Peet's Coffee — Restaurant in Berkeley

Google maps has invited me to review "Peet's Coffee"; I believe I'm reviewing the Berkeley Fourth St. store, but I get around a little bit. We were all there: during the lingering virus-mitigation lockdown the whole experience of coffee shops was entirely altered. The pleasures of sitting among a diverse set of folk all doing as you are, enjoying some coffee and maybe some conversation was just about gone: one might perhaps cautiously nod to another soul who was also waiting distantly and maybe even venture a few words at best. The focus was on the quality of offerings and the cordiality of the staff, and the Fourth Street location was one where that really shone. They also have consistently had outside space and seating - this provided opportunities, but during the worst of it only groups who already knew each other seemed to take advantage. Things are slowly getting so much better as matters become less restricted, especially at this store and other locations where outside seating is available; the top of Solano location and the original home of everything at Vine and Walnut come to mind. I was also quite pleased to recently see how the downtown location on Shattuck had moved the inside tables and displays aside to create a really enhanced sense of openness - I will def be going back there much more again. I remain in awe and gratitude at all the staff who kept themselves together and upbeat, and by extension so many of the rest of us during the bleakest of times - I've been increasing my tipping for some time now. I'm also grateful to the planners and managers behind the scenes who kept our Peet's available while so much was being crushed. We all know the feelings of hope this spring and early summer, and I'm finding the Peet's are a good place to get a bit more of a taste of that feeling...

First time I've had really weak coffee at Peet's. Since the Private Equity bandits took over Peet's & dismantled the quality and quantities of spices, teas -replacing his crown jewels with schlock "Mighty Leaf" mediocrities - and coffees while trading on the good reputation Mr. Peet built up, they've slashed his carefully built up connections and collections of fine teas and coffees down to the bare bones of whatever sells the most (race to the bottom). Many of his employees, who owned the company after he died, stayed on for years out of loyalty to a well run company with high standards. Now you get who-gives-a-damn know-nothing employees who are treated like cogs in a gear box, interchangeable, with no knowledge even of what they're selling, and no concern for the customer. It's steadily sinking to the level of Millennial Minimalist Chock Full O' Nuts. Everything's stripped down as the Private Equity investors skim the cream, prepare to sell it on to the next greater fools. Mr. Peet - the scion of generations of Dutch Indonesian tea, coffee and spice merchants. would be spinning in his grave if he saw the destruction of the quality he adhered to. Dishwater weak coffee like this morning's at 4th St. is the...

Terrible service. We went to the store to buy coffee, and my boyfriend was adding honey to his cup and stirring it when the staff suddenly asked him to leave because they were closing at 7:30. It was only 7:27. He tried to explain that it would only take a second and that we’d leave right after, but they immediately became rude and demanded we leave right away.

Things escalated when a staff member named Salem started yelling at us and threatened to call the police if we didn’t leave. This was completely unnecessary—we were clearly about to leave. Another staff member, John, also yelled at us to get out. Meanwhile, the shift leader, a blonde guy, just stood there watching his staff scream at us without doing anything to diffuse the situation.

We weren’t doing anything wrong, and it wouldn’t have hurt them to wait a minute for my boyfriend to finish stirring his tea. But instead of showing basic decency, Salem chose to threaten us with the police over something so minor.

This experience was unacceptable, and no one should ever be treated like this. Avoid this store...