Press Cafe — Restaurant in City of Ithaca

[Experienced Racial Profiling and Discrimination] I wish I never stepped foot in this cafe! I was initially excited to try this spot out, so a friend and I came to study there. We sat down and caught up for a few minutes. She got up and ordered first as I sat thinking about what I was going to get. Upon my friends return, the barista (White man) came up to me and told me (Black women) I need to immediately get up and buy something or leave because I was taking up a seat at a table that could be used for a potential customer. I was shocked! There were multiple available seats left and not even a line of people ordering or looking for a spot. It seemed to be a slow moment as the cafe was almost empty. Moreover, it was not like I was there for a long time it was within the first couple of minutes of my arrival, I was treated this way as if I was not a potential customer. I felt so embarrassed and despite all of that bought a coffee anyway as to not to cause even more of a scene in front of my friend. The assumption that I was not going to patronize this establishment anyway was harmful and to have someone raise their voice with an ultimatum of immediately buying something or leave was completely unprofessional and bad business. I will never go there again and advice others to spend there money elsewhere at a place that is more inclusive, kind, and welcoming!!! 0/10 Do not...

Horrible service, not my first time here. After reading other reviews, it seems to be common for both baristas to be rude, impersonal and seem to be annoyed by customers’ presence. I told my friend who I was with that maybe they do it on purpose to give the shop “a flair”. The place is very cute but small which is why they rented out the place next door for more seating. I will not come back due to the poor service from both baristas, hopefully they improve it and are nice to everyone.

Edit: After seeing the reply someone from their team wrote back to me, I had to lower to 1 star since I can’t do 0 stars. Truly unacceptable, clearly they don’t care about making things right and fixing their image. Claiming that I am trolling them and that I am the problem is the worst a business could do. Instead, they should apologize and offer correcting this behavior among their baristas like they did with another review. To their reply, there was a male-presenting barista and then a female-presenting barista came on and then the male-presenting barista left his shift, so in fact there were 2 baristas for a second. Happy to not be back to a place with rude staff and from what I can see in other reviews they have also been unpleasant to...

I have no doubt you will receive a tasty and quality espresso-based drink when you visit here. When the weather is nice, and the large overhead door is open, you cannot beat the ambiance of Press Bay Alley.

I have oftentimes, however, found the service to be impersonal: no eye contact, no smiles, and more than once my finished drink was put up on the counter without the barista announcing it -- which is common courtesy in most coffee shops.

Finally, the cafe is very small, as well as the tables and chairs being petite. For this reason, it's a decent place to sit with a phone, a book, or to have a conversation with a friend, but it's not suitable as a space to get work done with a laptop or to sit with a...