The Loaf and Ladle

The Load and Ladle is still closed for business and there is a FOR SALE sign in the window. We pointed some bewildered Loaf and Ladle customers towards The Green Bean for lunch yesterday. Lots of alternative soup, bread and salad options in Exeter, but we do miss this funky restaurant.

This restaurant is now closed. I’d suggest me and ollies or the green bean if you’re looking for a similar (soup and sandwiches) place to eat.

An Exeter tradition. Decent food and bread at a reasonable price.
Worth a try!!!

I absolutely love the corn chowder here! With a salami sandwich on whatever kind of bread I’m in the mood for that day… makes for the perfect light lunch!
The service has always been super friendly and coupled with the taste you really can’t go wrong here.
In the summer go find a table near one of the window air conditioners though, because even though they have them, they don’t do a good job of cooling the whole dining room. Can get pretty steamy in there…

Well went back again to the Loaf and Ladle Had three kinds of Soup Corn Chowder, South Western Chili, Tomato Bisque all were extremely delicious, Just like the old days. Took the Gazpacho soup to go for the long drive home, The folks who came with me asked if we could return again next Sunday, All had a great time, Our compliments to the Chef. We will be back very soon

I love the Loaf and Ladle. The breads are great, the soups are mostly fantastic and they have a great salad bar.
I recently went in for some soup and ordered the Vege Veg, but this time I was very disappointed. It seems as though they’ve changed their recipe and are now adding sugar, because the soup was very sweet! I did not like this at all. From now on I’m going to stick with the other selections. I hope that they remove the sugar, but the vegetable soup was delicious before. Please change back!

I came here for lunch on a Monday.
The woman who helped me with my soup was very pleasant and then I went to check out and that lady was rude and very unhappy we were bothereing her.
The soup was very good though, I had the clam chowder. They love to give you bread, just a bit too much for my liking.
The building is charming and appears to be almost falling into the river.

Soup and bread mostly. Casual lunch spot. Went on a Sunday and the place was quiet. Tomato bisque was, bar none, one of the best ever. Great bread for sandwiches. Contrary to some reviews, the staff were lovely.

I have been here a few times, enough to get an idea of this place. It is very hit or miss. I have gotten the beef chili twice, the first time it was delicious and fresh, the last time it was obviously old, and barely moist. The same thing with the chowder. You’re not fooling anyone when you serve chowder that’s days old and gross, especially in New England. Add to that a general dirtiness, disorganized setup and very unhelpful and rude ‘waitstaff’ (they are behind a counter, so I guess they figure they don’t have to actually care), I say skip it. I’ve enjoyed my meal once of the three times I’ve been. Would not recommend.

The soup and bread here are out of this world. I have been going here off and on for years when I get a chance to go through Exeter, and the ONLY reason they are getting 4 stars is that for all of these years, I have rarely had a staff member there ever treat me with more than moderate indifference.
Again, the food is fantastic. Nothing like it anywhere.

My sister Jen suggested that we go to lunch at the Loaf and Ladle some afternoon, and I was all like, «Hooray! Member Card discount!» We went on a Friday at around 12:30PM; as expected, there was a long line, but we were happy to have the chance to peruse the menu. Everything sounded so good to us! Jen decided on the chipotle sweet potato soup with anadama bread, and I chose the quiche of the day lunch special (ham, onion, and pepper quiche with sourdough rye bread and a side salad). The girls behind the counter were a bit frazzled due to the volume of customers at lunchtime, which kind of surprised me – Jen had suggested it based on word of mouth, so I assumed that it was probably this busy everyday. The staff was a little curt, and the cashier was completely befuddled by the Member Card, despite my saying «I have a Member Card» repeatedly as she rung up our orders. She called someone over and basically had to redo my order. I explained that the soup would be free because it was the lower-​priced item, and she said, «No! The quiche’s not free!» No, it’s not, and I never said it was. So service was certainly not a high point of our visit.
The food, however, was uniformly delicious. I had the herb buttermilk dressing on my side salad, and it was all I could do to keep from dipping my bread in it. However, the bread by itself was so good that it didn’t need any accompaniment. The quiche was cheesy, peppery, and eggy. The soup was creamy and perfectly spicy. I’d definitely go back, but I probably wouldn’t try to get any discount again.

After a long, cold afternoon of shooting at the Exeter Sportsman’s Club, all my friends and I wanted was a warm cup of soup and some hot cider. Loaf and Ladle delivered! Although the menu is extremely limited, we all found something to eat, and there were no complaints. I had a salad– very much not the warm soup I was craving, but the homemade dressings looked too good to pass up. It was delicious– I would definitely go back for another. I also had some cider which was pretty much Mott’s apple juice, but that’s fine. M had a sandwich of some kind, and our friends each got the clam chowder… I mean, chowdah. As I said, everything was good, but that’s pretty much the whole menu. If you don’t want a soup, salad, or sandwich, don’t even bother.
The vibe of the dining room is very homey. Probably our biggest issue was that none of the floors, tables, or trays were level, so it was a perpetual balance issue. Might be worth investing in some sugar packets and new plastic trays.

