Coma Coffee Roasters — Restaurant in Richmond Heights

Update: 5/2025 - I'll bring it up to 2 stars here. It's mid. Got an espresso that tasted pretty ok, not amazing but ok, even if it's the only thing they keep dialed in, however the silverware was dirty including my soda water glass and a fork for a muffin.

Update: 5/2023 - Lowered to 1 star, the pour over was atrocious. Rinse filter and didn't empty carafe, so now I'm drinking it. Didn't rinse to go cup before pouring coffee, so now I'm drinking the chemical coated wax on the inside of the cup. They don't know what they're doing or don't care anymore.

Original: I've been here about 20+ times now and have held out reviewing for a while. They actually moved locations across the hall of the same building since the first few times i've been.

I want this place to succeed, it's cool, hip, and still has potential, hence the long review.

Some days it's 5/5! Others it's 1/5. I do enjoy the location and the interior, and the staff are usually pleasant.

2/5 Slow Bar: Some times the slow bar is great and is made by someone who knows how to do it correctly, but other times it's very lazily done, charafe has old coffee not cleaned out or half assed rinsed, a to-go cup made of cardboard isn't rinsed beforehand, filter isn't pre-soaked, etc. More so lately. I've seen good coffee beans brewed carelessly, which is a shame, but i've also had some decent coffee from here. Ultimately you can't charge a premium for a pour over if you don't take the proper steps, that's why it's a Slow Bar, not a 'let's brew this pour over as fast as possible' bar. Do it right, please.

3/5 Espresso: They DO know how to make a real macchiato, as opposed to Starbucks, and their single-origin espresso (SO) is great. EXCEPT - I have had espresso shots pulled sour more than once, aka under extracted meaning someone was probably in too much of a hurry in either tamping/pulling/etc. This is because I drink straight espresso more than add in tons of milk or syrup.

2/5 Service - One fact seems consistent though, and that's our orders are ALWAYS forgotten about. The bar is small and you can watch the magic happen, and every time I've been here I have to remind them I'm waiting for our drinks. It's always met with an apology, then it gets prioritized and made quickly, sometimes too quickly at a sacrifice in quality. I don't understand that. Most of my orders have been to-go since the pandemic.

2/5 Lattes/Milk/Bathroom - Lattes and other drinks are made hurriedly, and many times have had grounds in filtered coffee, syrup/drinks are almost never mixed, and even matcha powder in clumps at the bottom of cups. The bathrooms are not (or were not) very clean the last time we went here, but the time before that they were ok.

3 Stars is "it's okay". There's enough here to bump it back. The 2 stars comes from the ultimate question: "Will I be back for coffee?"

The answer is probably not on my own in the foreseeable future due to lack of consistency and standards. I can make great coffee at home, why go...

I stopped into Coma Coffee looking forward to trying something new and interesting—a strawberry matcha latte with a shot of espresso. Unfortunately, my experience from the moment I walked in was uncomfortable and disappointing.

I was greeted at the register by a staff member who was dry and disinterested. I placed my order and sat near the bar to wait. While my drink was being made, I overheard two baristas talking about it. One barista began preparing the drink by adding strawberry syrup to the milk, while the other mixed the matcha and espresso together. Midway through, one said to the other, “Why are you doing it like that? It makes the drink not as pretty.”

Despite this comment, they continued anyway and handed me the drink, fully aware it didn’t look right. It ended up being an unappetizing brown-green color. That interaction alone made me feel like I was being handed something they weren’t proud of. It felt careless and awkward—especially as a customer who paid for a specific, customized drink.

Feeling uneasy about the whole thing, I went back to the register and explained what I saw and heard. Instead of an apology or any attempt to make it right, I got a half-hearted explanation about the “buoyancy” of espresso and matcha—something I know isn’t the real issue. It felt dismissive and insincere, like they were brushing me off rather than addressing my concern.

At the end of the day, it’s not just about how the drink looked (though it looked bad)—it’s about how I was made to feel. If the staff openly criticize how a drink is being made in front of the customer and then serve it anyway, it sends the message that quality and customer experience don’t matter. I left feeling unwelcome and disappointed. I won’t...

Have been here a few times and had decent coffee with a totally normal experience, but today was totally disappointing.

I made the mistake of trying to order pickup when I was on my way there. Receipt said order ready at 9:20, and I arrived before 9:15. It was wildly busy so I sat back from the pickup counter until about 9:25. Then I asked if it was coming up soon and they pointed out that actually, it'd been sitting on a pickup table across the place for some time.

Receipt web page is still saying it's being prepared, no follow up messages like many pickup systems have. That's not the baristas fault if they don't have an option to click "order complete" or whatever. But it costs nothing to call out pickup orders in case someone's waiting. It's not intuitive knowledge that you have a pickup table totally separate from the normal barista bar pickup area.

Drink was luke warm, foam collapsed, kinda sad. I said to the team there that it was too bad it sat, it was not hot now. "oh yeah that's too bad." Blank stares. So I said hey if someone is disappointed in what they got it's nice to help them out and try to fix that. "oh are you disappointed?? We're glad to remake it."

I totally appreciated the remake, and the fresh drink was perfectly fine. The barista handing it to me weirdly said "ugh, almond milk is horrible" as he capped it. I'm fine with a totally neutral interaction over my coffee, I don't need fake cheerfulness. But I don't need the opposite of warm fuzzies either.

Wildly, just to top this off...their to-go cup lids no longer seem to fit tightly on the cup. They just lift off with minimal resistance when you go to...