Leola’s Cafe and Coffee House — Restaurant in Baton Rouge

Service so horrible it felt personal. But it wasn’t personal.

Had a reservation upstairs was sat downstairs. Didn’t get water until 30 minutes later.( the water came in children’s cups and we are all adults) They had no ice. And didn’t do an ice run. Having worked in the service industry I know that when you run out of ice you go on an ice run. The commission the restaurant makes from all the tables would offset the 3 bags of ice it would take to fill up the ice bin for the remainder of shift. It’s never ok to make customers uncomfortable. They weren’t communicating at all with each other and it showed massively in their inaction. The service was awful. Sat for two and a half hours watching everyone get their food before our table even got the biscuits. They ran out of food and didn’t tell us until nobody except staff were in the restaurant.

Our drinks were inconsistent and took almost 20 minutes each time. My table wouldn’t even have had utensils if I didn’t get up and grab plastic ones from the bar. The response I got 20 minutes after When I asked for an eta on the food. Was “I don’t have an eta for you and the food is just gonna come out when it does that she was sorry because it was taking so long.” But they ran out of food and didn’t tell us until after the fact. These people will play in your face and waste your time. If you’re lucky enough to get good service before the breakfast restaurant runs out of eggs the food will be good. And I would recommend going on a slow day. This restaurant doesn’t have the capability to handle fast paced rush shifts and it shows in their lack of accountability and their inability to get information out in a timely manor.

Something to work on would be communication. And making sure there is food allocation for reservations as reservations take priority over walk in’s.

What they excel in is their food! Their biscuits were so worth the 2 hour wait. I’ve haven't had biscuits that good in a long time but maybe it’s just because I was starving in the empty restaurant by the time they came.

I shouldn’t have to ration drinks or biscuits between my table though

They also don’t have fans outside so everyone is left to sweat out the room temperature water they give you

The manager handled the situation properly and professionally. Food was compt and she tried to do damage control. If one person on the team fails you all fail. I give the entire experience a 2 out of ten

One point for the biscuits and the other because they compt the food.

I wish I could say better things about this place but the only redeeming quality as of now is the antique store attached to...

Also attended for mothers day today. Almost $100 (no additional tip added, just the buffet price and 1 nonalcoholic drink) just for 2 people for a buffet that had lukewarm food and horrible service? No thanks. I thought I was being high maintenance but it looks like others had the same experience I did today. We Sat at 11am. As it was a buffet, servers were only responsible for drinks and clearing plates off tables..with that being said, we still didn't get our complementary waters until maybe almost 20 mins into the meal? My mom also wanted a coffee at first but changed her mind because Chloe didn't do a good job of checking in on us. Our dirty plates never got cleared off our table;not a single one the entire hour we were there. We had a birds eye view of the buffet and constantly watched them run out of plates for it. The buffet overall was poorly executed and was only set up downstairs, so everyone that sat upstairs had to walk back up and down to get food-and for 90% of the time, salad sized plates were all that were available-so multiple trips were needed to get sufficient food. Flies were around the food which my mom brought up multiple times. She also mentioned the faucet didn't have hot water in the bathroom..needless to say she wasn't impressed. I heard a staff member say to a customer in the buffet line "ya know, not everyone that makes a reservation shows up all the time, but everyone showed up today!" As she seemed to laugh nervously...so does that mean yall take way more reservations than your staff can handle in hopes there are no shows? I then heard the customer respond and say "oh so yall werent ready for today?" Which the staff member quickly replied " oh we were ready!" No honey...yall weren't ready. Waters/any non alcoholic drinks should be refilled when you see the cup is halfway empty, plates should not stay stacked to the edge of the table-we were the table right by the stairs...on the way to the kitchen. Customers should be checked on 2 min after they start eating (2 min, 2 bites) these are all basic server responsibilities. Should've staffed up...

I attended this restaurant today with a handicapped person. When I pulled into the handicapped parking spot, which I was lucky to get, I did not see a ramp for her wheelchair. I got out and looked around and come to find out, the tiny ramp was in a regular parking spot. Of course, someone was parked there. The manager was nice enough to go track down the vehicle’s owner and asked her to move her car. Of course, the vehicle’s owner was mad that she had to move her car and I don’t blame her because that spot should’ve been marked as the handicapped spot instead of the other spot.

Once we got in the restaurant, it was a chore to get her wheelchair through the tight set up of tables. I had to get one of the waiters to open the other half of the door so that we can fit her wheelchair through the door. Then they proceeded to tell us that they stopped taking walk in customers because the kitchen was swamped. Then I complained about getting her in here and then all of a sudden they were taking customers again. Very unprofessional!

We sat at an inside table. There were house flies everywhere. The waiter that we had had absolutely no personality whatsoever. He was on the verge of rude . We ordered a Deli Panini each with kettle chips. He proceeded to come back and tell us that they ran out of kettle chips and that we could choose from either fruit or salad. I was fine with the salad, but there’s no excuse for a restaurant to run out of kettle chips.

I must say that the food was very delicious. The only problem is I had to try to enjoy my food while swatting at flies. This restaurant has to do better! They need to be more ADA assessable and they need to be better prepared. I think that I would probably visit again, but I would probably order my food to go instead of dining there. if you want to go to this restaurant, you’re going to have a hard time getting in and out if you are handicapped. And I hope your waiter...