Oh wow, I have quickly become a soup person thanks to Loaf and Ladle! This place is so amazing with so many different soups to choose from each day. They always have many vegetarian options. I have been twice and have tried the Chipotle Butternut Squash and the Tomato Bisque. The Chipotle was slightly more amazing than the other. All soups come with your choice of bread… and a lot of bread. The atmosphere is very casual with an old time, local feel. I have been finding myself dreaming of soup and it is great

Simply put: a soup and sandwich place. Homemade and delicious. I met up with my Mum the other weekend for soup and gal talk, here are my notes:
*I sampled the Chipotle Sweet Potato soup as well as the Vegetable and Hummus sandwich — delicious. Their bread is soft and the slices are large. Prices are reasonable for soup’n’salad (~4 $ a cup of soup). Selection, as well as dessert selection, appears to change (daily?) — all the more flavors to sample!
*Also on sale: BREAD! I purchased a loaf of my favorite: New England Anadama (me loves it).
*Über casual atmosphere (I felt like I was at a relative’s barn-​board-​ed home). Wood floor, wood wall, wood tables, wood chairs and benches (a whole lotta grain). Decorated with local pictures paintings and what I call «rural ornamentation.» It made this New Hampshire-​girl-​who-​moved-​outta-​town feel at HOME!
Cheap — casual — delicious and made in-​house. Best fun lunch option in Exeter (IMO).

I love soup and I love Loaf and Ladle.
The breads are fantastic and the soups even better. Throw in a salad bar and you’ve got a meal fit for a king.
Now, I can go on and on about what I love here but here are a few tops: Every Potato Soup
Anadama Bread
Rye Bread
A tip from me:
Avoid the light wheat (very dry) and the Tortilla soup. You’ll thank me.
PASS

I don’t understand the bad reviews. It’s hard to find places that will make homemade soup AND bread daily, let alone so many good options in one place. We live at Loaf in the Winter and will continue to go back again and again.
The place has a very granola vibe, but I’ve always found the employees to be very nice and friendly.

I am from the area, and have known and loved the L&L for a long time.
The two employees that worked Christmas Eve 2010 around 3:30 pm, should both be fired.
The female was very rude and aggressive — first yelling at me asking if I knew what I wanted and then letting me know in a very annoyed tone that they were out of that soup, and that one, and you know, it’s just such a mess here, ok? We just don’t have much.
I understand that working on holidays suck, especially Xmas or Xmas Eve, but if you’re going to be a raging bitch, then you shouldn’t open your doors.
The male employee was no better. He was either high or slow, or both. Asked me to repeat what I wanted many times, walked away from me while I was in the middle of ordering with him. Did not give me what I ordered. Cut me up some real good STALE bread.
The whole experience sucked. DO NOT go here close to 5 pm or on any day that has every the tiniest semblance of being a holiday. You will get treated like shit. Management take note.

After several days of huge meals, my boyfriend and I decided to get something light for dinner – soup and bread.
The fish chowder watery and had a weird, maybe overly fishy smell to it; wasn’t too crazy about that. The Mexican chicken soup was delicious, with sizeable chunks of chicken, sweet and fresh corn kernels, a good amount of cheddar and scallions, but not too much. The soup had a kick to it, so I think there were some kind of chilies in there too. The soup went well with the tortilla chips, though I wished they hadn’t dunked them in the soup, because that made them soggy. Each soup came with our choice of bread. We got 1−½″ to 2″-thick slices each of anadama and herb.
During our New England road trip, I wanted to try this regional bread, and I’m glad we got it here, because the anadama was soft, moist, and springy. I believe it was still warm. The herb bread was disappointing at first, because the first few bites were dry for some reason, but the rest was also soft and moist – the way bread should be!

This used to be the place to eat… not any more.
Food: so-so…mainly because the sandwich was quite good, however the soup (a clam chowder & a corn chowder) was absolutely disgusting — it was overcooked & tasted days old…
Service: absolutely horrendous… when I walked in, I was made to wait while two of the staff members completed their personal conversation — I actually had to interrupt them in order to have someone take my order. Adding insult to injury, both employees were quite rude & acted as if I was putting them out — to make them work…
I can say with absolute certainty, I will NEVER be back again… its important to note that several of my friends & family members have had the same experience over the last year or so… they will never be back again either…
Attention, OWNER (S): get your act together!
In response to one of the most recent reviews: I expect GREAT service & GREAT food, however even GOOD would do. What I received, as well as many friends & family, is terrible service & bad food (the sandwich was mediocre at best — the soup was just BAD). While I admit, I once LOVED the food, it has just tanked. We would have considered stopping in again to give it another chance, but what killed it: THE SERVICE… If I was their manager/​boss — they would have been fired on the spot.
As far as the green aspect, I LOVE THAT — but, whats to love if nothing else is worth the visit?

Echoing the gross factor! Staff here seemed way stoned, got our order wrong, touched their greasy faces while asking for our bread choices, didn’t wash before touching/​slicing bread. Yeesh. I’m happy to ask for hygienic behavior, I guess, but feel as though it should be a given.
Aside from that, the food was good — but saying that makes me feel personally grosser, cause if that’s what you see out front, sanitation out back must be fairly scary. We got the clam chowder and chili — chowder was really very good — heavy on clams, not too much potato, great flavor. Didn’t taste the chili but heard good things. Both were really better, taste-​wise, than most other chili/​chowder experiences we’ve had lately — but seriously, guys, call the Health Department and ask them for one of those big shiny cards that mention hand washing. They even have them with step by step instructions! Guh-​mazing!