Cellar Door Market

I found Cellar Door Market through a November Living Social offering. I recently placed my order and picked up my food without issue. I really enjoyed the food and the small portions were large enough for multiple meals. I plan to try the 5 meal (under 500 calorie) plan in the near future for a week that I will not have time to cook.
I try not to use a groupon/​living social offering right when I buy it or right before it expires to avoid times when the establishment may be overwhelmed. My coupon was getting ready to expire so I was a little concerned but my order was filled, it was correct and the staff I interacted with was courteous. Most importantly the food was good!
I would also consider a Cellar Door Market gift certificate for a gift.

I placed my order online for the «under 500 calorie» meal, 5 day plan. I used a certificate from Living Social and it allowed me to select the delivery option… I got a call a few days later saying they do not deliver to people using the Living Social coupon, boo hiss. It kinda defeats the purpose of using this company.
More importantly, the food was not good. In fact, I’m positive 4 out of the 5 meals were NOT under 500 calories. The only decent meal was the chili and I had to add seasoning to it to make it decent. The remaining meals were either greasy and bland or way over seasoned. The meat was so tough my jaw got tired chewing it (after cutting off the fat I could see).
I ended up throwing out half of the food because I could never finish a complete meal since I felt like I was eating greasy calorie laden food and it didn’t taste that good to begin with. The next week I was too busy to cook I went to the grocery store and bought some Lean Cuisine and Healthy Choice meals. I do not like microwaved processed food, but they were way better then what Cellar Door Market had to offer.
It is a waste of good ingredients and an even bigger waste of $$$

I feel compelled to write a review for Cellar Market since it sounds like there were some very unhappy T’day coupon customers who are seriously bringing down the ratings. I also used a coupon (living social, groupon, who remembers); it was for $ 30 of food that I was to pick up. Last week, during the snow, I happened to drive by and decided to stop and pick up some food. Everything I got was fantastic: pomegranate pork tenderloin, butternut squash and sage enchiladas and turkey mole tamale pie, and a roasted beet and orange salad. Most of the items were also priced really well ($ 6 — $ 8 for very good sized portions); the exception was the beet and orange salad, which was $ 12.00…that I would not get again because of the price/​size ratio. The one thing that I really like is that the instructions are for cooking in an oven… a real oven, not a microwave. This food is good and I hope they do well since I plan on stopping by there often from now on.

This is a real review by a real customer. A year ago we received a gift certificate for cellar door market. We ordered $ 100 worth of food and chose the free delivery. We were very pleased with the quality and portion sizes. I recently bought the Groupon and picked up food from their storefront in my neighborhood. Again, it was delicious. The chipotle chicken was wonderful and very spicy. The garlic buttermilk mashed potatoes are another must. The Mac and cheese and cauliflower Mac and cheese were very good. The butternut squash, caramelized onion, and sage enchiladas were tasty but work better as a side than a main dish (might work with heavy sides like rice, beans, etc.) Overall, I am very satisfied with the food quality and I had no problem when using my groupon in person. From prior experience I would also recommend the fish tacos and the soups. I am hoping the storefront will get busy enough to have larger amounts of food ready to go. Finally, I loved my gift so much that I bought a $ 100 gift card for a friend who is about to have her first baby. I have a 2 month old and believe me, someone else cooking dinner is a great gift!

We’ve been ordering from Cellar Door fairly regularly for the past 6 months or so. We usually order the Under 500 calorie meals which overall are very tasty and just the right amount. I am often surprised at what Chef Paul can do to make such a satisfying meal out of so few calories. As a newer company they have gone through some growing pains, and there have been some bumps along the road. But these have been pretty minor issues — a missing item or delivery a bit later than scheduled. I want to emphasize, however, that they have always made it right. They delivered missing items the next day or gave us a credit towards a future order. And one thing I appreciate is their high standards. The quality of the food is very good, especially for pre-​made meals, and made from fresh, good ingredients. Once we ordered something but Paul did not send it because the produce available that day was not up to standard, so he sent a replacement the next day. When they had some trouble with their website a few weeks ago, I called to ask when the new menu would be available, and Paul said he would put together some choices and email them to me to pick — that is great service. You don’t have to be home when they deliver — they will leave the meals in a container with ice packs — great idea. All the containers are recyclable too. The delivery people are also very nice.
I see that some people had some bad experiences. That’s too bad. I would highly recommend their service to anyone and would ask those people to give them a break. I see some of these reviews are based on an experience using a Groupon. Please understand that Groupons actually put an enormous strain on small businesses, and the issues around Thanksgiving coincided with a web site re-​design and menu revamp that took longer than expected to finish — so it was a perfect storm. It is not always like that at all. They really do want to make you happy.
I don’t know of any other business that does this in Portland for such affordable prices. Paul is a great chef and he does try very hard to please. Sure, everyone has a bad day now and then, but I am very happy with Cellar Door Market and will continue to support this local business.

