Cultiva Downtown — Restaurant in Lincoln

So I rarely ever give bad reviews especially when it’s a coffee place but this one felt necessary. I’ve been to the downtown location with my family and friends a few times. The food, especially the Dutch boy crepes, are amazing and the coffee ranging from strong and dark to frou Frou and sweet is delicious too, however, during my most recent visit I brought a friend who had never been there before. After leaving he said he felt judged but maybe it was just because the space felt so crammed and clustered. When he said this I realized all of my feelings about this location were justified and validated. Every single time I have been to this location the workers have made me feel like they were annoyed to help me and would rather be anywhere else. From the tone of voice the guy at the register had, to me being unable to finish giving my order before he wanted to move on to the next customer, to the cook behind the other counter’s dirty looks I was left wondering what I had done wrong but after observing the workers for a while I realized it was just their demeanor with seemingly every customer. I’ve been to the East Campus location once with a friend and the two girls working there were so sweet and recommended the house made granola. These two experiences from the downtown and east campus locations were night and day. I will for sure continue going to the east campus location with friends but I’m done going downtown to a place where I feel bizarrely unwelcome (given the no hate and everyone is welcome theme to their decor) when there are so many other great options to meet up for...

My bf and I decided to stop in for a late breakfast at Cultiva. I ordered the Lineman Crepe, and my bf went for the Nor'Easter crepe; both sounded like pretty tasty options.

Aesthetically, the place puts out cool vibes, but these are unfairly overshadowed by the discordant record selection played during our stay. One might say that the sounds being emitted by the speakers were reminiscent of circus music being played by a drunk carnie (lots of aimless organ).

Music aside, for now, we got our food and started eating. After taking two bites of my crepe, I noticed an unnecessary generosity with the hot slop sauce, which tasted like mustard, and sloppy joe. The crepe part was good, the innards were not. I told my bf that he could finish my meal and I headed to the toilet to abort my sloppy joe crepe.

Back to the music--The record finished playing and we both hoped for anything but a continuation of the drunk circus music. What came next was drunk circus music in space.

My bf finished both crepes, not because they were good, but because of fierce hunger. He fared worse than me.

We left Cultiva at that point, but Cultiva did not leave us. We were on our way to meet with family, but had to cancel because of his food poisoning symptoms; his lips turned gray and quivered uncontrollably. A bathroom was urgently procured.

tl;dr - The crepes gave us food poisoning, music probably made the poisoning worse, staff was nice and cold...

I've been a regular customer of Cultiva for years and could easily write a glowing review about their meticulously brewed coffee, well crafted drinks, or delicious made to order food. A couple friends of mine recently moved to town, and it was the first place I recommended they go. Lately, however, I've been incredibly impressed with the care they have taken to keep their staff and customers safe during the pandemic.

I've been avoiding going in to most restaurants or cafes during this whole thing, but finally broke down and went in to Cultiva for a coffee and a salad and was pleasantly surprised at how safe the whole thing felt. The floor had well established markers about where to line-up and where to wait for your food/drinks, the entire set up of condiments and drink mixins had been renegotiated to make it user friendly with the least amount of contact possible, and all the while the staff went out of their way to still be welcoming and friendly despite the weird circumstances.

I also appreciated the commitment to carry out, as I would have felt FAR less comfortable standing around and waiting for my food if folks were seated next to me, mask-less while eating and in close proximity to the line.

It'd been about 5 months since I'd been in but now that I've seen the measures they've taken to take this whole thing seriously, I'll definitely be back. The coffee and food were amazing as always, and I would recommend...