She also served the salad sampler with bread - I knew that couldn't be GF but she assured me it was. I gave it to my son - thankfully.

I came back a couple of days later, new server. She told me the Spanikopita and the bread were obviously not GF - she actually looked at me like I was crazy for asking. I told her my daughter was GF but would like to test the tomato soup - she said, "No problem!" but then served her a small taste of soup with a crouton in it. Gah! Seriously, people, if you are going to advertise GF, you need to know how not to poison your customers. This is important.

I will give them three stars for the focus on local, natural foods and bread baked on the premises. Happy to see that WCU students and faculty have access to this fun little place because there is nothing else for miles - other than a clearly labeled GF dining hall - so there isn't much competition. Hope they get their servers better trained! If I wasn't GF, I would definitely rate this higher.

This place rocks!! I highly recommend the pizza and the Mediterranean wrap. You cant go wrong with anything on this menu. For dessert you gotta try the chocolate crescent.

When your in the area you got to stop here!