Raven Café — Restaurant in Port Huron

I’ve been coming here for awhile and have had great experiences in the past, especially because I love the coziness and quirky aesthetics…. until this time.

First of all, I don’t know what’s up with the amount of staffing there but there’s either a shortage crisis or they simply can’t afford to hire more people (which in that case is just unethical) because we waited a looooong time to get our order out - probably over 30 minutes if I had to guess. The long waits have been an ongoing issue here but what really soured it was that our waitress took an order for a huge group of people who came in later after we did even though we didn’t get waited on. Makes no sense but whatever.

Now here’s where shit hits the fan. I had no problem with my order, but my partner ordered 2 pita pizzas with modifications. When the food arrived my partner realized that there was no sauce on it. We flagged the waitress down and she explained to us that if she wanted to remake it it would double the cost, and offered marinara sauce on the side, because of “cost reasons”. My partner has restrictive food problems so these options were not gonna bode well for her, and she felt very guilty that her ordered got messed up. We decided to just grab the bill and leave because she was upset and I didn’t feel comfortable taking my food to go if the waitress wasn’t gonna accommodate for her. But as we were leaving this waitress scolded us for not taking the food with us and said “there’s starving people in Gaza”. Are you kidding me?! What an extremely condescending thing to say and not the right place to discuss that. Performative stunt or guilt trip, I’ll never know, it shocked us.

We went to file a complaint to the manager, and you know what her response was? A shrug. And the waitress cussed us out for no reason at all during that. Absolutely unprofessional behavior from the staff that I’ve never experienced in any other business before.

The crazy thing is that my partner has had her food remade before at another time we were here and the guy waiting us was very sweet. This waitress however was deeply arrogant, rude and not at all compassionate towards us. We’re never gonna come back here unless things change.

Just go to Casey’s down the street instead, vibes and food are way...

Ah. This is going to be an extremely difficult review to write, as I am biased and from Port Huron originally. I truly love this restaurant. Been coming for 20+ years. The atmosphere is absolutely phenomenal. My food is generally very good. My service is generally good. My last experience still has me feeling so confused. So, if by chance the owner reads this (which my entire family has also been coming here for years and probably have spoken to them in the past...) Please, ..do not let this restaurant fall apart. I understand you appear to be extremely short staffed, and your employees can't seem to handle an afternoon rush. I also understand your cooks RUSH through making the food and don't pay attention to detail these days. My best advice I can give to the employees and owner is this.., I would rather wait a longer time, to get all my food made properly and brought to me than pay money for rock hard pita bread (which I knocked on the table to show my server), I would rather wait for my sandwich to be made correctly with sufficient condiments (not a dry sandwich), I would rather wait for my meal to come out after i get my appetizer, I would rather wait for a server who is prepared to handle questions and concerns appropriately...than have my server abandon my table, have another server take over and tell me my server was going home (my original server continued to serve all other tables)...I would rather have my pop brought to me filled up instead of filled half way and left at the drink station..... Reasons are, because..I travel a veryyy long ways to get there, I enjoy the Raven, I would like to leave feeling good. My 2nd servers excuse for my hard as a rock pita was "Yea, it happens sometimes." Let's not let these things happen often..(hopefully they don't!....) Let's improve our staff, our food quality and presentation. I am not rushing back anytime soon, but please... this is my...

I want to start my review by saying that the vibes of this cafe are immaculate. The Raven cafe is dark academia themed with Edgar Allan Poe and his work as the linchpin of all of the decoration. There's a bar with a sizable collection of cocktails with many spiked coffee varieties for when you want to drink and keep your caffeine headaches away.

Unfortunately I can't say the service was the best as I believe there was a lower volume of staff the day I went. Which isn't necessarily what I expect everytime I go. Just an off day for the staff I imagine. Food and the specialized coffee and alcohol took a little longer than I hoped and I would have stayed longer if the wait time for speaking to my server wasn't so sporadic. They were probably trying not to bother my party when I went and they were very nice and helpful with recommendations when it came to ordering. When I could get a hold of them they did stock the table with refills and plenty of napkins and the like. As I said, probably a low staff day for the specialty drinks and kitchen as it was quite busy. As the staff were very friendly I promise none of these minor issues ruined my experience here!

If you want a nice place with cool servers and an option to drink not only delicious coffee beverages, of which there's a very large variety, but coffee with a little extra kick or just some quality cocktails this is the spot. It's a cozy and safe atmosphere. LGBT+ friendly and accommodating with a gender neutral bathroom as well as men and women's restrooms. It's a quality place to hang and honestly, their prices aren't even outrageous for the portions. Quality is definitely not sacrificed either. It's just good deals making this spot even better for a relaxed place to grab a bite and a coffee.

All that said, hit this place up and decide for yourself! I definitely think it's worth it. Next time I'm in Port Huron this is...