Kaafi • Specialty Coffee and Brunch Bar — Restaurant in The Hague

No ambiance. Gaslighting clients, forgetful attendant. A family member was culminating a 10-day stay in The Hague and we wanted to end on a nice culinary note. That was not to be. Looking for a brunch menu on a Thursday early afternoon. We made a 12:45 reservation via the website. We arrived early and the attendant was able to seat us outside on the sidewalk terrace. We were next to the street and the traffic was rather heavy.

The terrace has tables with either two or four chairs and some overhead parasols that don't necessarily keep the sun away. There is comfortable spacing between tables.

The attendant did not bring menus for over 15 minutes. We checked the website menu, which was missing at least two of the dishes that I later saw on the physical menu.

We ordered blueberry pancakes with a side of eggs and Falafel. The attendant read back to order to us. Each of us also asked for still water but only one was served, so we had to ask them to bring out another one. I also got bitter lemon.

The food was okay. The falafel was dry but the pancakes were good, according to my guest.

The reason for the one-star rating is what happened when we left the restaurant. I wanted to pay the bill, but couldn't get the attendant's attention. I entered the restaurant and went to the front counter. That is when I had the rudest experience ever. The person behind the counter was arrogantly informing me that I needed to make the table attendant the first point of contact so that I could give the table number. What? Why? I described what we ordered but this person somehow could not find it on the menu and insisted that I find the attendant - who was standing at the front door by then. Somehow, the person behind the counter was unable to summon the attendant to get the information and sent me over. Then when I came back to repeat the number this person had the nerve to say, "I know." What on earth was that about? And why gaslight a client by telling them the first port of call is the attendant. If we are standing in front of the counter, it is because we tried several times to get the attendant.

Overworked attendants have to serve both outdoor and indoor clients, taking orders. Then. one person is actually bringing back to food to both outdoor and indoor people. They are overworked.

Meanwhile, the person behind the counter has no other job except to know what was served and charge the correct amount to the customer. Yet. is unable to do so.

Sorry, Kaafi. You must do better. NB: And when you respond to this review, try not to reinforce the low rating by being defensive and lashing out at your critic, as you did in the response to a recent...

Reading the other reviews, I'm not sure if they went to a different cafe or if I was just extremely unlucky - this was easily the worst cafe I've been to in the Hague, by quite a margin. It was actually quite an experience, hence the long review. We were greeted by a waiter who seemed like she would rather be literally anywhere else in the world than right there at that moment. After being lazily handwaved towards the back with a muted "I dunno, sit whereever...", we were seated at a still-wet and dirty table, which did not seem to bother the waiter one bit, who just placed the menus in the puddle on the table and left. Although branded a "specialty coffee bar", I did not notice any specialty in the coffee. No information or choice for the beans - all you get to choose between is espresso, lungo, or filter. Since the kitchen was already closed at 3PM, we just got two double espressos and two tiny pieces of cheesecake, which cost us a whopping €15. Quite painful. Speaking of the cake, this was probably the thinnest slice of cake I've ever seen. You could probably pass it off for a knife. It was also so cold and hard that any attempt to cut through it with the fork was almost a full-body workout. The atmosphere, described in other reviews as "cozy and warm" was actually just warm. Incredibly hot and stuffy, actually. The living wall which had once probably looked nice and green was now just a wall of pots with dirt, and the few surviving plants on other walls looked like they were just barely hanging on to life with their last few yellowing leaves. The elevator jazz playing from the speakers was somewhat overshadowed by the constant clatter of dishes which were being scraped, cleaned and seemingly constantly restacked right next to the tables. At some point a whole bunch of glass bottles fell to the ground and rolled around. Very peaceful indeed. We were only at Kaafi for about half an hour, but that was enough of an experience to make a firm decision to opt for one of the numerous other excellent coffee bars in the Hague in the future. This one is a...

Decent filter, they work with a British brand so it's interesting to try. The service was mediocre, miscommunication wasn't solved properly and that's not what you'd expect after buying 2 filters and a pack of coffee for 23 euros.

Edit, as a response to Team Kaafi: First of all, fantastic that you made the choice to serve customers "outside of opening hours". That is your choice and if there's a queue at closing time, it wouldn't be good for your wallet nor your reputation to close up. 4pm is quite early to close up anyway, but that is my personal opinion.

As a response to your interpretation of when the issue rose - I asked a clear question whether there's a possibility for a discount on buying a pack of coffee when purchasing two cups of filter coffee. Her response was "Sure, we can brew you two cups from this pack". It's a low blow to develop a response that questions my integrity and whether I should be asking for a discount in difficult times, effectively imposed by our government. You also don't know what kind of situation I am in, so if context really defines whether a question is morally good, then perhaps you should have asked why I ask for a discount. (general consensus varies on this topic, but certainly half of the upscale coffee stores we've visited offered a promotion for trying a coffee in combination with buying a pack to enjoy it once again at home)

On the matter whether your prices are competitive, that really depends on more factors - I don't go out for a cup of coffee alone, I can make that at home, right? We're paying a premium to have it made by someone deemed an expert, and to be cared about. I didn't feel that was the case, I didn't feel there was any kind of gesture from your side, which resulted in a different review on Google.

Your need to write a defensive post about it only shows clearer that you take a certain attitude that I wouldn't like to see in places where I like to go. I hope you'll go softer on the next...