Café Dear Leon — Restaurant in Baltimore

This cafe is exceptional in every way. Food/pastry/espresso/coffee - 10/10. Ambience - 10/10. Customer service & care - 100/10. The food & drink here are not the only things that are elevated. When I say the people here are extraordinary, I mean it. My experience today was completely above & beyond what I ever imagined. For context I will need to back up for just a moment. 9 months ago I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer while I was 6 months pregnant in Miami. Being a Baltimore native, my husband & I planned to move closer to home with our son on the way. Cancer was unthinkable & certainly expedited our plans. We moved to Canton to be close to Hopkins for my treatment. Since moving & enduring chemo while pregnant, and after - proudly having a healthy son in between - stopping into this cafe has been a wonderful moment of respite. The amount of care, detail, & love that is put into the food & poured into the drink is just phenomenal. Some pastries look like works of art. And taste even better. However, it’s the people that are heart & soul of this cafe. Today, I stopped in while still healing from recent double mastectomy surgery. My husband & son we’re napping so I took the opportunity to steal 30 mins to treat myself. After ordering I asked if I could split my transaction half in cash , half on my card. The employee said no problem, however I immediately felt guilty as the cash register decided that upon that request, it would shut down. As we waited for the system to reboot, we made casual conversation. They said “I love your style” which, almost brought tears to my eyes from the gratitude alone. My hair is still mostly gone & my eyelashes & brows are just barely starting to come back - the compliment meant the world to me. When I said thank you & shared why that meant so much to me, fighting cancer - but now proud to say I’m officially cancer free they said, “hold on just a moment”. I didn’t think much of it, but they left the register & spoke to someone in the back. When they came back everyone that worked there started clapping for me. Writing this now I am tearing up all over again. When they returned, they extended their hand with my cash & said “congratulations, don’t worry about this.” I was at a complete loss for words. I could barely get out “thank you” without fully sobbing in public. That act, that moment of immense compassion & care - was unlike anything I had experienced human to human, let alone from a small business. I wish I could articulate how grateful I truly am for this experience. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I will carry this celebratory feeling for days, if not weeks to come.

If you are looking for exceptional food served & prepared by some of the most beautiful humans - look no further than...

So I went to CDL for the viral crab dip bagel. However being able to purchase the bagel was a journey in itself. Due to the popularity of the bagel I decided to get there early to find neighborhood parking and be in alignment with the baking schedule. I thought I could go inside a café as the name suggests sit down in a heated area and leisurely wait. To my surprise and later deep annoyance Café Dear Leon does not have indoor seating. Every last customer has to wait up to I would say at best, if you’re lucky 30 plus minutes in the elements, and the 30 minutes is if you’re NOT there for the bagel. With the way the café is set up there’s almost no way to avoid standing in a very long line outside. I went on a day that was particularly cold. This right here is when the overall experience began to sour. Granted they do have heaters in the shack that you stand in but let’s be serious here. Then there was some confusion regarding when to begin to get in line for the crab dip bagel. There was a sign that said get in line at 8:30, a cafe employee came out and said don’t get in line at 8:30. Maybe because I was so cold that it led to user error on my part. I was with my mother who was confused as well. As well as everyone else in line was unclear about the bagel instructions but hey, maybe we were all cold. Anywho this led to us having to GET BACK IN AN EXTREMELY LONG LINE IN THE COLD. Now this did lead to us being able to try a good amount of the menu. We had the blueberry muffin, the financier, the crème brûlée tart, a breakfast sandwich, and of course the bagel. Now as a foodie if the majority of the items were “once in a lifetime”, “can’t get anywhere else”, “knocked my socks off good”. I would let the cold for over two hours thing go. I am saddened to report that most of what we tried was the big ok. Nothing super special. The bagel however oh my goodness! It was delicious, amazing, perfection. Worth two hours in the cold? No. But very good. The breakfast sandwich though not majorly different was very good. Also the crème brûlée tart was very good. So Leon and crew definitely have some hitters on their hands. However considering the conditions to get them everything needs to be amazing and in my opinion it’s not. With the popularity of restaurant I think they absolutely need to look for a bigger venue. Which they may be doing but logistically...

While the food is good the service is seriously lacking.

The only reason this "cafe's" line is soooo long is because they are letting the people who order coffee wait inside for their coffee. If you have a max capacity of 6 people and it takes 5-ish minutes per coffee, you need to have people wait for their coffee outside and have an employee take it outside when it's done. All of the food is already made and it was the quickest visit inside once I made it in the door. All they had to do was box my item and take my money.

After waiting in line for 1.5+ hrs, my first, second, and third options were all unavailable. I asked the cashier " have you guys considered updating your line when you run out of items?" With unnecessary attitude he said "we're FCFS, we're already making 3x more than we usually do, and we're viral right now!" That response had nothing to do with the question I asked. Everything "viral" eventually flames out! If you want repeat business, smarter practices need to come into play. If you cannot pop your head out to inform the line, put up a sign and just cross the items off.

UPDATE:

I gave them a second try. Service was better this time, with a more pleasant person on the register. I arrived at 7:50am and got in line for the Crab Dip Bagel (CDB) due out at 9am. While they now have a sign to NOT get in line for the CDB until 8:30am the CDB people just created a second line and ushered anyone not getting a bagel inside. This sign can be better utilized by listing out of stock items. Nobody is going to refrain from getting in line when they're arriving 60+ mins early to get a good place in line since it moves abysmally slowwww. Everyone was pleased when the bagels came out 30 mins early that day. I still say...make the people wait outside and hand deliver!

The Crab Dip Bagel! The bagel was really good, especially for the price! But I have to say, I've had it once so now I do not have to wait in the CDB line ever again!

The real superstars are the pastries!! I've never had a pastry so FRESH! They were soft, flaky, crunchy, and just looked like 1000 layers of love went into making those 1000 thin layers that form the pastries! I will be back for the pastries. We had the Creme Brulee Tart, and the Raspberry Croissant Eclair. Both were...