Caffe Cafe — Restaurant in New York

As a person of color who used to frequent this place and lives around the block from here, I am incredibly appalled by their lack of consistency in customer service. I usually don't write reviews but this place deserves one based on two recent experiences I have had here.

Today, I ordered a muffin and ice tea while I was working. I was there for about 60 to 70 minutes. I know there is a 90 minute limit and I usually head out at that mark. Cafe cafe needed to seat 4 people. I still had half of my muffin and a quarter of my ice tea left. However, instead of asking me to move to another empty table they served me the check.

I would have appreciated them leading with "We have a table of 4, would you mind moving?" When I did not put my card in with the bill the owner says to me "We have a limit of 90 minutes". I understand that places have a turnaround time but I found this dishonest and discriminatory because there was a white female patron who was there before I arrived, yet she was never served a check.

I wish it was an isolated incident but a few days ago I went here and the owner/manager made me wait 5 minutes while she counted up the cash register. I missed a work meeting because I was waiting on her. What infuriates me is that I still tipped them for service when they did not deserve it. I came today hoping for a different experience but it was worse.

I believe in supporting our local businesses but this place does not deserve my patronage anymore. If this is how they treat frequent patrons they don't deserve...

Came here with my girlfriend for lunch, arrived and ordered before 2 PM. We received our coffees just fine, but did not get any food for over 30 mins.

After giving up, we approached the owner(?) to pay for our drinks and leave. I mentioned to her that we were waiting far too long for a bagel and grilled cheese. She then proceeded to ask the waitress how long we were there for, to which the waitress bold-face lied and said about 17 mins, although we were there before 2 PM and it was just about to hit 2:40.

We then received a very passive aggressive comment of "I don't think 17 minutes is too long of a wait for food" from the owner(?). I didn't even want an apology or anything, just wanted to pay for my drinks and leave.

To their credit, they did give us the food for free, but both items were incredibly burnt and stale (see pictures attached). I could not imagine waiting 17 mins for these items, let alone almost 40.

I have been to this Cafe before and never had any issues. I believe what happened was they had an influx of customers walk in right after we ordered and they likely forgot about our order.

I personally did not like how my justified complaint was questioned. The passive aggressiveness and outright lie from the staff was also very insulting.

I would suggest they should do better at priorizing customers based on when they order and a much better job at...

Place has amazing atmosphere. Very nicely set up and decorated. However, the coffee and hospitality are terrible. The first time I was there, I ordered a regular coffee and I couldnt even finish it. I’m not a picky guy, I drink deli coffee and Starbucks and everything in between and I never had to THROW IT OUT. Tried it again weeks later to see if maybe I just got a bad batch or something? But no, that was bad too. I tried it a thrice time weeks later but I ordered a “specialty” drink instead of a basic coffee and even that was terrible. Recently, I went in there to have a tea and get some work done on my computer. I thought to myself “they can’t mess up a tea” and that was true. Tea was fine however, their top priority was to kick people out to make room for incoming customers. I’ve worked in the food industry and I can empathize with not having enough tables and chairs but I’ve NEVER seen an establishment imply that you need to leave. Not only that but the place was at capacity and they were asking new walk-ins if they wanted to sit and gave them a wait time. ITS A COFFEE SHOP!! This is definitely the worst coffee shop in bay ridge, maybe even in Brooklyn and I will go ANYWHERE else from now on. Oh and my medium tea was over $4!!! Just to get...