Coffee & Bites — Restaurant in Amsterdam

Definitely not what I expected when I read the stellar reviews that this place has. I'll start with the good parts: the food is decent, and it's pretty close to the Artis complex, Holocaust museum, etc. The staff is (mostly) friendly and polite, despite us being completely ignored and being forced to go to the counter to order (after a 20 minute wait). But that's pretty much where the good parts end. The place is pretty small and cramped, and definitely not clean (lots of flies and tables were pretty sticky, nobody cleaned them during the whole time we were there). Another weird thing is that tables are made from old yarn swifts, which would normally be an interesting thing, if not for the fact that some of them still have the "wheel" in working condition. When we sat down, my partner accidentally stepped on the mechanism and the wheel spun, hitting my left knee. Not a good start. As I said before, we waited for 20 minutes to place our order but nobody came; not being local I thought I had to get up to order so I did, but then I noticed that other people were placing their orders at the table so no, we were just being ignored. The menu has a lot, and I mean a lot of choices. The tricky part is actually getting the food, since it took us one hour from sitting down to actually leaving. The place was busy but not that busy; if you're in a hurry I definitely cannot recommend this. The wait for the food was extremely long, almost as if we were having dinner; not suited for a quick breakfast. And we didn't even have dishes that needed to be prepared "on the spot", like pancakes or stuff like that. It was just a croissant (just needs to be heated) and a muffin (you just need to bring it to me... doesn't even need heating!). The most complicated dish was a hot dog and that's saying something. The coffee was good but the spoon I got with it was extremely dirty; I'm not talking about lime residue, I'm talking dirty and sticky. I honestly cannot recommend this place in general for reasons I already discussed; this is especially true if you're a tourist that wants to see as much as possible in Amsterdam; we thought we were gonna grab a quick breakfast before heading to visit museums or the beautiful city, but we got stuck for an hour of just... waiting. Disappointing, because this place could be much more with some...

Upon arrival we were one of 2 tables waiting to get food, we ordered & got our coffees swiftly, however after 50 more minutes of waiting there was no sign of our food coming, 4 tables came in after us by 20 & 30 minutes & had received what looked to be the same dishes as ours, we decided to leave and just pay for the coffees we had received, because we had somewhere else to be at that point. So we got up & asked to pay for our coffees & the lady said “didn’t you order food as well” & my husband said “thats okay we have somewhere else to be now we’ll just pay for the coffee” she got agitated & told us thats not how it works & that they were making the food now, we understand there is shortages in staff but watching 3 different tables be served eggs & dutch pancakes just as we had ordered 30 minutes prior to those tables even walking in to the cafe, she didn’t inform us of any wait times when we first walked in because we were some of the only people in the cafe when we first arrived. Also very rude lady at counter when we asked to just pay for the coffees no apology for the wait time just immediately...

In the Plantage neighbourhood where we were staying around the corner from the entrance to the Artis Zoo. Visited Coffee & Bites three times while visiting Amsterdam in May with my brother and two sisters … all of us from Canada. Each visit reconfirmed our impression that this restaurant was a great place to stop in for coffee and breakfast … the food and coffee were very good and well priced … loved the welcoming, casual atmosphere … and appreciated the excellent service and the warm hospitality of the owner/operators who seemed interested to chat with us and ask about our travels. Each visit we were welcomed with smiles and cheerful greetings. We were beginning to feel like we were at home, which is a nice feeling when you are ‘on the road’! Although we didn’t have lunch or dinner there, I would think the food and service would be equally good at those times too. Would highly recommend Coffee & Bites… especially for breakfast. Will definitely go back when I return to Amsterdam which will hopefully be soon. A lucky...