Sarah's — Restaurant in Cedar Falls

Beautiful restaurant, wonderful staff, okay espresso, good latte, wonderful coffee, food could be better. Similar to Starbucks.

This is a wonderful place to sit and get some work done, though it has room for improvement.

The staff were friendly and available, and they left us alone. 5/5 thank you for not bothering us.

The food is perfect if you want a snack to go with your coffee, but not if you're looking for a filling breakfast. They use a panini press for their sandwiches and breakfast burritos, which could be an efficient way to cook them, but they don't cook them long enough. I got a breakfast burrito where everything tasted nice, but the cheese wasn't melted and the tortilla wasn't browned at all. We also got a bagel that was warmed, but not toasted. 2/5, wouldn't get again.

Their chocolate cakes are nice. Instead of being a bland cake with over-sugared chocolate syrup, it's balanced. Chocolate flavors on top instead of a blast of sugar. Kind of spongey though. 4/5, could use more texture, but definitely worth getting again.

Their island grogg flavored coffee was great. Lightly creamed and sugared with the underlying flavors coming through well, and the coffee was mild. Usually, flavored coffees aren't worth getting for the same reason LaCroix isn't worth drinking, but this one surprised me. 5/5, definitely getting again some time.

Their Cadbury Cream Egg latte was too sweet for me, but so is the candy. It was spot-on and my girlfriend adored it. 3/5 for me, too sweet. 5/5 for her.

I ordered a shot of espresso to see if they were pulling the same scheme as Starbucks where they cover up awful espresso with too much milk and sugar (try drinking their espresso. You will Gag.), but I was pleasantly surprised. It was bitter and overextracted, but drinkable on its own. It also wasn't burnt. I would guess the barista has some room to learn, which is understandable as we're in the middle of Iowa and we don't have a strong espresso culture. 2/5, didn't make me sick.

Sarah's Espresso Bar seems to be moving for the same niche as Starbucks, but I don't think that's the right play. As a small business, they have much more flexibility than a megacorp, so I think they should use that to improve their food and drink to surpass any other coffee shop around. I believe they can do it by training their staff to cook better and to pull better espresso.

Overall, 3/5. I'll stop back in again for the coffee and the...

Three of us went on Saturday. One cappuccino, one energy drink, and one cold brew. The cold brew was simply undrinkable. I’m not sure if it was the cold brew itself or the syrups that were in it. I had the cappuccino and while not great was not as bad as the cold brew. I tasted the cold brew because if it was at all drinkable, I would’ve drank it and gave the other person my cappuccino. I could not drink it. We go to lots of small town coffee shops here and in the surrounding area. This was by far the worst cold brew I’ve ever had.

So we asked for a different drink and they wanted to charge six something for the second drink when we handed her the full cold brew and why would we want the same drink again?

In all of our dozens of trips to coffee shops, we never once had a drink so bad we could not drink it. Not once.

But to top it off, not to even replace the drink was not great customer service. What would of been great customer service is if the cashier had said oh I’m so sorry what would you like instead? If three different people could not drink the cold brew there was definitely something off… granted it could’ve been the syrups, but it was an undrinkable drink. She did give a discount and charged three dollars for the espresso drink that we got in ...

Had a cold brew taste like chemicals, asked if i could have a new drink, they took the original and charged me for the new one and bad one they took.

Reply: Why would I order the same cold brew again, I then changed to an espresso drink. I also asked for at least 50% off, they did not offer. Even if someone doesn't like a drink, usually an establishment will replace it with something else. Maybe it wasn't the cold brew, maybe it was the syrup tasted odd. I then opted to try your drink advertised instead. Everyone in my party tasted the original drink and gagged. It's funny how you offer to others in the reviews that didn't like they're drinks that they should communicate and you'd be happy to remake a drink so their satisfied but when I did exactly that...