Suju's Coffee & Tea — Restaurant in Fremont

I really dont liek leaving negative reviews, but this place has lost its tough. They have serious training issues. I been coming here since they opened. I dont expect much, coffee, a treat like a pastry warmed up, or on hot days one of their iced teas.

Last week we came in to get a cappuccino, a drip coffee, an almond coissant and a regular criossant warmed up. Not askign too much. The poor girl at the counter was flummoxed by all the orders. I overheard one of the other order takers ask whos training her. Her reply was "No one" So This is a training issue more than anything. The staff is generally pretty friendly except for miss attitude at the espresso machine. Shes working hard too, no real help, so this is nothing too personal.

So the drip coffee was totally forgotten about, as were the pastries. I took them to the table to my wife. She asked why hers was not warmed up. I felt the bag and cold. So I took them back. Another girl took them and just sent them on the counter in the back as if they would eventually warm themselves up. Apparently the pastry person disappeared so, once she realized it, she took them to warm them up in that oven. She was nice, just overloaded. Since this was morning rush time it took a bit more time. Bu by this time, we were in there almost 25 minutes. For a coffee and a pastry. We had appointments too. But when I received my pastries, I realized I have been given a chocolate croissant instead of a plain one. I cany eat chocolate so I just pouted. No I didn't demand a replacement. My wife got the treat.

In meantime, I went over to the espresso counter and waited patiently for my drink. The girl had mixed up the tickets somehow for man people in line behind me had already left. She worked on it once I brought t to her attention. However instead of giving m a cappuccino, I got a latte. It seems she makes whatever she wants. Being a coffee snob for longer than she has been alive, I know how a cap weighs just by picking it up. It was good, just a latte, no a cap. But again, she was overloaded with a huge drink line so I sucked up.

So you may ask, if I sucked it up and did not demand a replacement pastry, why am I making this entry? I thin the staff there works their asses off, I get it. I'm not going all Karen on them, really. This is training, not much more and that's a management issue. For the young lady at the espresso machine, maybe she was just overworked, but she gave me the impression she'd rather not be there, or don't like people, or maybe just me. But I got a negative vibe off her when Im probably one of the most understanding. I saw her busting butt. But to not know the difference between a latte and a cappuccino when its a premium drink, that's coffee making training. She can work he machine, but ratios matter otherwise they would not have tow different drinks with different prices, right?

Room to improve....

My wife and I went to the Stevenson Location at 6:40am when they opened at 6. There was an employee sweeping with earbuds in at the entrance and received no greeting. The cashier just stared at us not saying anything, we took less then a minute to look at the menu seeing as we only order espresso shots and as we start to approach the register and regular guest walk in and the cashier says to us "I'm going to help him first since her knows what he wants" and we chose to not cause issues so we let the gentleman go first . Then our turn the whole interaction the cashier was very rude and condescending and you could tell she didn't want to serve us , there was only 1bagel in the display window so when I ordered a bagel with cream cheese she rolled her eyes and stated "that's the only 1 I have" and I said it's fine. We received our espresso shots in less than 2 minutes by the barista but the cashier prepared our bagel and literally took 8 minutes to toast a bagel and put cream cheese on it. It wasn't even toasted it was put in the microwave! After about 5 minutes I asked the barista about our bagel and she looked at me annoyed and replied with "it's in the toaster" to which I asked if it always takes this long and she rolled her eyes said yes and walked away. Then proceeded with to tell the cashier as they look at the time and shrugged. When the bagel was finally ready the cashier threw my bag on the counter and walked away. Needless to say customer service is not their focus. Very disappointed. This is why we go...

What we ordered: An iced green tea (unsweetened), and a hot chamomile tea. What we got: Some sort of weird syrupy(?) chamomile latte, and a iced matcha latte. The matcha was for my partner, and when he asked (somewhat concerned) whether it had sweetener in it, the barista lied and said that the matcha powder tasted a bit sweet but didn't have sugar in it. It wasn't until he was partway through the drink that he realized this couldn't be true. Returning to the counter, we pointed this out, and the barista outright argued with us before finally admitting that there was sugar in the powder. She then insisted that there was "nothing we could do" and refused to replace either of our drinks As he is diabetic, the sugar thing is more than just an aesthetic issue. Messing up a drink is one thing, I can deal with that. But lying, and refusing to make up for a mistake? That's a shame, because we live round the corner and have visited often. While it was never great coffee as such, the atmosphere was nice and we liked that they had long hours. But if we can't trust that what we order is what we'll get, even after having been forced to outright confront the person who made it, we obviously can't come...