State Street Cafe — Restaurant in North Haven

#2 of 2 posts re: my review of State Street Cafe...

Now let's talk about the staff, our waitress in particular. A tall, pony-tailed blond who was able to sort out a variety of our requests and kept every detail straight. This gal knows her business. No coffee cup got below half before she was filling it up again, my iced tea and son's water were replenished every time we emptied a glass and she was incredibly attentive without smothering us. This gal, as far as I could tell, never stopped moving. From the kitchen to the counter to the tables & booths, she HUSTLED every minute we were there (about 45 mins inside & seated). She never left the kitchen or the counter area to complete just one task... she was refilling coffee mugs, delivering water glasses, providing a small stack of napkins, bing, bang, boom! She knew the menu, made recommendations and was friendly, enthusiastic and professional to the max. Whoever she is and however long she's been waitressing, SSC needs to make sure she is ALWAYS on the schedule! What an asset she is, especially when the place is as slammed with customers, both dine-in and curbside, as it was when we visited. With at least 85+ of the 90-ish seats filled, this gal was a force of nature the enitire time we were there.

There were always 4-5 staff members hanging out in the cash register area. I know y'all wanna keep one, mebbe even two up there for the curbside pickup orders and, of course, one to run the checks and settle them. But what the heck were the other 1-2 folks doing up there? Watching the people in line, talking with other staff members, basically, they looked like they were hanging out and nothing more. Would it have hurt if one of them picked a stack of napkins and made sure every table/booth got some? What about traveling through with both coffee pots (regular & decaf) once in a while? I think the current waitstaff needs some support, not watching the black-shirted crew just talking & people-watching, kwim?

State Street Cafe is less than a mile from my home... we'll be back. And we'll be recommending...

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I've been here before and in the past the food has been great and the service has been great, until today. While going through the drive-thru window that was recently added, we experienced bad service from a waitress working the window. When we were about to pay for the food, the waitress, asked if I wanted to leave a tip. Initially I responded "no" because I wasn't using my bank card as I was picking up the order for someone else with their card. She heard me initially say, "No" and left the window to go bring the rest of the order. The person who the card belonged to was also in the car and they said to go ahead and leave a tip. As I was about to change my response and add a tip, the waitress came back with the rest of the order and slammed it on the window stand. At this point I decided to not leave the tip given the poor customer service demonstrated in that moment. She then said, "The reason she asked if we wanted to leave a tip was because she is an essential worker but only makes minimum wage." To that I then responded I also am an essential worker to which She then responded, "Do you make minimum wage?" In short, she continued to go back and forth with me about this tip situation until we ultimately left.

I totally understand times are hard right now and we were ultimately going to leave a tip but her behavior in terms of slamming the food down and then going back and forth with me about being an essential worker and questioning how much I made was completely inappropriate and poor...