Update: After my hissy fit on Unilocal,the manager emailed and offered me delivery.
The food arrived on time. Some of it was good. However, I had ordered some blander dishes for members of my family who don’t like much spice. The Shepard’s pie, which is supposed to be mild, was so spicy it was thrown out after only two bites.
The kids’ mac and cheese (available with broccoli or with sausage) was very good. I also enjoyed the chicken chasseur.
The garlic mashed potatoes lived up to their name – they tasted like they were 80% garlic. WAAAAY too much. Had these been balanced, they would have been good, but instead they were thrown out.
I have another Groupon that I’m giving away. I added a star because of the manager’s agreeing to deliver, but the entire experience was a letdown.
*************************************
Fail, fail, fail.
I never even got to try their food or experience their delivery.
I had a Living Social voucher. I placed my order online, following all instructions, and when I received my confirmation invoice, the voucher amount wasn’t deducted. OK, fine. I called. I was put on hold and disconnected. A few minutes later they called back. It was obvious to me they don’t know what they’re doing. The woman on the phone was carrying on a conversation with someone else while talking to me on the phone and sounded overwhelmed.
The site had allowed me to pay a delivery fee, which apparently is moot because one cannot choose delivery when using a voucher. This pretty much makes the whole business useless to me; if I had time to drive to the suburbs to pick up food, then I’d have time to cook. Delivery is the key thing for me.
I canceled my order I’ll be selling the voucher.

Very good food. Many of the dishes are better than my own cooking, and I am a pretty good cook, but I am too busy these days. The portion sizes are very reasonable. I especially enjoy the sesame crusted seared tuna with yummy Japanese noodle, fish Velacruz, BBQ chicken. The delivery is fine, within the time frame promised. My family can enjoy some of the dishes soon after the delivery, and we can freeze the rest to enjoy later. The dishes that can be frozen survive well, and taste good once cooked or warmed up. My husband, who is pretty picky, compliments the food. My toddler children really like the food too, and asked me to get more (pasta and chicken dishes are their favorites). Mommy listens to her children, that is for sure.

Normally don’t post reviews, but I was disappointed to see such low ratings for these guys. Looks like most of that is because of Groupon/​Thanksgiving problems — I didn’t order for that but we have made about a half dozen orders (probably 15 – 20 meals total) and have been very happy with Cellar Door. I’d stay away from the scallops, but otherwise the entrees and sides have all been either good or great (they probably deserve 4 starts not 5 but their average is definitely skewed too much by the thanksgiving orders) .
Good food, fresh ingredients, fair prices… I’ve been pleased and will continue to order from them.

Just an update… I did receive a credit on my account 6 weeks and 3 emails later.

So ODD that «Terry H» posted a raving review about Cellar Door Market. I received the follow email from him, leading me to believe CDM’s owner, Paul LaLone, created a fake User ID and posted a fake review of his own company. Here’s the email, you decide:
«Hi Heather,
Terry H. has sent you a message on Unilocal:
Feed Back
«Heather,
Is ther anything I can do to convince you we are a very good comapny that cares about our customers? Youe experience certainlly didn’t reflect that. Would you be willing to take some credit just to see that we are very good at what we do.
If not, I understand.
Thank you,
Paul LaLone»

I didn’t order the Thanksgiving dinner (we were going to a relative’s house), and I can’t speak to the concerns in reviews about that.
But I’ve ordered from them 4 – 5 times now this year (including one after Thanksgiving) for regular, non-​holiday stuff. I order a lot of food at a time, and have always gotten everything I ordered. The food’s good, the prices are okay, and in my experience the delivery is always in the delivery window.
Same driver every delivery but one; both drivers were friendly, courteous, and efficient.
I love that they deliver everything fresh, not frozen, and you can pick what to freeze (if anything). I love that everything that goes in the oven cooks at the same temperature, so you can mix and match dishes without regard to what they thought you might want to eat together.
I don’t love the containers for the soup; I transfer soup out before heating or freezing. I do love that they give so much soup that if, in a hurry, you freeze it in the container it pushes the lid off. I don’t love having to deal with the pushed-​off lid, though.

This company makes meals for busy people, lazy people like me, etc. They offered a «groupon» deal a month before Thanksgiving 2010 where they would make 5 «meticulously crafted» Thanksgiving sides to feed 6 to 8 people and it would be delivered to your door a few days in advance of Thanksgiving.
Here is a discussion board of people experiencing their «meal service»:
scroll to the bottom of the board and read some people’s experience w/​CDM. Note the absence of the company response. Anyone? Anyone?
It was a fiasco. They oversold it (750 meals) — then they hired drivers off Craigslist (who ripped them off and took the food). I wonder if they did ANY checking of the people before they handed them the addresses and meals?
The communication before Thanksgiving week was bad, The communication days in advance of Thanksgiving when they could have prevented or at least eased the headache and heartache was non-​existent. They simply ignored it and not only didn’t make calls out to people — they ignored incoming calls and voicemails until the mailbox was full and no more could be left.
The communication on the day before Thanksgiving was unforgivable.
People didn’t get their food delivered for the special event and Cellar Door Market wouldn’t return phone calls, couldn’t give accurate directions to their kitchen, had no food available when people arrived to pick it up. Oh, and the portions were tiny and the «meticulous prepared» = store bought pumpkin pie.
Groupon offered refunds of the price paid (lot of good that does). This service was supposed to take away stress and anxiety… guess what? it CREATED STRESS AND ANXIETY. It’s a week later and Cellar Door Market still hasn’t made an effort to contact people via mail, phone or email and hasn’t refunded their unavoidable $ 5.50 «delivery fee» that they added in on top of their advertised price. People have to take the extra step themselves to dispute it via PayPal.
Folks, this business really messed a lot of peoples’ Thanksgiving up big Time through poor planning, poor communication, poor execution and what I would consider real acts of fraud. I wouldn’t trust them. Period.