Sofi Corner Cafe — Restaurant in Philadelphia

Unfortunately, I had a pretty poor experience here. It seems like the staff was working really hard, but there are many organizational aspects of the restaurant that are really disruptive and there wasn’t a good flow. It was overall a pretty stressful experience, which was not what I was expecting from seeing the cafe on an Instagram reel.

I took a friend here for her birthday, calling a few days before to check in about whether a reservation for 4 was possible for the weekend. A very nice person answered and said that if I called an hour before they could set up a table for us. But on the day of, I called and was told I could just arrive and wait about 15 minutes to be seated. That seemed fair enough, so we came.

Upon arriving, they told us we could wait 15 for a table. We were fine with that and waited outside. We came back and were then told we could order and pay at the counter and stand against the wall where the baristas and cooks worked until a table was open for us. This turned into another 30 mins, and it seemed that they had no system for checking in people who were waiting to be seated, but we had already paid and tipped. They blamed it on a table that was taking too long to leave.

When we finally sat down, we were seated in an area where half of us had to repeatedly get up every time someone from the table next to us wanted to get out, because it was blocked by bars of a railing. I see that it’s a small space, but I wonder if there’s a better solution that’s not so disruptive.

The croque madame was very good. The coffee was very weak and my friends croissant was cold and a little bit stale. Funnily enough, we were also asked to leave after being here for less than an hour because they wanted to seat another party.

Considering the cost and the awkwardness of the dining experience, I wouldn’t come here again and kind of regret taking my friend here for her birthday. We were able to laugh about it, but it felt like going to a disorganized coffee shop but paying as if we went to an upscale cafe, which feels like a mismatch of expectation.

Overall, I think this place has a lot of room for improvement, since it has great atmosphere. I think it would help a lot if there was a better system for dining in...

This is a review based on a one time experience. I treated my friend to brunch, and have never been here but I found it doing a google search and we loved how the food looked and the aesthetic.

We found out as we got there you place your order before you pick where to sit. It was our first time so we were naturally under pressure to look through the menu. Not by them but because we didnt know the menu. As we were placing the orders most items were sold out since we went in the later part of the day. Just as a warning to go early enough. I places an order for two soups, two entrees and drinks and some bakery stuff. I made sure to be clear when giving the entire order. It was a bit strange to be asked to tip before sitting down and being served but i left an 18% anyway. Later when the food was served, only one soup was brought and one entree, i mentioned to the server or food runner i was waiting on my soup but she said nothing i just assumed she heard me. I told my friend to go ahead and start eating her soup and the entree bc i was taking her out to eat and id wait for mine, assuming it wouldnt take long. I went to grab my receipt to go up to the register and ask them for my food and found out they only entered one soup and one entree. We decided to just leave it alone since she only liked the soup and not the entree, i tried it myself and it wasnt something we both liked anyway. Luckily i did get my croissant and coffee and ate that while she had the soup. $60 later we were still hungry but no one was really walking around or checking in on tables. The disappointing part of our first (but not last) experience left us under whelmed. Since everything is paid for at the entrance, separate room from the dining section with the exit you can just leave. If you go here just stay on top of ur order or double check ur receipt. Here is why the tipping is strange bc all that was done was have the food be brought out but no service altho i told the person i was waiting on my soup. We will go back again, hopefully earlier this time to make sure we have more options in the menu and give different dishes a try. Its a very cute bright...

The owner is rude and very unprofessional. My boyfriend and I book reservations here and was unaware they were only serving dinner and not what they advertise in the front of their place. When we looked at the menu, there was not anything that we liked so we didn't really want anything. We asked Sofi, the owner, if we would be charged a cancellation fee if we left and at first he said yes. So we decided to order something light, but he came back out and said we could leave and we wouldn't get charged the fee. We asked MANY times if he was sure that we wouldn't get charged and that we were fine with ordering some food, but he assured us that it would be okay to leave.

Before we left, he scolded us about not being more aware of the menu items and we left feeling uncomfortable. Even though website used to make reservations had no information about the dinner menu. A couple days later he charged us $70 anyways. So, we call the the cafe to ask about it and he was extremely rude to us and kept cutting us off. And he refused to let us talk and just hung the phone up on us. When we called again he sent us straight to voicemail.

He was extremely unprofessional about the situation and completely lied to our faces when we were there. It is very obvious he only cares about the money and not about customers. It's a shame the owner is so mean since the staff seem pretty nice. Would rate this place a zero, if I could, based on customer service alone. Would not recommend to anyone.

EDIT: my own review is not in any way false and you guys did not keep your word. you only offered a refund as a bribe for me to take my review down, which i was not willing to do, even though originally you allowed us to leave without charging us. all sofi had to do was not lie to our faces when we were there and continue to be rude when we tried call you guys the first time trying to resolve this and this could have...