Café 2001 — Restaurant in Los Angeles

Not a lot of seating. Server kicked me and my friends out saying they needed to wipe down the table to prepare for happy hour service. It was around 5pm and happy hour started at 4pm, so I am assuming they were stressed that no one was sitting down for happy hour since there was no seating available, which is fair, but I would have appreciated it if they requested politely instead of forcing us out. If you go, go in the morning / early afternoon because they will kick you out. It’s like Russian roulette in this establishment. They could have asked the other tables if they were interested in leaving. I am assuming they picked our table since we were chatting at the time while the other tables had their laptops out, but singling us out was weird and rude and honestly could offend some people. We had not even been there for an hour.

Around ten minutes before this interaction, a different server had come by, saying it was about to get “crazy” because of happy hour, basically trying to make us leave in a passive aggressive way. Ironically, we went to a dinner spot nearby after getting kicked out and came back to the cafe an hour later to find that the place was mostly empty. So much for preparing tables for your happy hour. Good plan to kick us out, good execution, but where is the business? Where are the customers you were so confident were coming that you had to force us out in the middle of a great conversation?

So to management, first I do not think the whole cafe - happy hour business idea is a good one. It’s awkward and contrived. Focus on one; you do not have the space for both. You are doing too much and over-complicating your business model. Coffee customers are not going stay for happy hour and vice versa. With those large tables on the first floor and the smaller ones on the second floor, you are catering to people who study for a few hours at a time, not to those who are chatting, reading a book, or otherwise enjoying the environment and relaxing. What makes you think people are going to finish studying and want to stay for happy hour? It’s two different demographics.

Happy hour is more profitable but you need more space, honestly a nicer environment, and better food to attract repeat customers and it is harder to pull off. Focusing on satisfying the coffee shop studying crowd is what I think you should focus on given your space constraints and the furniture and overall ambience / feel that you selected and curated. Also train your servers to be more polite - you’re in the service business -...

I work close by, and there’s a coffee shop next to my job that was never open! Today on a hot morning , I was really craving iced coffee and a sandwich. Starbucks!? No where near by. So I put coffee in my google maps and it brings me to this adorable hole in the wall cafe , that is blasting classical music. (Okay blasting is an exaggeration) but once I stepped inside I felt like I was back in manhattan. I felt like wow I’m back in New York City with all my rich friends (sugar daddys). Haha! & I spent $20 + $2 tip. (I would have spent the same at Starbucks for a lower quality meal that’s for sure)

I wish I took a picture of my avocado toast & listen avocado toast is already an investment bc you never really know who’s going to make it bomb….& they made it bomb!!

Quickly let me mention, I forgot I paid the extra $3 for a fried egg and they caught it right away!! There’s no way this place has low reviews, you’d really have to appreciate an ambiance like this. It’s unique, the food is SAVORY - like wow I was super impressed with the balanced seasoning.

I just got a simple iced coffee w oat milk to hit the spot. I pray that God keeps blessing this cafe with more customers and light because …I believe they deserve...

TLDR; The food was underwhelming in flavor and portion.

Order: egg salad sandwich ($11), pork katsu ($14) ricotta toast ($14)

Thoughts: The portions did not equate to the price you’re paying. The egg salad sandwich and pork katsu were trying to give Konbi sandwiches (iykyk), but were a total miss. The egg salad lacked seasoning and was the size of a snack. The pork katsu was better in portion and flavor, but difficult to eat since the pork cut was too thick to cleanly bite into and the over saucing made it difficult to eat. The bread was sliding everywhere. They didn’t even try with the ricotta toast. Same situation, lack of flavor and was underwhelming.

The space is cool, but deceptively small. There’s a second floor, but there’s not that many tables up there too. Expect to wait a bit for a table to open up. Some folks were using the decorative tables, bar-like tables, to eat their...