Kaukau Santa Teresa — Restaurant in Cóbano

This place had become my favorite spot to remotely work from. However, the last time I was there, a large group of French tourists arrived and began giving me very ugly stares. I, being very visibly brown as a Mexican-American traveler, could only wonder why my presence was such a disgust to this group. They were also obviously speaking about me as they continued to say something and look back at me unpleased. I, unbothered, continued working from my computer for about one more hour as I had just ordered lunch, and then one of the workers there approached me and asked if I could please move to another table because the French group had apparently ‘reserved’ the table.

This all felt very weird given that the workers themselves provided the table to me and I had only been there for a few hours - and they never told me this table at the coffee shop was reserved. The owner, who I believe was also French (am not sure but thought I heard him speak with them), had been speaking with them before this for a while.

I was about to hop on a meeting, and I ended up being late because they made me move my entire remote worker equipment and food to a table that they had just carelessly placed outside of their area (a table that was not even working properly and would tip all the way to one end) - literally so close to the sidewalk. It all felt very weird and racially motivated.

It was such a sad experience given that I had mentally selected this place as the location I would come back to work from. But unfortunately many locations in Santa Teresa are not owned by Costa Ricans and show very clear preferences to certain tourists and different treatment to locals (like my partner who is actually from here).

I am not sure if that was the case here, but it sure...

Stopped by Kaukau for breakfast while visiting Santa Teresa. The service was not super friendly or welcoming - the barista who took our order didn't smile once or even greet us with a hello, maybe he was having a bad day? The space is bright and has a good design intent and aesthetic. Drinks only took about 5 minutes but our food took 25 minutes to come out for it not being very busy (there were two other tables already eating, but no other patrons at the time) and tasted pretty good, but the salmon bagel was missing the capers, which was a bummer, and the breakfast croissant was on more of a hoagie bun than a croissant as we're used to. I suspect the poke bowls are the way to go, as other reviews rave about them! It's a cute spot, though, and brings a nicely designed space to Santa Teresa and would be worth...

The food was very tasty and refreshing. We were looking for a light and healthy lunch and the açaí bowl and salmon bagel delivered. Great service and nice ambiance made this a pleasant meal. It’s quite expensive though. To give you an idea, our entire order, which included an açaí bowl, a salmon bagel, a coconut water and a hibiscus iced tea came to about $45. Santa Teresa is a very expensive food destination though - prices tend to be comparable to those in larger U.S. cities - so it’s not totally off the mark for what you’ll...