Z Square Cafe is a Kenmore Square highlight
After a hectic Saturday at the Boston Wine Expo it was nice to drive to Kenmore Square to spend a relaxing afternoon in our old neighborhood. Just as we parked a terrific snowfall – I think one could call it a squall – broke out. The photograph below doesn’t really do it justice but hints at the intensity of the spectacular but sadly short lived weather. After a few minutes it looked and felt like an early spring day rather than what it should be, namely biting winter.
While the snow was still twirling and racing through the air we headed to Z Square Café, the new restaurant at the west end of Kenmore Square, at 580 Commonwealth Avenue, more or less across the street from the HoJo turned Boston University dorm.
Z Square’s Kenmore Square location opened less than a month ago. We paid our first visit to the restaurant two weeks go, when we were in the area to take part in Boston University’s Winter Fest for BU grads (the missus is a proud Terrier).
Z Square in K Square offers a half-dozen seating styles, including bar seating, booths, and plush lounge chairs. That’s a big plus as your seating preferences may vary depending on the size and composition of your party as well as the purpose of the outing. Not that you should take for granted that the lounge chairs will be available.
Large windows and a curved facade give the restaurant a spacious and open feel.
The restrooms (one for the gents, one for the ladies) have high-speed cool-air hand driers that are much better at drying hands than the traditional energy-demanding hot-air hand driers. Green, clean and efficient. Not a bad combination.
Z Square has an unusual combination of café and table service. You order the food at the counter, cafe style, but the food is brought to you at the table. Unusual as that may be, it is a good compromise between efficiency and convenience. The downside, at least until the operational quirks have been worked out and more customers have become accustomed to the menu and ordering process, is that the order taking can be a bit slow, although far from hopelessly slow.
The restaurant calls it cuisine “creative American home cooking.” I don’t know enough about creative, American, or home cooking to judge that statement, but I do know I like the food they put on the plates.
I can vouch for their omelet, scrambled eggs, and wonderfully fluffy but filling waffles. Consider ordering a side of roasted potatoes if they aren’t included with your main order because they are good.
What we haven’t done yet is go to Z Square for dinner, when the menu is a bit different and includes wine and beer along with sturdy sounding entrees like flank steak and lamb kabob. The wine list includes 15 labels (six red, six white and three sparkling). Z Square doesn’t seem to carry bottled Bud Light, but I imagine nobody but me sees that as a notable short coming.
Now, as I mentioned above, the restaurant needs to improve a bit in execution (as I told a poor captive audience of one on Saturday, execution is the hardest part of any business). For some reason our order today didn’t make it from the cash register to the kitchen, which is a rather critical point in the production chain. However, an attentive member of the staff noticed that that we had not been served food for some time and promptly made sure that the appropriate person followed up. I’d say it was a sign of solid professionalism for the first staff member to catch the error because while we had been sitting at the table unexpectedly long without being served, we had not been sitting there unreasonably long. After the mistake had been detected the food was brought to us expeditiously and amends were made and then some. I think it’s safe to say that Z Square Kenmore Square has both staff and management who care about your experience there.
All in all, if you have occasion to eat in Kenmore Square put Z Square on your short list and make it your first choice if you go for breakfast or brunch.
Boston Business Journal brings you Z Square in Kenmore Square by the numbers (which is always deeply appreciated).
Update February 23:
We had brunch at Z Square in Kenmore Square again this morning (okay, late morning, one could say noon) and execution seems to have steadily improved. I had a Z Square breakfast (two eggs, roasted potatoes, ham and toast) which filled me up nicely even though I hadn’t had any breakfast and had spent an hour shoveling snow. My wife had an egg panini that she quickly declared the best value in the place.
