"For years, Fred 's was a welcoming, go-to place on the Upper West Side for homestyle food: good brunches, mac 'n ' cheese, heirloom tomato soup, etc...the operable word here being was. Sadly, the quality of food served at Fred 's seems to have suffered tremendously with the recent change in ownership, and I won 't be returning. I had dinner with two other people, and we all agreed that it was seriously sub-par and--even if the food had been decently prepared--overpriced. The mac 'n ' cheese which used to be creamy and flavorful beneath a perfectly golden, crispy cap, is now bland and no better than Kraft from a box. When my so-called crispy tofu salad arrived drenched in dressing, our server kindly offered to bring me the same with dressing on the side, but sadly, the dressing was the only element of the salad with any flavor. The rest of the bowl--which used to be full of satisfyingly crispy veggies and tofu--has absolutely no flavor and very little crunch. Several servers and a manager repeatedly asked us how everything was, and we had to tell them the truth: our entire dinner was extremely disappointing."
