ROUTE BOOKS — Local services in Tokyo

Poo-face staff & paper cups ruin an otherwise charming green cafe...

Another achingly cool cafe/hidden gem-so-great-I-have-to-Instagram it!? Well, yes and no. The place offers a very pleasant atmosphere of green, space and light in a reformed industrial space. Nothing groundbreaking here, but very welcomed in Ueno...

The coffee we got served was tasty enough but was ruined by the portioned cream. Serving quality coffee with such poor quality creamer is akin to serving foie gras with mint sauce: a heresy...Even more so when the beverage is served in a disposable cup (paper cup, really?? How un-PC can you be? Recycle is good, but reduce and re-use is better!).

The final nail in the coffee, sorry coffin (bit of a pun here...) is the staff. Coffee master guy was friendly enough but the lady at the counter was grim-faced, incapable or unwilling to give her opinion on the type of coffee on offer. Lady, if you don't want to work, then do your customers a favour, and stay home with your cats, plants and Netflix; other people will be happy to take your place....

In any case, I would suggest avoiding weekends, as it may be packed with kidults more interested in "Instagram" the place than actually...

The impression I got as soon as I stepped inside this place is: a pretentious place for pretentious people. The owner barely greeted us when we walked in, and then, with a flat tone, he barely answered our questions on the food options. The waiter who served us wasn't rude or anything, but he didn't even explain us, first time customers, that there was no menu and there was only one food option, some kind of chicken biryani, that costs 2300円 by the way. Uselessly expensive. Additionally, when we got our food, we couldn't help but notice that the cook gave us smaller plates and portions compared to everyone else. Is it a coincidence? Is it because we're girls, and usually we do eat less than guys? Is it because we are foreigners? Was it just a different perception because our plates were smaller, so the portions just LOOKED smaller, too? Anyway, we still paid as much as everyone else, so I didn't really like this approach.

Not good customer service, pretentious people, expensive food. Don't recommend it.

(We can speak Japanese, by the way. We communicated with the staff and the owner in Japanese all the time, so it's not a language barrier kind...

Nice interior and atmosphere but tainted by staff (on both floors, 2nd and the ground floor; to be fair, 1 out of 3 staff was nice) who seem to not care about the customer experience. Happy to clear my own table — including returning a used set of plates and utensils to the kitchen counter — but in return, I got a “just leave it there,” and no sense of gratitude. It also seems that the chef/staff took offence to me helping to clear the table by my own accord as I observed the next pair of customers were greeted, served water, and offered a menu.

Lastly, I’ll save everyone here the disrespect of a curt reply — the wifi password is at the counter where you order coffee. More like Rude Books than Route Books...