Café Demetrio — Restaurant in Coral Gables

Disappointed by Nickel and Diming. We were eager to try this place and there were 3 of us for breakfast and each person ordered a full platter and coffees. You order and pay at the counter and the food is brought to your table. There must have been a miscommunication during ordering and instead of a latte, a regular coffee was ordered and paid for one of us. A simple mistake and easily corrected. At least you would think so when you mention it to the food runners (yes, there was more than one person it was mentioned to). The problem is they don't understand English very well. So after half-way through our breakfast, we mention it again and then one of us has to go up to request the latte. After almost finishing our meals, the latte finally comes. We assume it was going to be a wash on the price difference since the error was on their side and it took so long to get the latte. But as we are leaving, I am presented a bill for the latte. Fine, that's fair. But if I'm going to pay for the latte ($5.25), I want credit for the erroneous coffee ($2.95). So I talk to the original order taker who then has to explain it to the manager. She actually asked if we drank the regular coffee (as if you could serve it to someone else), to which I said no. So I went ahead and paid the difference of $2.30+tax. Again, paying is not the issue. But here's the thing, we just dropped $70+tip on breakfast for 3 people. Most places would have said "don't worry about it" because the reality is that $2.30+tax isn't worth the time or trouble to ring it up. And did I mention we spent $70+tip on breakfast? The only reason it gets 2 stars is because the food was decent for Coral Gables prices. But moving forward, don't expect us or anyone we know to patronize this place that will Nickel and Dime you. You should teach your staff and managers to love your customers better. Bad form,...

I really don’t know whats going on with this place lately, but the last three times we’ve gone, it has gradually been worse with each experience. I’m sad to say Cafe Demetrio have lost a few customers after today’s encounter. Consistency is key to a successful business and this place keeps striking out. The first two times we visited here were amazing. When I say amazing I mean 10/10. Each time after has been hit or miss and we have kept holding on to receiving the wonderful food and coffee we enjoyed so much, but standards have failed to be met. We really don’t understand why.

The customer service is really bad (negligent, even). Every time we order the same coffee, one barista does this, another does that, one forgets this, it tastes ok this time, horrible the next time. Today my caramel and salt was missing on a CARAMEL latte (also not the first time I’ve needed to ask for it, either), and it tasted thrown together. We ordered empanadas and they were awful. Soggy, bland, and the filling tasted like it was leftover. Not only that, we called and ordered ahead because we know the wait time can take awhile. We were told our order would be ready in 10 minutes. 25 minutes later, we get horrible coffee and disgusting food. Two of the empanadas we ordered we were told weren’t available (which should have been discussed before placing our order when we asked which ones were available). These situations have been happening with each visit. All around, today really just sealed the deal with everything with this place. I had the best cup of coffee here and always looked forward to coming here when visiting coral gables. I don’t know if it’s new management or drastic change of staff, but this place is too inconsistent for the prices we are willing to pay anymore when there’s 100s of restaurants and cafes in the area. $35 for two lousy coffees and...

As a Miami native I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I have not been to Coral Gables first coffee house until now, but what an absolute experience it was.

There's very few Saturday mornings that compare to the time here, we absolutely loved our time at Café Demetrio. They absolutely nailed the atmosphere of being built around the Gables first newspaper and the European 18th century coffee houses.

The classic and cinnamon toast latte were really nice, delicate flavors it taste exactly as you'd expect. The food? Incredible. I wasn't expecting the monte cristo sandwich to be such a decadent, fruit filled sandwich but I still enjoyed every bite of it.

The classic sandwich is the highlight to me, it was the first time I've ever experienced such a nostalgic bite of food in my life. I bit into the sandwich and it IMMEIDTATELY transported me to the childhood mornings were my family would bring a fresh loaf from those vacita farm stores and we'd enjoy using it to make our selves a little breakfast sandwich and talk as a family out in the patio.

Cafe Demetrio perfectly blends Cuban heritage with European influence just like the rest of the gables and it is absolutely incredible, this is Miami. This is worth the stop for natives and tourist alike, just take it slow and enjoy...