Smokestack Roasters — Restaurant in Lunenburg

Not family friendly - AT ALL. Not even friendly.

Since I am unable to reply to the allegations that the owner's made below, I'll reply here. Her statement that my child was screaming for 15 minutes isn't true at all - she was not screaming (crying and fussing, maybe, but certainly not screaming and certainly not for 15 minutes). And nobody was holding her down (we were actually holding her in our laps to try to talk to her and get her to chill, but this woman obviously has never seen children before). She wasn't discreet to begin with, and certainly wasn't when she yelled at me loudly in front of all of the other customers that I could just go to Dunkin if I didn't like it. If you sit there and time how long someone's kid's been making noise, you're not family-friendly. And if you use the tone she did in the reply below - well, you can see how the claim that she's been disrespectful might have some truth to it.

We had a terrible experience here. We've been here before and loved the coffee and food, but we were treated terribly by the owner of the restaurant and won't be going back.

The cafe has a toy corner with chairs - seemingly encouraging parents to bring their children, let them play, and enjoy some coffee at the same time. We spent $40 on coffee, milk for the kids, and snacks for everyone, so we were definitely paying patrons, not just looking for a playplace for our kids - but we did expect them to be allowed to play since there were toys out.

One of our kids got upset when playing with another family's child - a toy was taken at some point, and there was some fuss. She was fussy on and off for a few minutes, but not sitting there screaming, and she was playing at the same time, so we were letting her work out the toy-stealing issue. But after about maybe 5 minutes of her fussing, the owner approached us and rudely asked us to leave. She didn't say anything beforehand - asking us if she could help, or if we could keep it down. She just straight-up told us we had to go.

When I brought our tray back and expressed my disappointment at being asked to leave when there were toys out and we thought they were family-friendly, the owner told me that she'd expect people to leave if their kids made noise, and that there was always Dunkin Donuts if you wanted your kids to....be kids? She was extremely rude and made no bones about being un-family-friendly. If your kids might make noise, she doesn't want them there.

We've been treated so well at other local coffee shops - Central Cup, Strong Style - that we know that this is an anomaly. We've never been asked to leave anywhere before - and don't expect to again; our kids are pretty well-behaved and we were managing the situation. I can only recommend that people with families stay away from this place and this rude woman - she doesn't deserve...

It's not you. It's me. A few weeks ago, I had a craving for a Pumpkin Spice Latte. There were just two people ahead of me in the line, so I waited. What I didn't realize was that there was a party of 4-5 that had just ordered ahead of them. Once I ordered, I waited. After about 10 minutes, I heard a barista call out for "John." When John didn't appear, I actually thought, "I think John may have died waiting for his order." Some ten minutes later, my name was called, and the latte was worth the wait, but does the wait have to be so long? Four people were behind the counter, so staffing is not the issue. Is the espresso machine the bottleneck? I'm sure they're expensive, but when there's a line, Smokestack must lose business when people can't or won't wait. Yesterday, I couldn't wait and walked out. That's a lose-lose that's not good for a business whose products...

I have come here several times and had lovely decaf lattes and even eaten some gluten free items but this time, the latte was awful- very bitter, the oatmilk was non-existent and the flavor was terrible. Plus the gluten free items were no longer in their own area but mixed in next to and around the items that had gluten so they are definitely not safe if you have Celiac or other medical issues with gluten. It seems they no longer make an effort to keep their gluten free customers safe. The atmosphere was nice but the service was lacking and the coffee was awful. It’s too bad- I have really enjoyed coming here in the past since there are so few truly good coffee places around. I will add that my partner is not gluten-free and got a croissant that was completely smashed, tasted bad and was inedible and we spent five dollars on that alone. Super...