Happy Place Coffee & Eats — Restaurant in Dale City

Edit: here’s the email I sent you back in June, since you never responded. Here it is:

I received horrid service for food last time. We were overcharged and didn’t receive a lot of the ingredients we paid for. I sent a message previously and also left a review. I’m not sure what else to do. I love your shop.

Here’s the message I left in June

I frequent your coffee shop for delicious coffee and yogurt with fruit. Today I brought my family with me and we spend $95 before tip and $15 tip on our order.

We are very dissatisfied with the way our food order was handled. I understand the menu is new and we love your restaurant. However. My coffee order came with syrup and I am allergic to sugar. My fruit yogurt was not plain greek yogurt but sweetened greek yogurt. I ordered a Southwestern Salad and it came with NO avocado, corn, no tomato, to beans, no green beans. It was just a ceasar salad with tortilla chips and chicken... and for some reason bleu cheese? They later explained that they were out of a lot of the ingredients. But I wish they told me at the beginning. I would pick something different. It took AN HOUR for me to get my salad and it was still missing 50% of the ingredients, so I just took it to go. My mother in law ordered a cobb salad and it was missing bacon and had ZERO dressing. They just brought mustard on the side for her. Not Honey Mustard sauce, but just plain mustard. People who made the food, had no idea what they were doing. We also paid EXTRA for bacon and they told us they were out of bacon AFTER we paid. My husband asked for everything bagel but received a plain bagel. We didn't even bother saying something at this point.

I am fine with new restaurants not having everything figured out. the coffee is delicious I should absolutely not have to pay for product I do not receive. I feel that kitchen did not communicate with the front of the house about missing food. 4 .for $100 i could have eaten anywhere else and actually be able to eat. I am still hungry because I had to leave after an hour and I did not have my salad until after an hour of waiting.

This is unacceptable. If the kitchen is not ready, they should not be taking orders. If there are ingredients missing - please tell people so they can choose something else from the menu and not overpay for the food they don't receive.

Bottom line: I support your local business and I will keep coming back. I do expect a refund or a gift card. I hope you understand my concerns about spending this much money and not at all receiving the food I expected. I did not leave a bad review on Google and I don't plan on doing so. Hopefully we can reach a resolution. Thank you.

Please check your email. I tried sending you a private message and not post a bad review. The kitchen isn’t ready and I don’t feel comfortable being charged for food that you’re out of! The kitchen needs to communicate with the front...

Woodbridge needed something different and fresh! Welcome, Happy Place, I'm so glad you're here :) I've been here twice - the first time I stopped by out of curiosity and ordered an "iced chai frappe" to go and the second time was yesterday, when I brought my laptop to get some work done. Yesterday's experience gave me a better feel for the place, the foot traffic and the service.

Here are my suggestions to the owners:

Greet every single customer who walks in the door. I sat for over 20 minutes before I saw the owners/staff. No one said, "Welcome in!" or even acknowledged my presence. I thought they might have been working in the back behind the closed personnel door, and it wasn't until a customer walked to the counter to order that I realized an owner had been sitting a few tables down the entire time.

Customer service is essential to longevity, especially as the novelty of the cafe wears off. I understand needing to step away for a few moments, but leaving the front unattended for over 20 minutes isn't a good idea - people will walk in and walk right back out and head to a place where they're warmly welcomed upon entry.

*I am speaking solely from my experience as I did see both owners engage with people who appeared to be "regulars" and they were VERY engaged with customers who spoke their language.

Provide education on your drinks (social media is a great place to do this, too!). I ordered the same drink twice and it was different the second time. As the owners, it's your responsibility to maintain consistency, clearly explain the drinks to manage expectations and communicate with each other to ensure the drinks are actually the correct drinks. Do not place that responsibility on the customer. The names of the many of your drinks are not "mainstream," so education will be a key element of customer service.

In my case, I returned the drink only to watch an owner add more milk, which would only dilute the taste. His attitude was that of 'you messed up, take what you get and ask correctly the next time.' No.

In the end, I spoke directly to the other owner and asked her to make it (which she could have done all along when I mentioned how she made it the first time...) and I did walk out with the correct version of my drink.

There are many reviews on the taste of the drinks and I want to note that this may be a cultural difference in taste. My chai was not as sweet/flavored as Starbucks or other shops and that could be a good thing!! It could mean there's less sugar in it :) I've had this experience in traveling abroad where I was expecting to get blasted with the same sugar content in the states and was underwhelmed by the subtle flavors.

Overall, I believe this cafe has great potential and I wish them...

I went tonight with two friends, they got a macchiato and a latte. I got an arroz con leche. The place is super cute! So cozy. The arroz con leche had no flavor unfortunately. It was just creamy cold rice basically. I have had a lot of arroz con leche in my life, I'm not huge on sweets but some sweetness is required for some good arroz con leche. Had my buddy try some, he said it didn't have any flavor either. I was really hesitant to ask for a refund, but it was 6$ for something I barely touched and definitely wasn't going to eat.

Anyway, I asked for a refund, the guy at the register was ok with refunding me. He later came by and said he would try a cup himself to see how it tastes since I mentioned it had no flavor. I was like ok yea good idea. 👍

He then stood behind the counter as he ate some and told me that it was sweet. In fact, too sweet for him. I said ok that's good 👍

He went on to repeat himself and say yea it's good, it's sweet. Too sweet for him. I said ok that's good, it didn't taste sweet at all to me, or my buddy who tried it either. At this point I was uncomfortable.

I was already hesitant to ask for a refund because I usually don't do that, but in this case I really didn't want to just throw 6$ away on a flavorless cup of rice I wasn't going to eat. He made me feel uncomfortable, as if he was trying to prove me wrong or something. I'm not lying about the flavor, it really tasted like nothing.

He went on again though, told me "if you don't like it that's fine but the rice pudding is sweet." ...ok...

Genuinely just a strange experience. I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings, but I was being honest, it was bland arroz con leche. Please don't try to confront customers like that again - it was uncomfortable and awkward! Why are you making me argue with you about the flavor! I had another person try it and they also said it tasted like nothing, I'm sorry if it hurt to hear. Even though the coffee was delicious, I don't think I'll be...