Berkeley Cafe — Restaurant in Raleigh

My girlfriend and I usually love the Berkeley and our experience there - great food and beer paired with great live music? Who could want more? However, last night we had such a disappointing experience that I’m not sure we’ll be back.

We came in on a bustling Friday night and were able to snag two seats at the bar. It took a few minutes, but we were also able to order our drinks from a female bartender. When a different person delivered our drinks, we asked him for food menus, an indication - to me, at least - that someone is going to have to take our order eventually. Since it was busy, I knew it might be longer than a few minutes before someone checked in on us which is totally understandable. We waited patiently for someone to come to us, however after about a half hour, I finally decided it might be best to grab the attention of one of the bartenders next time they were near - after all, maybe they didn’t realize we were ready to order food. Once our original female bartender came back our way, and we made eye contact, she came towards me. I started to order a custom burger, however she cut me off, put one finger up, and said “hold on, I’ll be back”. That was fine by us, I figured she wanted to get a notepad to write down our order. No worries. Well, she never came back. We waited there for about 20 minutes, watching her continuously come towards us only to ignore us. Meanwhile, other people around us are ordering food, receiving food, I can tell the kitchen is still cooking food (it was only 8:30 on a Friday night) I tried to make eye contact, menus in hand, with any of the other 2 bartenders/waiters to try and order our food but no one seemed to want to help us. After watching the woman bartender dry off glasses right in front of us, never acknowledging us, we decided it was time to leave and eat elsewhere.

Full disclosure, I totally understand when it’s busy and maybe you’re weeded (I’ve been there, we all have) But being upfront and honest about the current situation would go a long way. If someone had just told us “hey, the kitchen’s slammed right now so we’re holding off on food orders” or whatever the issue was, we would have totally understood. In fact, we would have stayed, and spent more money, and wouldn’t be writing a review...

Do not eat here....

Couple of things with this place that needs improvements....my background is customer service just an fyi 1- I walked in and it was not that busy in a Sunday evening..I waited by the counter so I can place an order, I was standing there and was not acknowledged..bartender walked by couple times, what looked like a manger dude walked by few times..I had to call the bartender over who then asked the other dude to take the order. 2- ordered a simple sandwich, an BLT to go 3- Took more than 25 min for that order to be completed 4- While I was waiting, I overheard a patron at the bar who was supposed to be eating a veggie quesadilla be shocked when she finds out more than halfway thru that it was chicken. She went to the bathroom to vomit it out...yikes..meanwhile the cooks and staff arguing back and forth about how the ticket said " protein " on it and what that is supposed to mean. This error falls on the order taker as they didnt punch in the correct order. Very poor to argue infront of customers..I went outside afterwards 4- Manager dude brought the order outside amd did acknowledge it took long and apologized for the wait which I appreciated. 5- Opened sandwich and it was a so small...like regular bread i could have bought...it had 2 pieces of bacon, one piece of lettuce and 2 tomatos and some mayo.I could have made this sandwich at home...and saved $11 ...and the bacon was not even cooked properly...

My suggestion to the owner and managers is to provide better training on your POS , as this will eliminate errors ..second clean the floors, so dirty like it's been there for 20 years.

I would recommend to stay away...

Went in with three of my buddies. We walk in and picked some seats at the bar...waiter comes up and asks us for our drinks, mind you he did not greet us, I asked for water, he nodded. One of my friends asked what other beers they gave available and the waiter, without saying anything, reaches from the other side of the bar grabs they beer menu, rolls his eyes, puts it down in front of my friend, turns around and begins to pour my glass of water. He places my glass in front of me and walks away. He never even acknowledged my other two friends. So we waited...and waited....and waited...and waited....and waited. At this time my friend is trying, and accomplishes, to make eye contact with the waiter. Finally the waiter begins to walk over to our end of the bar and we are trying to signal we are ready to order, by that time we were more than ready to order, and he stops short of being in front of my friend, grabs the receipt of the person who got up from next to us, puts his finger up towards us, raises his eyes brows and says one sec and walks away. -_- what... Wasn't even that busy...needless to say, we got...