Bean & Bean Chelsea — Restaurant in New York

This place and my experience here still makes my blood pressure rise.

I will start with the one positive: the space. It's a huge coffee shop with tons of table space to sit and enjoy what you will pay out the you-know-what for...if the items you pay out the you-know-what for were even decent to ingest.

There was a line to the side street entrance when I arrived - no biggie, that should be the sign of a reliably jolty coffee shop. First DEAD WRONG assumption. As I realized the line was 100% CRAWLING at a dying snails pace, my hopeful attitude started to evaporate. One person working on ringing people up. It took a good 3-4min per person for this cashier to get people past the ordering piece of the transaction...and not because people didn't know what they wanted.

Since I had time to marinate in front of the refrigerated packaged items, I grabbed a cold pressed juice and a wake up ginger-lemon shot. I also ordered a cold brew...eventually..................

By the time I was up to order, a second cashier came flying out of no where to provide some relief to the line of customers trying to get to work on time. He was unpleasant, to put it nicely, and impatient...and I knew what I wanted and had my credit card in hand... .... ..........

Cold brew was garbage - it was watery, flavorless. I see it all the time. It's so easy to make. I make it at home. If they're cold brewing it, they're using low grade coffee beans. Oh, and for those 3 items my bill was $23. I actually laughed as I selected my % tip on the flippy ipad looking thing that all these shops conveniently have now. $23 before tip, mind you. So even if they were overcharging for the little ol' cold press juice and wake up shot...the cold brew must have had flecks of platinum in it. I did my homework on the cold pressed juice and shot by the way...I know how much it costs from the distributor and from other shops that sell it...Bean and Bean is laughable. Maybe the tourist traffic allows them to rip off people who could become regulars. What do I know? Just telling my truth.

I was supremely disappointed and will not be...

Inconsiderate customer service sometimes lacking common sense. Bathrooms have a code and a good citizen, a woman asked to use the bathroom and the employees refused to give her the code bc she had not purchased anything at BEAN and BEAN in Chelsea of where I have been residing for 34 years. Chelseans don't behave this way with the locals, visitors and anyone else passing through our neighborhood. We agree to maintain inclusivity with everyone as long as you appear to be a decent denizen. I have purchased items over the last months sometimes totalling as much as $45-$55 in a single visit and I frequent this coffee shop at the very least 3x/week, this coffee shop is very close to me. But tonight on NEW YEARS EVE I have decided I will no longer be a customer. Homeless individuals have set-up camp there for hours without buying a single item and have been able to use the bathroom as someone exits. NO Bathroom monitor ever. And some homeless people carry disease, and tics and some even have psychiatric disease. Some have even come into the store and bothered customers. Yet there is inattention to these issues by staff. While there is a posted sign that read Restrooms for customers only this is by no means a full-proof system so the next time a middle-aged, fine citizen asks to use Bean and Bean's Bathroom on the coldest NYE in 50 years, i would ask the employees and the BOSS to exercise some reasonable common sense. What a Disgrace. Take your sign down...

Reduced my rating from 4 stars to 1 star (and to be fair I'm leaving my original review below).

Be careful when buying your coffee at this business, they've been helping themselves to their own $1 tip at the point of sale and doing so for a long time.

At the date and time of this review, a small cup of coffee is (and had been for as long as I can remember) $3.25, but for a long while, my small coffee has been priced a dollar higher (without me leaving a tip). This has to be illegal and if it isn't, it's very unfortunate that this coffee shop will have this on their reputation.

Is this tactic being asked from management? Or, was this an isolated practice by a couple of the barristers there? We don't know (several of us in my office noticed this practice and began keeping an eye open for this practice). What is certain, is that we work one block from this coffee shop, we visit almost every morning, but this morning may be my last.

Very good coffee at a relatively good price. Coffee is also sound by the pound and is ground in-house. The atmosphere is great and the interior is ideal for looking out into the Chelsea sights.

There is plenty of seating but, you'll be fortunate to find a place to sit. Plenty of work space with a good amount of outlets if that's what you look for while sipping your coffee. Excellent location, worth a visit if you're into sitting down and relaxing or working...