Café Bleu — Restaurant in The Hague

I noticed you replied to my comment by calling it a fake review. That’s disappointing. If you look at my review history, it’s clear that I always share genuine experiences. Instead of dismissing feedback, I would hope you take experiences like mine as an opportunity to improve your service.

PRICEY AND INCREDIBLY TURTLE SLOW SERVICE

The location is undeniably charming. It is in a lovely area with tables right by the canal, which creates a great atmosphere and raises expectations. Unfortunately, the rest of our experience did not match that first impression.

The service was incredibly slow and poorly managed. If a restaurant is short-staffed, it really should not accept more bookings than it can handle. To reserve a table, our friend had to pay a deposit, which suggests that the restaurant takes attendance seriously. If showing up matters that much, then the quality of service should also be a priority.

Two of us arrived first and ordered burrata and two drinks. Our friends joined us around twenty minutes later. Surprisingly, our food and drinks were only served after they placed their order, which was nearly fifty minutes after we made the first order. Burrata is not something that needs to be cooked, so such a delay was hard to understand.

Later, we asked our waitress if we could get our second round of drinks a bit faster, since we had another plan after dinner. She responded kindly and explained they were understaffed, but no real solution was offered. Our friends received their wine, but our cocktails never came at all.

The food, when it finally arrived, was delicious. However, the portion sizes were quite small, especially considering the high prices. We ordered a cheese and charcuterie platter for four people, and it came with just four small pieces of cheese and a modest amount of charcuterie. While I personally enjoyed the flavors, the combination of slow service, high prices, and very small portions made it easy for me to decide not to return.

Something else left a very unpleasant impression. And this is the reason I decided to write about my unpleasant experience at their restaurant, I later saw how the restaurant uses its social media to openly criticize and mock other local businesses that have nothing in common with their own concept. This kind of attitude feels unprofessional and unnecessary. As a guest, I believe a restaurant’s energy should reflect hospitality,...

Unfortunately, I had a disappointing experience at Café Bleu this afternoon. Me and my girlfriend wanted to come here for quite some time now because the place looked so good when we walked by earlier. The terrace wasn’t busy when we sat down for a drink. We both ordered a glass of wine, and it turned out the waitress could not find a wine opener/corkscrew. So we got poured only half a glass instead of two whole glasses, because the waitress had to open new bottle. She then started running around the street to other restaurants to find a corkscrew. I sincerely wonder why a place like this with a variety of wines has no wine opener ready?! The girl serving us did not seem prepared at all and a bit chaotic: she only had to serve two tables next to ours. We were in a hurry so I agreed to only one glass; at first, I thought that was a full glass of wine. Then one of our neighbouring tables got served a glass of wine that was much fuller. So in the end, the one glass that we got served wasn’t even a full one and still we got charged for a whole glass of wine (which was €10, so one might imagine to get served a full glass for that price). Because we were in a hurry I did not protest us having to pay for the whole glass, but I think it’s the waitress’ job to notice she didn’t serve us a whole glass and as a result shouldn’t charge us as such. This place has so much potential, the scenery and the food all looks really appealing to us. But with service like this, it unfortunately...

We went there for the jazz evening. The café itself is really beautiful, and the music was great too! The drinks and food also tasted good. Unfortunately, the service was very poor. We waited quite a while for the menus and the drinks. At first, the waitress was on her own, so we completely understood that things might take a bit longer. However, even when there were three staff members, not much changed. We had to ask for tap water four times. By then, we had long since received our cocktails, and each time we were assured the water would be brought, but it only arrived after the last time we asked. The food was placed on the table without a word, and no one checked in with us to see if everything was okay, not even during the quieter moments in the music break. Basically, all the aspects that make up good service were missing. In the end, we went to the bar to pay. We were mistakenly charged for the wrong table without them checking first, and we nearly ended up paying €80 instead of €40. While they did eventually find our correct table, we were then given the wrong receipt after paying. When I asked for the correct one, the waitress reacted very annoyed and handed it over without saying a word. Our goodbye was also ignored. If the service were to improve, it would definitely deserve five stars, but this experience was really...