SCHOOL BUS COFFEE BAKERS — Restaurant in Kyoto

A reasonable breakfast place. However the service really needs to improve. As soon as the staff at front desk realised we don’t speak Japanese, she turned into a very unpleasant attitude. Didn’t provide the menu for us when taking us to seat. Kept us waiting there forever, when we went to counter to see what’s on the menu, she pulled out the menu from the drawer and asked us to leave the counter as if we were trying to cut the line (so they do have menu but just not showing to you). Are they asking us to queue up for the menu and queue up another time for ordering?

After I heat up the bread for myself (instructed by another staff), went back to ask for a plate to hold my bread. The previous mentioned staff first didn’t respond to me at all, just stay silent and turn around to do nothing, after a few seconds she turned back and questioned me if I had pay. I said I did! And she pulled out a plate to me. I said thank you, she rumbled something maybe a “welcome” but who knows, didn’t look so welcome on her face 🤷‍♀️

When she brought the meal to us, saw the plate she given me on the table, seemed wanted to make some comment again but left..

Meanwhile we saw her being very polite and over the show to an elder Japanese customer. So she could be polite, she chosen not to, not to the tourist, no, of course not.

It seems to be a recent thing in Japan that they want to be cold and rude to tourists or who don’t speak their language, even when these people not doing anything wrong besides not speaking Japanese. I’ve had travelled to Japan regularly for the last ten years besides the Covid period, and I never had such a bad experience like this year.

Japan has lost its charm to me. Won’t be back for another few years until they chill down and realise they can hate individual tourist that done wrong to them, but not to generalise every tourist as their trouble.

There were three staff when I visited, the male staff and the female staff with cap on were very friendly and pleasant, they rescued the rudeness we received from the earlier...

Service - underwhelming. Walked in after navigating a blocked entrance and signs about needing to 'save a seat' before ordering. Fair enough. But strangely, people might like to look at the goods and check out the prices beforehand. Not so here. We were accosted by a server who repeatedly demanded we take a seat, despite our stating we just wanted to see the offerings. On seating, there was no menu and no table service. Heading back up to the same place we had come from, the only place to find the prices were at the counter. The whole experience is one of entrapment. Food - coffee is better than Starbucks in so far as it's not sweet. But that's it. It tasted burnt. Croissant wasn't too bad, baguette was a 3 star, being comparable with store loafs. The worst offender was the cheesecake. At 8000Y, it tasted like store bought Sara Lee and had FROZEN coulis! Seriously, go around the corner to the cake shop, spend 10000Y there and be exceptionally happy with it. This place...

As we entered the Coffee Shop we were greeted by staff that already seemed way too friendly. We were told to take a seat, and that we could grab pastries from the bar, and order drinks at the register. So I got a pastry for my friend and went to the register to get a coffee for myself. I got my coffee and everything was fine. Until a few minutes later staff came to our table and told us that each one of us needed to buy a drink. Just buying a pastry was not enough. I thought that this was really weird, as there were multiple interactions between the staff and us before ordering, paying and sitting down, why didn’t they tell us beforehand? They insisted my friend would need to buy a beverage otherwise he could not stay. So we left the place. I already read a similar review on this place so it seems that this might happen more frequently. We would definitely not go...