Wired Coffee Bar — Restaurant in Collegedale

Edit: Love the owner's response! They are doubling down on their behavior being acceptable. And now some lies around reviewed "footage".

Prove it, post the footage showing me leaving and then 10ish minutes I was in my car in the parking lot after until I drive away. You'll see the owner come to my car, and then me drive away shortly after. Post it, and I'll make a very generous donation to a charity if your choice in Wire Coffee's name. If not? Stop making yourself and your business look even worse by now calling me a liar

I've left 100+ reviews. Most great, some bad, dozens of owners comments on the good and bad, none who have ever stooped so low.

THEY FOLLOWED ME INTO THE PARKING LOT to curse at and confront me in my car. After making zero attempts to inform of their location's policies while there for ~3 hours, zero postings in the location about the use of their space. Etc, not like they were busy.

If you think someone is being rude, in no way is it accept to harass them in your parking lot. Shame on you, the community deserves better. Especially when you didn't say a word to me when I was inside.

Extremely disappointing and nerve-wracking experience. You read that right, nerve-wracking experience from a Coffee Shop.

I visited Wired Coffee in Ooltewah on the morning of April 16, 2024, planning to work there for a few hours while my neighborhood was experiencing a scheduled power outage.

I arrived around 8:45 AM. The coffee bar was completely empty, so I quietly took a seat near the wall. All tables were occupied by others, some of whom didn’t appear to have purchased anything either. The food options were minimal, just a small egg/bacon cup for $6 or pastries, neither of which were what I was looking for, so I held off in hopes they’d have different, more health conscious options around lunch. They didn’t.

I stayed for about three hours, quietly working, bothering no one. No one approached me or asked me anything during that time. When I packed up to leave, the barista (who I believe may be the owner) wished me a good day and I stepped outside to my car to wait for a phone call before driving off.

That’s when things took an unexpected and unpleasant turn.

As I sat in my parked car, the same barista came outside, approached my vehicle, and very aggressively told me that what I had done was “rude” (though they had a choice word in front of that), that they would expect this behavior from "kids who don't know better" and "not to come back".

At no point was I asked if I planned to order. No sign was posted about time limits or purchase requirements. There were still seats available when I left. And I was far from the only person there without visible food or drink.

Had they told me the lobby was for customers only, I would have respected it, but instead, I was approached WHILE INSIDE MY CAR and spoken to in an unnecessarily...

I am very concerned with the staff and how they treat people who call with an issue or who come there and do not meet their expectations as a customer. No, I think it is the other way around. Establishments should be expected to treat people, their customers (their community) with kindness no matter what. They are the professionals. There is a right way to handle something and a wrong way and they definitely chose the wrong way. I am embarrassed for the leadership of this so called business. What happened to kindness and good customer service? A manager of an establishment is a representation of the business owners and their practices and this specific male manager “Dan” doesn’t have the capacity to handle the easiest of situations with kindness. I do not think he should have the responsibility of this role. I am a concerned parent. This facility is inviting students to come study there with no policy of, “buy something or leave” and then being undoubtedly rude, with a high school female student and causing a scene in the entire place and causing her to cry and be so distraught. If a business is strictly open with the policy to only provide them profit so they can pay rent, then they should not be acting as if they are apart of that community and for that community. This is just a business and they will probably not last long term with this view and this way of treating people within their community. I think “Dan” needs to be re-trained on how to handle managerial duties in a kind way and he would probably go a lot farther in life. My daughter was not given options, the manager was berating and bullying her and he demanded she leave, she was not given options. Adults should use kindness and not assume bad intent when approaching youth especially when running a business (what I’m assuming the manager is and the owners of the establishment are, is adults) I’m not complaining about my daughter not being able to bring outside food or drinks in, I’m shocked at how she was treated for it. It was disgusting behavior. Then when my husband and I called concerned about what happened we were treated poorly over the phone by the same manager. He has no customer service skills and you are the owner condoning his behavior and that is shocking. I would recommend the first step you take is posting a sign No loitering and no outside food or drink allowed. Add it to a policy that’s attached to your website and also maybe revise your website not inviting students to come hang out there and study with friends, unless they’re are paying for their use of your services provided. Because being a coffee shop, people are going to assume they can come and just hang out and open their laptop and possibly not purchase something right away, possibly for hours. So, if you have certain expectations, you need to be advertising that not...

Wired is a 'sometimes' coffee shop.

Sometimes the staff really friendly and welcoming, and other times the baristas are clearly annoyed that they're having to look at you. Sometimes they can tell you the difference between their Ethiopian blend and their Dancing Goats, sometimes they're not sure what they're serving that day. Sometimes the coffee is served well, and sometimes it's off - both lattes and blacks. One day a barista will make me a latte with a beautiful rosseta, and the next day another barista will thoroughly burn a chai tea latte.

They don't serve any signature drinks, or specialty items of a sort that you wouldn't find elsewhere. The coffee is only marginally better than what they serve at Starbucks, with whom they share a suspiciously similar lemon loaf. It's a boring generic coffee shop, and I think it's likely to remain that way until some competition comes along.

Also for some strange reason they don't serve espresso in their iced lattes, instead choosing to use cold brew. They claim it's the same thing, but there's a VERY clear taste difference. If you request the espresso instead they'll charge you for it, so a normal iced lattes jumps from $4 to about $7.

There isn't much of a parking lot unless you park in the painting company's lot next door (they don't seem to be happy about people doing so) and most days the shop is crowded by the local university and high school students so getting a seat is a challenge. To the owner's credit: they seemed to be working on adding some extra bar space.

The bathrooms are usually clean, and there's never a terrible wait. The booths are uncomfortable, and a lot of the tables require a lot of paper towel padding to get the them to stop wobbling.

Overall the experience is lacking, especially in consistency. For now, Wired is the only local option, and until something better comes along or there's more improvement, my friends and I try to go elsewhere.

Update 2/16/19: I can't say the service has changed much. I dropped in today and the (what I now consider) normal experience with the baristas here. The younger guy at the counter scowled at me while he took my order and gave me attitude when he didn't understand what I said, rather than just kindly asking me to repeat my question, then went back to staring at his phone at the far end of the counter and not really doing much else, while the girl there with him made my drink and then walked it out with a smile. My original criticisms still stand, it's a mixed bag every time I...