Cafe Bench | Crêpe Flushing — Restaurant in New York

I've been to Cafe Bench numerous times in the past and I always find myself coming back for more!! First off, the interior is absolutely breathtaking. When it initially opened up years ago, I came just for the pictures because I've never seen a cafe with such artsy decor. The decorations are always changing to match the seasons and my favorite has got to be spring when there's a big tree with blooming flowers in the middle of the cafe. Pictures don't do it justice, you need to see it in real life! I also noticed most of the decorations are decorated by hand like the mini canvases which showcase the menu items. You can tell a lot of work has been put into making this place aesthetically beautiful which I can appreciate because who wouldn't want to eat their food with a nice view??

Next let's talk about the food because I have several favorites here. The crepes I've tried in the past were Banana Bread, Nutella Addict, Lady Nana, Penny the Cheesecake, Pomodoro, and Turkey and Mushroom.

Banana Bread-This has been my all time favorite dessert crepe since high school because to me, it's the most worth it on the menu and taste the best. I love the combination of textures of everything because you have the soft crepe with the gooey chocolate and bananas with a slight crunch from the nuts and then the cold ice cream top it off! Every bite is heaven I swear I can inhale this crepe in 5 seconds.. I also love whip cream and there's something about their whip cream that's so damn good I can't put my finger on it

Nutella Addict- My sister doesn't like whip cream so she got this crepe which had a choice of fruit, nuts, or Nilla with Nutella drizzle. She ended up getting strawberries and she loved the crepe! I tried hers and I liked it too but not as much as my banana bread. It needed that like "wet element" LOL I just love the whip cream so much, I don't know why she didn't get cream on hers, the more the better! hehe

Lady Nana- This one is SO GOOD, it's like the banana bread but it has nila instead of nuts and it has condensed milk instead of the chocolate drizzle. This is a good alternative to Banana bread crepe if you want something less sweet because this one still has the yummy crepe with bananas and ice cream but no whip cream and chocolate drizzle which is why my friend prefers this one.

Penny the Cheesecake- I was skeptical about this one but after trying it last week.. it's safe to say I have a new favorite I love cheesecake and crepes so what could be better than combining the two??

Pomodoro- For the savory crepes I love the Pomodoro because it reminds me of a pasta dish, just not as heavy haha! I really love the tomato sauce with their chicken and cheese. I'm usually hesitant to try korean places that sell dishes with cheese because sometimes it's too overwhelming but at bench they put just the right amount!

Mushroom and Turkey- For a while I didn't get anything else but Pomodoro because I was afraid I wouldn't like anything else as much as the Pomodoro but I was wrong! After seeing another customer order the Mushroom & Turkey crepe with a sunny side egg added to the inside, I decided to get the same and boooooy was I glad The crepe actually had so much FLAVOR. I was surprised because when I think of mushrooms and spinach the word bland comes to mind but when I took the first bite, I knew I...

First and foremost, if I could give this place a zero I would due to several reasons. It was my first time ever coming to this place as a cute breakfast date with my boyfriend. We wanted to venture out and try something different. Our go to for crepes is always Tswirl (which by the way is amazing 10/10). However, today we decided to stop by this place and be supportive of small businesses. When we arrived it was very unorganized. We walked in very confused and the older lady at the register who appeared to be of Asian decent already was eying us as if we did something wrong. At first I believed she was just getting ready to greet us and let us know where we can sit and she was just occupied with taking a order from a customer. However, that wasn’t the case! As soon as it was our turn she didn’t even bother to welcome us she turned her back on us and left us hanging. We decided to just look at the menu and figured out what we wanted to eat. She finally decided to come back and she doesn’t even address us kindly. She had a very rude and condescending attitude when my boyfriend had simply asked her if they just have regular hot coffees. She proceeded to make a joke as if my boyfriend asked a stupid question and laughed at us and told us to look at the coffee menu and sarcastically said “there’s coffee everywhere” and she rolled her eyes and laughed as she was annoyed by his question. We just brushed her attitude off and decided to still go ahead and order as we are understanding people and wasn’t sure if she just was having a bad day. Then as we finished paying the lady gives us a buzzer and doesn’t explain anything and just hands us our receipt. My kind and respectful boyfriend just let her know we were going to sit in the back and wait and as he did that she proceeded to blatantly ignore him and didn’t even bother to respond and walked away. We obviously felt very disrespected and didn’t know if it was because we were obviously not Asian but of Hispanic decent. Lastly, as for the food it was terrible in my opinion. The crepes were flat and had nothing but canned fruits layered on top of it. The portions are very small and taste wise it was decent. The only good thing that was good was the latte. Overall, the quality of the food is terrible and overpriced. The customer service is disgusting. It felt very discriminatory and I don’t understand how this place can still be in business with that type of treatment. I would just recommend to just stay away from this place and if you want amazing crepes just stop by at any T-swirl. Overall, this place is not worth it and I feel utterly disgusted that people like that can treat their customers like this. Will definitely never...

The food is great, decoration on amazing, employees not. I had went here recently with a friend and throughout our whole time there, we faced blatant micro aggressions that were unbelievable. We are not of southeast asian decent, and it seemed because we were “darker” than the normal populous, we were treated differently.

The first instance was when we had to pay, and we had requested to purchase one water, the lady (older southeast asian lady) wanted us to take it right in front of her, of course so we don’t take two. She thought we were going to steal and take more than one, completely unacceptable.

The second instance is when we had requested for another set of fork and knife. The first set was dirty from the chicken avocado crepe we had earlier, and of course didn’t want to use the same ones on a crepe with nutella and whip cream. When asked for a second set the lady gave us a funny look, judgement written all over her face and said “you Americans, always need one stuff.” I thought that comment was totally uncalled for, this is a place of business serving people, so I am uncertain why requesting a new set of silverware would be a problem.

Lastly, the one that takes the cake, is the same lady literally following us to the bathroom so we both don’t go in. I am very aware that the bathroom is single use, and so is my friend. However, both of us walked to the restroom, because we both had to go. Upon seeing us walk, the worker dropped everything she was doing, walked over to the area with the bathroom, pretended to be fiddling with something, and told us “one person at a time” as if i didn’t know how a bathroom works. The difference is when other people line up to use the bathroom, they don’t get followed, and they don’t get told how to use the bathroom like they are 2.

Overall, the professionalism, or lack thereof, exhibited by this worker’s blatant stereotyping and resulting racist behavior should not be taken lightly. Steer clear of this place because of...