Lately Café/Bistro/Bar — Restaurant in New York

Lately Café in LIC has definitely become a hotspot for students and people who just wanna chill. It’s a very laid-back café and restaurant where you can sit and be served or grab something to go. I’ve been here a few times and it’s always filled with people studying or chatting.

The service is good, nothing too exceptional, but solid. What’s interesting is how the menu is trying to do a little bit of everything, lunch and dinner items, small bites, and café drinks all in one. There’s a lot to choose from. They do get creative with their drinks, especially with seasonal mixes like their osmanthus matcha latte, which sounds cute in theory.

I’ve tried their matcha about 5 times now since it’s on my way to work, and each time it’s been the same, powdery, clumpy texture with way too much milk that just overpowers the drink. It doesn’t taste like good quality matcha and the ratio is definitely off. That said, there are other drink options like coffee or their coconut latte.

I’ve also tried a few of their lunch and dinner menu items before, like the recent chicken mushroom linguine they posted outside of the café. It sounded promising, but the noodles were slightly overcooked and they piled on way too much parsley on top. Nothing super memorable. The café keeps trying to be unique with fusion dishes like their pasta, burger, and shakshuka, but none of them really hit. We got the shakshuka and it was slightly watery and not very saucy like others I’ve had before. The bread it came with wasn’t impressive either, really dry and didn’t add much to the dish.

I think the café keeps trying to be unique with fusion dishes but doesn’t fully develop any of them, so most of the items end up tasting average or even a little...

I stopped by Lately cafe yesterday with friends because their menu looked really good and we were excited to try what they had. But we were a bit disappointed with the service, as one of the servers was kinda rude. He was very brisk and seemed like he didn't really wanna be bothered, which by itself isn’t bad. Maybe he was having a bad day, but he was very polite to the couple seated next to us, smiling and speaking to them in a warm tone, and it didn’t really seem like they knew each other. We didn’t order a lot, it was a drink and a lunch menu item for each of the three of us. Toward the end of our time there, we requested to see the menu from another server just to take some things to go to respect the seating policy of an hour and a half. She was very polite and brought us the menu. We made a mistake and didn't clarify that we meant the drink menu so we apologized and asked the original server if we could see it. He looked annoyed, and we made sure he knew we were looking to take stuff to go. He asked, what do you want? And we said we aren’t sure, and would just like to take a look at the drink menu. He quickly listed some of the menu items and told us that’s all that was there. We kinda felt the vibes and it made the visit to the cafe kind of awkward. It felt like we were frustrating him from the beginning. From personal experience, being a server can be an exhausting job, and dealing with other people can be difficult at times. But I also noticed there are other reviews mentioning rudeness from servers at this cafe so honestly it seems like a problem within the cafe. The drinks and food were good, but personally I think service can...

Was super excited to try out this cafe in the LIC area! However, I was very disappointed by the service that was offered here. I came in on a Friday around 11AM. There was only one worker taking orders and making the drinks. The worker dismissed all customers that were trying to put their orders in, including myself. Despite standing in front of the cashier for at least 10 minutes, the male worker made no acknowledgement. I would’ve appreciated if he said something along the lines of “Hey I’m swamped right now! I’ll get you your order in a bit” but he ignored the customers that were lining up. Eventually the woman in front of me left. I followed her shortly after :(

The response the owner had written below does not even address why I was dissatisfied. I was fully understanding that they were short-staffed but I wish the situation was handled differently. Even simply acknowledging the customers in line would have provided a better experience. My frustrations were directed at them not because they didn’t have enough workers nor the wait time but because of the lack of service they provided in that type of situation. Responding “this was beyond our control” is very unprofessional especially in the context of working in the...