Stera - Plantenbar — Restaurant in Bruges

To start with, your cafe does offer very nice and unique space for customers, and your menu contains several special options which I appreciate as a regular cafe visitor, and I would have recommended your cafe to people around as a community builder if there hadn’t been an incident as below.

I am writing this review because we have received an unkind and rather unexpected feedback from you after our visit and review. I would understand your response if we had exaggerated or lied intentionally to harm your reputation. However, what Kim shared was truly what happened. On the other hand, your description contained lots of false information.

I was personally parked in a 4h-limit zone and returned on time, so it is entirely impossible that we stayed 4+ as you said. We even stayed less because I was parked rather far away and had to reach my car on foot and make it on time.

We did two orders. The first order was together on the same bill and paid directly. Only the second order was ordered seperately which again was false information from your side. There was also no such thing as “you choose to ignore and not respect our rules” (Read more about this below.)

While it is our responsibility to have missed out on your rule of ordering on one bill during our second order, we did not do it on purpose, were never reminded verbally (although on menu) and certainly also did not show any sort of unpleasant attitude to your waitress as your description. I wouldn’t mind if you had a camera in store and would like to trace back to check if I am lying about this. However, the way you are describing our “intentional ignorance” to your rules is simply wrong.

When your waitress told us about the options of leaving or ordering more, we accepted and immediately made another order within five minutes. We did not show any “giggle” as you might have framed nor did we show any arrogance. To us, this message was simply surprising because we had never been asked to basically “get out” at any restaurant or cafe in Belgium. Plus, we would have already left if we had really been so unhappy about your personnel’s request. Before this incident, Kim had only given positive comments about your cafe to people and that’s also why we ended up there. It’s unfair how you responded to and devalued her sincere message and experience from that day.

You can have your rules, but your customers can also have their feelings and experiences. Reviews are meant for true and honest feedback by visitors. Your false accusation simply came off as defense to protect your narrative. As a regular cafe visitor myself, what you referred to as “unreasonable expectations” absolutely do not exist in this case.

You can choose to treat recurrent customers with respect and gain stable amount of income, or be verbally disrespectful just to cater one-time visitors who give you a boost of income for a short time. At the end of the day, of course both deserve respect, yet how you manage it as the service giver is the key as a part of hospitality industry.

If you have noticed the mismatch between the amount of customers visiting and the tables available at disposal, you should either figure out how to expand the space or up the number of tables/seats or outline the rule of ”maximum 2 or 3hr per table” instead of directly choosing and asking certain tables of customers to leave without concrete reasons but “The new customers are money/cost we are losing.” That is indeed the business mindset and what you as owner should be worried about, but you are selling your products and services for clients to feel the comfort and quality…. how you convey that message still matters, especially in the hospitality sector.

I can apologize for the fact that we missed out on information on your menu, but with all due respect, we can not take the rest of the public accusation since they are nothing close to what truly happened.

Thank you...

This used to be one of my favorite places I would regularly recommend to friends. But today completely changed that. I was having a conversation with a friend when a waitress suddenly came over and asked us to leave because they didn’t want to “lose other customers” who were arriving. I’ve never experienced anything like that anywhere else. Such a disappointment!

Reply to your message:

I was surprised by your reply. What you wrote about our behavior is simply not true. I did not give you a strange look, nor did I act disrespectfully. We did place our order in two parts: first together, then separately but not out of principle, but simply because we didn’t realize it was against your policy. We definitely did not spend more then 4h. We met exactly at 1pm and I was back home before 5pm. I got caught up in conversation and honestly didn’t notice how much time had passed, but I never intended to overstay or take advantage of your space. Your colleague was actually the first to suggest that we leave, and only afterward offered another drink. Until then, we hadn't been told there was any issue. I’ve visited your café several times before with friends and family and have always had a good experience. That’s why this situation felt especially unpleasant and, to be honest, unexpected. I also felt embarrassed in front of my friend, who came all the way from Ghent to spend time with me. I rarely write reviews, but in this case, I felt it...

Today I teleworked the whole day from Stera. Stera feels like home. The vibe is incredible. You can see how much love Olivier gives to the plants and the yummy food and drinks he serves, and how warm he is to the people he welcomes in. He carefully chooses organic and local products. This is a conscious business that is taking responsability for its role in the world. Olivier created a new concept. Stera is more than a plant shop, more than a cafe, more than a co-working space. He is creating a beautiful community. Also the compliment toilet is awesome. Best toilet...