The Chocolate Dragon Bittersweet Cafe and Bakery — Restaurant in Oakland

Not only a great chocolate shop but a great coffee shop as well. This little boutique on College Ave had been flying beneath my radar until I stumbled in the other day.

The place has the fare one expects at a good coffee shop, a selection of coffee brews and espresso drinks along with pastries and other goodies. However their mocha is quite the delight, with a real dark chocolate taste to it - something that I love.

On top of the normal coffee drink menu, there are a number of more exotic chocolate drinks, a tasty thicker chocolate espresso drink or even thicker European style hot chocolate. For chocolate lovers these are a must.

The ambience is rather eclectic with fun decorations and even little dragon figurine sets, it definitely gives the feel of fun place to visit.

There is a huge variety of chocolates to choose from, some just shelves with a collection of chocolate bars from different providers, but also their own selection of chocolate as well.

The owner is a fascinating woman, and very interesting to talk to with a lot of background in the local chocolate industry.

The service of course was very good and the verse that was...

Woof. I drove by this spot w/ my husband on Thanksgiving and when we entered there were a couple of people (one of which I later learned was THE OWNER), standing in front of the food case and I politely said, “excuse me” so I could take a look inside. Not only did this person not move, she acted as if it was the greatest imposition of her life, and just continued talking…

Once we decided what to order, my husband then asked these same people if they were in line, and the incredibly annoyed response, from the OWNER OF THIS ESTABLISHMENT mind you, was that they were hAViNg a cOnVeRsAtiOn😆 That was IT, nothing else, turned around and didn’t move, no acknowledgment, nothing. My husband overheard her say she was the OWNER and we immediately left, because it would be insane to be patrons to such heinous business practices and enable rude, entitled people. It was so off-putting!

Well I happened to be in the neighborhood again today and decided to go in and get the owners name so I could address this issue directly in my review, so thanks for giving it to me, Lisa :)...

I really wanted to like this place, but all I felt was disappointment.

The drinks were fine, unremarkable, certainly not enthralling enough for the attitude we received when ordering and the impatience when I asked for some creamer (there wasn't any self-serving carafe). The barista, with a haughty look, did not want to tell us the wifi password because she was suspicious of whether we had ordered.

Should give them the benefit of the doubt, we thought. Might have been a bad day, we thought. But no.

We went again, hoping to do some work on a sunny Friday afternoon in this undeniably cute cafe. It was nearly empty, but we weren't able to work there, because of the no-laptop/no-work policy. Not just for the weekend, but through the holidays. We went on December 8th. It's curious how a no-work policy was instituted to "promote more social time" for a cafe that didn't exactly feel welcoming.

Defeated, we left the cafe Bittersweet. Definitely not planning on coming back anytime...