Cortado BC — Restaurant in Phoenix

I wish I could give zero stars. I’ll try to make a long story short. This was one of the worst experiences I’ve had. I don’t ever leave bad reviews but I feel like this Is necessary. I came here 2 weeks ago with my wife and son, having never heard of this place before.

After walking in, two young people behind the counter continued talking amongst each other while we stood at the door not knowing if it was a seat yourself or counter service place. The entire “restaurant” was empty. I ask the guy a few questions about the menu, all of which he did not know a single thing. My wife, a vegetarian for 10 YEARS asked if the potato salad was vegetarian, which the guy assures us it is.

We order an egg-salad sandwich with a side of potato salad, a breakfast sandwich, a hot chocolate and an iced coffee.

First the lady behind the counter, who claimed to be the manager, delivered our beverages after a 10 minute wait. My wife and I both take a sip and almost vomit. These drinks were literally made with sour milk and both of ours had a strong pungent sour taste. I don’t like to complain at restaurants, so I was honestly going to let this slide and just go to the Starbucks across the street after breakfast.

We get our food, and my wife starts eating her potato salad side, takes a few bites, and asks me to try it cause she thinks there’s meat. I said there shouldn’t be as she is always paranoid of this, as I said, 10 years vegetarian. I go up to the “manager” who then informs me that the potato salad is not vegetarian. My wife wanted to throw up in the restaurant and felt sick for the rest of the day. My sandwich was half decent at best.

After this I was really upset so I asked the girl, (there’s only 2 people that were working) who claimed to be the manager, and told her the situation. She was very kind and apologetic and insisted we take a dessert, which looked phenomenal by the way, but I didn’t as I was scared it was made with rotten eggs or not cooked all the way like other reviews have stated. She told me they’d “take care of our meal” and issue us a refund.

It has now been 2 weeks since this visit. I have called SIX different days (mornings and afternoons), and there has been no “manager” there. I have given the worker my phone number to “send a message” to the owner or whoever and I have not heard back, not received my refund, and can not get ahold of any supervisor or anything. What type of establishment is this???

Don’t come here unless you want food poisoning.

Update: have never heard from them until I left a review, the owner responded on here so I call again. On the phone, I was trying to resolve the issue but Monica was immediately combative telling us we lied and that we are going to “hurt there business.” Says in her response to the review that she wanted to process my refund but just now on the phone, which i have never received a call or a voicemail prior, said they don’t do refunds and that they’d give me a gift card and dessert???? You just said you wanted to get in touch to process the refund so who is lying?? Ridiculous. It’s not even about the money it’s the principle of good business that clearly this establishment has no...

The food would be have been amazing if it didn’t take them 25 mins to make our coffee. I am never the one to write a review but it was astonishing how horrible the service was. The lady taking our order was rude and could not get the order correct. When she handed me the wrong pastry after corrected her multiple times. She was upset when I asked politely for the correct one (we even paid more so she could give us the correct one).Then she switched off the register and went to make all the coffees. We received our food quickly but wait 25 mins for the coffee. Come to find out she was working on multiple order that was placed after us. We tried asking about our coffee only to be ignored. Very disrespectful and rude. Would love to go again but with service like that it isn’t worth going back. As a person who has managed and worked in the food industry the employee would be fired. Our burrito was cold and açaí bowl was melted.

Now like to add on that the owner has responded and the aren’t even talking about me in there reply. In the reply, they stated that they talk to me at my table. I was never seated at a table (it was a to go order) nor did any employee talk to me about the wait time, because my boyfriend was taking care of the situation while I watched. Neither one of us stated that the coffee should be done within five minutes. We also never had a employee come up and tell us that would be a longer wait. We were standing in the conner while waiting for the coffee and only went up to the counter after 20 minutes asking where it was. On top of that when they finally handed over our coffee. The barista said she was working on number 38 which we were number 31. I do not mind waiting when it is busy and completely understand when it is busy on a weekend. This is outrageous that an owner would reply talking about a different customer who clearly complained about a similar issue the shop is having. A owner should never speak out on a situation, trying to contradict it when they were never involved in the first place. I do appreciate you showing firsthand your poor customer service. We spent around $40 to try out your food And give it a fair shot. Especially when we visited your restaurant as a part of a...

EDIT (response to owner): You're right, I do have an agenda and it's to make sure other people are aware of what happened to me so they can make their own decisions about purchasing food items at your location.

Some facts: 1. I was not dining at your location. As I mentioned in the original review, this was a to-go order that I brought home. I wasn't going to drive back 25 minutes to show this to you or your team. 2. I did not observe any of your team members wearing gloves. 3. Not sure what "evidence" you're looking for — but the attached picture is pretty clear.

Instead of denying that this happened and calling your customer a liar, I think a better approach would be to apologize and then investigate how something like this could have ever happened. I encourage you to reevaluate how you're running your business and to ensure that your employees are actually following your health policies. Not all problems can be solved by offering the customer a refund.

I don't think you understand how disgusting of a feeling it is to bite down on something unnatural while eating food and to realize it's a fake nail that was probably attached to one of your workers' hands. I almost threw up after I realized this.

Trust me, irrespective of your request, I will never be coming back and I hope others are never subjected to the same experience I had this morning either.

P.S. You're right — I didn't try your pastries and shouldn't comment on it. I did try your coffee though. The Cappuccino milk was burnt and the drip coffee tasted acidic and rancid.

——— ORIGINAL POST: I ordered a Acai bowl to go. After taking a few bites, I bit down on something really hard, and it turned out to be a whole acrylic nail. This is absolutely disgusting and a really bad health code violation.

The stale pastries in the displays should've been my warning sign.

I do not recommend...