Barista Alley — Restaurant in Greer

Barista Alley bills itself as a specialty coffee shop, and I'm reviewing it as such. If you're looking for Starbucks, I suggest going to Starbucks, but if what you're looking for is a quaint, chic location with carefully curated ingredients and equally carefully assembled coffee drinks, check out Barista Alley.

The most notable thing to me was a distinct lack of menu. This sounds like a bad thing, but when a place cares so much about quality they even make their own flavoring syrups (well, most of them), there's bound to be fewer options. If you know a thing or two about how chemical, processed, and generally awful for you most flavorings are, this is a definite plus. There are some fresh pastries available, but this isn’t a food location as far as I can tell. If you’re looking for a breakfast sandwich with your coffee, you might be out of luck.

I ordered a latte, though drip, espresso, and chai are available in several flavors (hot or cold) including mocha, lavender, simple syrup, and I'm at a loss for the other two, but I had a mocha latte, made with whole unpasteurized farm-fresh milk and it was delicious. Craving-worthy, really. I'm sure at some future point I'm going to want to have another and will make the trip over here to quench that thirst.

If you have a minute, ask for the run-down on this new spot. You will miss out otherwise on how local the ingredients and pastries are otherwise. If this doesn't matter to you, again, you might be in the wrong place. You might not fully appreciate the image this friendly café is working on.

The staff is beyond helpful. They will explain to you in full anything you want to know about the place with apparent pride. This is a clean, adorable space that feels a bit Spartan, but I kind of like that about it.

Truth be told, I came here in the hopes of caffeinating and finishing final revisions on my next novel, which brings me to the only negative. Noise. I was the only person here upon arrival, but even as such there’s some truly enjoyable music playing on a record player of all things. How cool is that? Well, if I were here to simply relax in the café, I’d have easily done so and the music would have been a perk instead of a distraction. If you’re looking for a quiet work space, bring headphones. As several more people filed in, talking among themselves and on cell phones, it became harder to concentrate. Honestly, this is nothing to do with the café, but feels worth mentioning for other art types who seek sanctuary outside of home and are noise-sensitive. I’m told this was not a busy day.

I didn’t get the work done I had hoped to, but I had a good experience at a place I’m glad to go back to when I’m not operating...

To those in a rush, I suggest don’t stop at your local coffee shop, but get your generic coffee at the next best drive-through. If on the other hand you are searching for a place that will craft a truly delicious coffee for you, and especially if you want to relax and enjoy this coffee, then look no further.

Barista Alley is a promising new addition to downtown Greer, with a nice, open and welcoming atmosphere. Service was prompt, friendly and very attentive. My latte was delicious, prepared with great care, and a feast for the senses.

As a business it is important to clearly define what you are and what you are not. You can be a great coffee shop, but maybe you are not a bistro. You may serve wonderful delicious treats to go with the coffee you serve, but perhaps you are not a health food store.

My suggestions to Barista Alley:

Keep on doing what you are doing, while carefully refining what makes you special and unique. You can’t please everyone, and you can’t be everything. Focus on the things that you know you can deliver at the highest quality. Take great care in training your staff, empower them, pay them well, and praise them for a job well done. Communicate proactively with your customer at the point of sale. For example: “We will prepare your order from scratch and will bring it to your seat in about x minutes.”

Greer has residents from many parts of the world. If you find employees who want to work on Sunday mornings, consider to open at 9am or 10am on Sundays. Not everyone wants to wait until lunch time to wake up. :)

From time to time, you will get a less than stellar review. If you do, keep your reply simple. It’s perfectly fine to communicate your willingness to take the feedback into consideration, or to invite the customer back. Stay away from judging the feedback, and from elaborating on whether you think the feedback was fair or justified. Simply accept it, learn from it, and continue to serve great coffee.

I very much enjoyed my relaxing stay at Barista Alley and will be...

I am downgrading my prior 5 star review to a 2 star due to our awful experience today. I would have actually downgraded to a 1star had I not sought out the manager, who at least seemed to understand why I would be frustrated with the fact that my four year old still didn't have any food 20 minutes after mine was delivered to the table, in spite of me getting up from the table and asking 3 different staff members for my child's 1 egg scrambled with cheese. The lack of care and concern for customer service from each staff member is astounding; They didn't even attempt to remedy the situation. Instead, shrugging and saying 'I'm sorry' in a manner that conveyed anything but sorrow. Then, that same employee looked at another, who then shook her head and laughed at my frustration that my child didn't have any food. When the manager finally brought her egg, it was sunny side up with course cracked pepper sprinkled over the top, as opposed to the scrambled with cheese that was requested. She's 4. When we tried to gently scrape the pepper off, the yolk popped. She was so hungry that she ate the egg, gulping her milk between each bite because the pepper was too hot for her little mouth. I almost forgot to include the fact that my husbands food had to be returned as well, and I was advised that it would take 35 minutes to re-make it. The manager gave me a $20 gift card for our trouble as we did not have 35 more minutes to wait. The gift card is appreciated, however, I doubt we'll ever return to use it. After we left, we realized that we also never received the cookie that we ordered. We try to frequent local small businesses to benefit the local economy, but this one definitely needs to retrain their staff to be empathetic when food that's been paid for is not ready in a timely manner and to enable them to act to remedy...