Three Square Cafe

Owen and I met up for lunch around his workplace, and we decided to try out Three Square Cafe. I had been to Three Square bakery a bunch of times (their jalapeno cheese pretzel comes to mind) but wanted to try their cafe fare. After a short wait, we were seated in their outdoor patio area. I was pretty hungry, but our waitress didn't seem to be too concerned about taking our order or being around much. Anyways, she did end up coming around (finally), and this is what we got:
Our usual Arnold Palmer order. This was really light on the lemonade, and came already mixed, which is fine. A really light flavor on this one, plus no refills made by our waitress (again, we were lucky to make our orders within, oh, 20 minutes after sitting down. And this place isn't very big...but enough about our lacking waitress)...

This is Owen's order of the mini sandwich sampler, which gives you a choice of 3 sandwiches to try. I saw it on the menu and instantly I knew he was going to order it - he loves having a meal where you can try a bunch of stuff all at the same time. The presentation of this dish is really nice, everything has its' own little container/plate. Let's focus on the sandwiches...

Starting with the sandwich on the right side - this is a shrimp grilled cheese sandwich. I like how they cut the top of the little bun so they could grill it, to give it some texture. The filling to this was tasty, the combo of shrimp and cheese was pretty good, and the bread was delicious.

The middle sandwich was the Bavarian meatloaf on pretzel roll with sweet mustard. The taste ofo the meatloaf is exactly like eating a slice of SPAM. So Owen hated it. I liked it, as I can eat Spam and not feel bad about myself (well, most of the time...) The roll was really tasty, and I enjoyed eating what Owen didn't want to eat, but at the same time, I don't know if I would choose to order this, now that I know what it tastes like.

The last mini sandwich was a Tuna salad with avocado and red onions on brioche roll. This was Owen's favorite mini sandwich, all the flavors mixed really well with every bite, and his love for avocado knows no boundaries. Maybe he should have gotten tuna for all three of his choices...

A good barometer to any restaurant is how good their burger is, so I got their Pretzel burger with Swiss cheese, caramelized onions and French fries. This was a little overwhelming - the pretzel bread is very good on its' own, but paired with a burger patty, it ends up being a bit much. The burger itself - decent, but not memorable. Fries were okay but a bit more boring than my expectations, I guess I expect more...zing, or something, when I'm getting fries with a burger at an establishment like this. The caramelized onions were a good touch though.

It's cool that dog owners get to bring their furry friends to sit outside with them on the patio, and the cool breeze from the ocean adds to the pleasant outdoor seating, but this place was a bit too trendy for me, and maybe if we had gotten better service I'd want to go back more often. As it stands now, it was good to try but I'm sticking to the bakery next door to get my pretzel bread fix.

Three Square Cafe
1121 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice CA