Beatles and Beans Coffee Emporium — Restaurant in Bay City

I hate to give reviews that are less than 4 or 5 but I felt compelled to make sure I gave this review tonight. I will start by saying that I would give the drinks that we ordered a solid 5, so if you're only worried about that then no need to worry. I'm not from Bay City but was there this afternoon for the Tall Ship Festival and had stopped in Beatles and Beans a few times before when I would go to Sempliners when I was getting married with my wedding party. Tonight my service was less than par. I felt like if I was there for the first time I would never go back. We were waiting to place our order and the man behind the counter was obviously busy. I'm sure they had a lot of business earlier in the day with the large crowds that the Tall Ship festival brought in. At this time though, there was no one else in line. He would look at us and say something like hi, how are you. And would go back to facing the other way and cleaning or doing something else. We waited patiently. I figured he was busy doing something and we were not in a hurry. Finally, he rudely said that we needed to "talk to him" and he can't make us anything without us telling him what we wanted. The way he said it was fairly rude. I was taken back. I personally wouldn't want to be the rude customer that doesn't care if you're busy and just blurts out what they want without a care for what's going on. I thought a nice "what can I get for you?" Or "what would you like?" Would have been more appropriate than being rudely spoken to because I didn't blurt out my order to someone who wasn't facing me and was cleaning something up. I don't think I've ever been to a restaurant/coffee shop or any other place of service alike where you were expected to talk to someone's back of the head.

I know it's not a huge deal but I felt like it was super rude.

After our orders, a teenager came in and wanted to order a drink. After finding out that it was cash only he said he couldn't do it and would come back because he didn't have cash on him and his grandparents were sitting outside and ran out to get cash. The same guy instantly made some snarky rude comments about him, loud enough for me to hear, as he was leaving.

My rating was a 3 because I would give their customer service a 1 and...

Not a fan. For starters, this place is complete sensory over-stimulation. Every square inch is covered in Beatles memorabilia most of it for sale. EVERY. SINGLE. INCH. But, ok. Whatever. Next, this is a CASH ONLY place. Didn't see this posted on Google. So, yeahhh. Didn't have cash on me so my friend paid for my coffee. There aren't any ATMs nearby either. The coffee was mediocre at best, but I'll give them this. It was HOT. Like McD's-burn-your-crotch HOT! Also, there was virtually no place to sit inside. Just a few (two) small tables I saw. Nice day, so we sat at the table and chairs next to the door. We were the maybe 30-45 minutes. In that time, the barista/owner? came out no less than SIX times to check up on us. But not in the good way. If you don't want people hanging out, why put a table and chairs there? He also kept interrupting our conversation in a weird, creepy, awkward way. So, yeahhh. I'd pass on this one. There are PLENTY of other coffee shops that allow you to talk and linger over a great cup of coffee and...

We traveled an hour out of our way during our mini-vacation to check this place out, as my kids are huge Beatles fans. Being "cash only" in 2023 is wild, but we would have absolutely gone and found an ATM to take out cash and come back to purchase memorabilia and drinks had the staff not been so off-puttingly rude. Immediately and repeatedly trying to direct us to the ordering line when it was clear we were trying to look around. Being super snarky and sarcastic, even at one point saying, "did you go get cash yet?" Don't open a mini-museum if you don't want people looking around. And if you're struggling to make sales (which I have to assume they are, based on how pushy they were), how about joining us here in the 21st century and accepting credit and debit cards? Square card readers are free. As a small business owner myself who runs a specialty shop that people travel from all over to visit, I was absolutely appalled by our experience. And looking at the Google reviews, I see our experience was not at all...