Cafe 53 — Restaurant in Hyde Park Township

Food: 6.5/10 I love the variety of options this place has. Lots of toppings and bread options.

I wanted a falafel sandwich but after they refused to change the bread option, I had to settle for a different one. This soured my experience because every sandwich has the option to change the bread, but they said the owner doesn’t allow the falafel to be changed & they don’t offer falafel as an add-on.

I had the artichoke zucchini on Dutch Crunch bread and added avocado for an additional $2.75. The bread was sweet but had a great texture & the sandwich size was reasonable. I did find that it was lacking in flavor even with the that came sauce on the sandwich.

Service: 5/10 Not much to be said about the service. The workers were pleasant enough. You order at the counter and pick a place to sit. I will say that the owner’s pride about the falafel being in a wrap was confusing for me, being that every sandwich on the menu had the option for a bread change.

Atmosphere: 4/10 it’s a really small spot with limited seating. 90% of the seating was taken up by people conducting business on laptops, so we didn’t have the option to sit in. The ordering area is also pretty small and uncomfortable.

All in all, I probably wouldn’t return but I wouldn’t discourage others...

In 2019 I came into this restaurant to get a vegan buffalo chicken sandwich. I placed my order, paid, & sat at a table near by the counter as I waited for my order. I was served by a woman around my age presumably (early twenties) however an older man then questioned me aggressively. Although there was a line he told me I should come up to the counter. He aggressively asked me what I wanted. I told him the order I had placed. He tried to get the woman to stop the order she was placing to put mine in but she informed him she already did. He told me to wait there and he went to get my order. I was confused as to why he wasn’t giving it to me only to discover he assumed I hadn’t already paid but she told him I had. He then gave me my order and told me to leave. I was very embarrassed. On lookers questioned why he was treating me that way from the very moment he told me to come up to the counter. I had placed orders via DoorDash before but that was my first time coming in myself. 4 years later and I still think about how embarrassed I felt that day. I never shopped here again although I had ordered several times via DoorDash and I never would. I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant if it was the only one for 50 miles....

I initially came here for the great reviews both on Google and Yelp. However, after patronizing this place five different times, I cannot understand why the reviews are so good. I've gotten consistently poor service from forgetting to bring me my order to not being able to ring me up to not knowing anything about the menu items. On my first visit I ordered the sumac chicken sandwich which is supposedly their most popular item. The chicken was so dry I couldn't finish eating even though I was still hungry. I have also tried their baked goods, and it seems like sometimes they are over a day old but still being sold in the case. One time I asked them to warm up a brownie for me and I assume they did so but then forgot about it for so long that when they served it to me it was room temperature. The only reason I kept coming back is that it was close to where I was staying, but now I'd rather gamble losing my parking spot and drive to another neighborhood just to find a decent coffee and pastry. As for entrees, I won't be going...