Café Middelberg — Restaurant in Aachen

Very rude waitress yesterday, on 30.07.2022, around 3-4 PM, upstairs. We are regular tourists in Aachen and used to come here and enjoy cakes on the terrace or as take-away. We have never had any ussue with the ladies at the counter downstairs, all nice and polite and no issue with the method of payment either. Yesterday, as it was too hot to sit outside we went upstairs for some lemonades. We are a family of 4 with two daughters. From the beginning the waitress yelled at my children, not to go further in the room, because she would say where we should sit. I didn't like the tone but said OK: maybe house rules although I hate when people yell , especially at my children. We sat, I had a bottle of water next to me, she came and on a very rude tone asked me to put that in a bag..While she was being very rude with us who had ordered in English, she would be very nice with everyone speaking German so it was clear xenophobia. The payment moment was the top of this awful experience: we wanted to pay with credit card, she said it's not accepted; we said OK, in some places this happens, then my husband took out his VISA debit card- again not accepted ( mind you, we had used this very card to pay for the cakes here some months ago downstairs) . We ended up paying in cash like in medieval times but not without being scolded again by the "lady" who said very irritated "you should have asked me upfront, I would have told you". Two suggestions: if you want to keep your customers: Educate your personnel because social media pays off both ways. Inform in writing ( in EN, too) if you do not adapt to modern payment methods.

For us it is clearly the last time we visit café Middelberg and it is definitely because...

"Ok" but nothing more than that. At least is spacious, the service is composed by old bored lady with some command of English and no fancy to help you more than the strict necessary. The worst point were the sandwiches, "tosti" I believe they are called, but they were floppy slices of white bread with a ton of melted cheese where two slices of candied pineapple were left inside, no matter the fact that we asked to have them without fruit. I don't know you but I do not like fruit inside my sandwhiches! The best point were the pastries, so I would recommend to take those and simply get the hell out of there. I took a classic apple strudel, which was well executed, my wife took some sort of cheesecake, also good. The ice creams for the kids were the industrial artificial-vanilla kind, no point in...

I had a rather disappointing experience at this café, although I must say the quality of the food was excellent and the ambiance was lovely. We ordered the “Angebot” (the house special), which included one coffee and a slice of walnut tart. While the coffee was nothing out of the ordinary, the tart was absolutely delicious—I highly recommend it.

The only downside was one of the two waitresses serving the upstairs tables, who was extremely rude. She treated me and my mum like prison inmates, barking orders like “Do this, do that.” At one point, I had to call her out on her attitude, and to her credit, she seemed to take the hint and acted a bit friendlier afterwards. The other waitress was quite nice, so it wasn’t all bad—but the initial experience with the rude one was pretty...