Noir Coffeebar — Restaurant in Leuven

I'm writing this review with mixed feelings. After several visits, I can safely say that the coffee is great. The cakes are lovely. The baristas are friendly. There's wifi, power sockets and complimentary water -- all things that you'd be looking for in a place to have a drink while working.

Unfortunately, the owner makes me feel unwelcome, and this is something I only picked up over time because things seemed fine at first. I don't know what I did wrong -- I try to order something at least once an hour, I think I'm friendly and polite, I try not to overstay -- but for whatever reason, as legitimate as it may be, the owner doesn't give me the time of day. He rarely acknowledges my greeting when I enter or leave. He actively avoids eye contact when serving my coffee. When he does look at me, his smile definitely seems forced. He more often than not gets my order wrong in small, subtle ways or he keeps me waiting ten, fifteen minutes while serving several customers that came in after I did. The fact that I also overheard him complain about other customers a couple of times only made me wonder what he might have to say about me behind my back.

All in all, not a welcoming experience. Again, the other baristas are absolutely lovely and it's a great place to work or study, but these small incidents are enough cause for me to no longer frequent Noir, which is a shame, because I really loved the place. I hope you guys out there have a better experience.

Kris, if you're reading this, I don't know what I did to get on your bad side. Perhaps sometimes people just don't click. At any rate, I wish you and your business the best. Noir has a lot to offer the city of Leuven....

The three stars is due to: I used to love being there very much before the terrible experience from today :(

It used to be my top favorite escapes from the daily routine for a good quality coffee, but very unfortunately today I was treated very badly, with the misfortune of being served by one of the people (the other people were always very nice and kind to me) who, without the slightest patience, decided to yell at me and bang on the table while saying "oh okay, so you really want a v60" and leave without letting me react.... at the time I was still paralyzed trying to understand what message she was trying to convey to me by saying "we are very busy, it will take a long time, how much time do you have" and surprisingly my lack of response because I was still trying to reason about what the central message was led her to freak out for no reason... I felt terrible and I'm wondering if I'll still go back there :/ ... nobody likes to be treated like...

This is the BEST coffee shop in Leuven handsdown from the friendly and helpful staff to the expertly prepared coffee. I've tried countless numbers of coffee places in Leuven and nothing comes close to this in terms of service and experience. Even the cakes and pastries are delicious which cannot be said for the majority of other places. For sure, this place is my go to for working with my laptop (and plenty of plugs everywhere) but typically packed with students most of the time so finding a spot maybe difficult but totally worth it. The price is on par with the cost of coffee and pastries (around 4 euros each) in Leuven but what sets this place apart is the friendly staff. Looking forward to going back and happy to...