Café Janis — Restaurant in Lisbon

I recently got married in Lisbon and chose to mark the occasion with an intimate photography session to celebrate our union. We didn’t opt for a large wedding, just a quiet moment with two close friends.

As part of our celebration, my longest-standing friend, her husband, my newlywed husband, and I, along with our photographer, planned to take a few commemorative photos at Café Janis. Having read wonderful reviews, we believed it would be the perfect final stop to complete our story of celebration.

However, when we arrived, the manager—whose name I did not catch—abruptly refused to allow us to take photos, citing a need for prior approval. While I fully understand that businesses have rules and standards to uphold, I struggle to comprehend the difference between what we were requesting and the common practice of customers taking photos or videos on their phones, often with flash. We were a small group of four, including the photographer, and the session would have taken less than ten minutes.

Despite our photographer's attempts to reason with the manager, he remained inflexible. This experience was extremely disappointing, particularly because we had planned to spend the evening celebrating at Café Janis, not just for the photos. The situation reflects poorly on the establishment and its approach to customer service, missing an opportunity for positive social media exposure as well.

Since we were already at Café Janis, we decided to stay and order drinks, hoping to salvage the experience. We ordered four Hendricks martinis 3 lemon twist and 1 with olives, but when the drinks arrived, we were given six—and they were ORANGE. And the entire order mixed up one with Vodka, Hendricks no olives…… just complete confused. While I’m not a bartender, I’ve had enough martinis to know this was not standard. When we questioned the order, the staff insisted that we had indeed ordered six, leading to an unnecessary back and forth.

We opted to simply pay and leave without drinking anything. The entire situation—from the refusal to allow our brief photo session to the confusion over the drink order—was deeply disappointing and far from the celebratory experience we had hoped for.

Thank you, Café Janis, for making my special wedding moment one to remember—for all the wrong reasons. Your lack of attention to detail and failure to show basic human decency turned what should have been a joyful experience into a deeply disappointing one.

I sincerely hope that the manager receives the promotion he's clearly working towards. It’s an outcome that would perfectly align with the level of service...

They have presented very unprofessional, rude and preposterously idiotic behavior during reservation. At first they have provided me wrong information, then they tried to change the conditions of the reservations, finally said that they don’t let nobody make reservations at all - on the contrary to what’s written on their website. I have informed them, that “I said I’m sorry” (exact quote of the “explanation” they’ve given to all this misunderstanding they’ve caused) is not very professional explanation, and that they should consider taking off wrongful information from their website. In this case, they have disappointed the client already before the visit that I wanted to make - and in such case, the natural step is to go to other place, since there are plenty in that neighborhood. It was just a kind, helpful information that they should’ve been grateful for. I have written it in most nice way possible in such situation. Instead of saying “thank you” and inviting the client to come anyway as any good, classy place would do, they’ve… blocked me on Instagram that I’ve used to ask them the question. 🤣

It’s absolute creepy place with childish, rude and most dumb employees that I’ve ever heard of. They’re not caring about a good name nor opinion, so being in place of everyone that would like to go there, I’d be afraid what kind of lousy quality of service they can experience there, if already booking process is so problematic to them. Even if someone really mistook the policies, kind explanation and proposing a decent resolution (really, a free coffee as an amend would be more than enough - and let’s be honest, it’s the least of what any normal place would do), or at least sincere, professional apology should’ve taken place here. Instead, “cafe Janis’s” employee decided to choose most rude, inappropriate and scammer behavior whatsoever.

I don’t...

If you’re looking for atmosphere and vibes, then Cafe Janis is a good choice. I was lucky enough to get an outdoor table with a great view of the square. Based on other reviews and photos, I was excited about the food, but it was underwhelming. Maybe I ordered the wrong things. The beetroot and burrata salad was just okay…fairly small and very few beets for a beetroot salad. I also got the açaí bowl which had almost no fruit on it and was 50% granola (one of the worst açaí bowls I’ve ever had). So basically I paid for a bowl of granola that I couldn’t even eat once the açaí ran out b/c it was so dry and bland. It looked nothing like the pictures I saw online, which show fruit. I was really paying for the experience of a cute corner cafe, but I wouldn’t go back unless I was just...