Calders Coffee Cafe — Restaurant in Highlands

Disappointed. We love Highlands, it’s our local go to spot for a day trip from Atlanta. We’ve been coming to this coffee shop for years and we’ve always been satisfied with their service and coffee. We have not been here for the past year due to the weather and now the pandemic. Our last visit was when it was called “Bucks.” Our most recent visit this past weekend we found out it’s called “Calders.” So naturally we decided to give it a try.

No need to mention the appearance, they obviously made some improvements but we were not allowed indoor seating due to COVID, we totally understand.

Our disappointment came from the two things I mentioned earlier; service and coffee. The young lady who took our order seemed to be bothered to take our order as if we were bothering her. It appeared that she just didn’t want to be there, I get it, sometimes I feel that way too however, customers should still be greeted with a smile and ensure their order is correct. That didn’t happen. Our 2 coffees were wrong and they both tasted nasty. We ended up throwing them out. We also ordered 2 muffins, both were served cold and we were not asked if we wanted them warmed up.

Since there’s no indoor seating, we had to take our coffee and muffins 2 blocks to find a place to sit. Once we discovered our order was wrong and nasty, we did not go back. We simply threw it all out. To say it left a bad taste in our mouth was an understatement.

I not saying don’t go here or that this place sucks, maybe our bad experience was just a rare fluke. I’m willing to try again, but it might be a while before we come back. I...

Unfortunately I had a terrible experience at this coffee shop today. I have been here before and it was good service but today the service was awful. The lady making food with glasses maybe a manager was very rude. I asked for a dirty chai with powder which I have been served before with no problems and the cashier was going to make it. But the lady in glasses chimed in and said no we won’t give it to you unless you order an iced drink. I asked if I could just get a latte with a scoop of chai and I would happily stir it and the cashier again was happy to help but the lady in glasses said no we won’t do that. I would have been happy to stir the latte myself and take the chai just scooped on top. When making flavored lattes that’s usually what a barista does add espresso, steamed milk, and than flavoring, so i was also confused that she wouldn’t allow this to be done. Also I wasn’t difficult I didn’t demanded anything I just requested a chai because I think it’s delicious this way, I quickly picked a different latte choice but the lady with glasses was short, rude, and impatient. She did not seem to enjoy working with customers or wanting them to be happy, she didn’t even apologize she was just mean. I was surprised that there was someone so grumpy that doesn’t like working with customers to be working in this position. If she had been kind to me I wouldn’t even have wrote a poor review I just would have chosen the other latte and gone one with my day but her attitude really left a...

I’ll start with the cold brew is smooth and tasted good and the service is fast. There are nice gifts and artwork as well. The cold brew was quite expensive ($6!) but at least it was good for the inflated price.

There is a back patio that is nice as well.

The back room is nice for extra seating whether you are meeting someone or working on a laptop. However, if you’re planning on spending time there, one glaring thing is the staff seemed quite unaware with how much noise they made or just simply didn’t care. From loudly dragging around chairs while people are right next to them or coming in/out of the employee door several times a minute and the door slamming hard each time, it was overall disruptive to conversation and concentration. I frequent coffee shops around the country and I’ve never experienced something to this level of blatant disruption and indifference toward the paying patrons around them by the staff.

Of course employees should be able to work and do what they need to do, so this could be easily remedied by management by putting inexpensive pads on the bottom of the chairs and a soft close on the employee doors. I hope they consider this for the future as it took what could’ve been a good coffee shop experience to a...