Book Club Cafe — Restaurant in Rockwall

Update 10/2020: I come here for the occasional brunch/lunch with friends. Most of my below notes reign true. I do like it. The stomp omelette or the sweet emotion sandwich are my go-to faves. And now ive added the oatmeal to that list (seriously, how could oatmeal be that good?). I get the occasional latte as their cappuccinos are not only too big, but too milky and not well crafted. Overall, it’s a good place to come, but I still think it has vast room for improvement.

I’m upping my original 3 ⭐️ to 4 stars because I do go somewhat regularly and do like it. However, I still believe there is much room for improvement.

Original review:

The atmosphere: okay, it’s the BOOK club cafe. Where are the books? Where are signs/posters advertising they even have a book club? Do they? Why don’t they play up the name more? I’m sure book clubs meat there, but it feels like they should host their own. How cool would that be? Maybe they do, and I’m wrong? They could even sell the book club book each month. But even besides that, the building feels pretty sparse. It’s not very inviting. The booths are hard wood slats and not very comfortable. If you want to sit and work, there seems to be one spot to do that at the front. Okay cool. That’s not a bad idea to separate that part off. But then there’s the big open space behind that before you get to tables. Idk. It’s not bad, I just feel the space could be used more wisely and could be more inviting.

The food: it’s good. Not great. I have yet to have anything that makes me dream about it. Hey. I love food. Food is life. Good food makes me dream about it. I don’t have dreams about the food here. The omelet I had was good. Not special, but good. The sandwiches are fine. Not spectacular, just fine. But they aren’t anything I can’t make at home. Their menu items don’t have anything truly special about them. This is the kind of place that should have its own in-house jams, butters, and/or cheeses. Maybe they do, and I missed them. I’ve been a handful of times now, and nothing like that sticks out.

The coffee: oh the coffee. How I love my coffee. How I wish I could love their coffee. Sorry, but I don’t. It’s just not that great. So many people rave about how great it is. I realize that by Rockwall standards, it may be. And I also recognize my issue might be that I’m really Italian at heart. I love a nice strong cappuccino. Do I get that here? Nope! Not even close. They have 12ox caps and put one shot in them. Okay. Okay. This may not sound bad but it’s terrible. This is the Starbucks ratio. Italians do one shot per 6-8oz on average. That means a 12 is drink should have minimum 2 shots. But why not offer an 8oz cappuccino? And when you do make them, why aren’t they as pretty as the lattes? Even if not pretty, they should still taste good, but they are just meh. When you go to real coffee places that know how to make real cappuccinos, you will know what I’m talking about. But no, BCC makes them too American. People go to places like this because they don’t want the American standard. At least that’s what I do! Why would I come here for coffee when I can get the same thing at Starbucks and it’s much more convenient? If they had better coffee (okay cappuccinos, because I have dreams about good cappuccinos), then I would go out of my way to come here over anywhere else. But there’s no point. And the worst part is, they don’t seem to care. I reached out to someone via fb message about my concerns. I didn’t even get a response. I didn’t care that they wouldn’t change a thing off my opinions (I’m just one person, after all), but to not even acknowledge you heard what I said? That’s just frustrating.

The takeaway: this is not a bad place. It’s nice. The reason I’m giving it my standard 3star, meh rating is because it has the potential to be great. I’m just not sure they care enough to...

The nameless “Manager” strikes again. Short story… not good food and terrible management. We will not return.

Long story... Keep reading. The wait time was not too bad considering the farmer’s market was going on. We were seated and are waitress Hannah was very nice and very thorough with our order. Making sure we knew all the options and were getting exactly what we wanted. I ordered the Rueben sandwich and my girlfriend ordered the breakfast that was simple eggs, bacon and toast. When the food arrived it looked good, BUT it was not. The bread on the Rueben was not toasted the pastrami had a really odd taste to it and the minced sauerkraut was cold like it just came out of the fridge causing the pastrami to be lukewarm at best. I said “this is a terrible sandwich”. My girlfriend said “send it back”. I thought I could power through it. Then I remembered I was paying $18.00 for a sandwich and it kind of needed to be good so I told Hannah the problem and asked if she could send it back and bring me the Bacon Spinach Tomato Sandwich thinking it would be a quick and easy substitute. She said “no problem”. BUT, here is where the problem started. I saw her telling the “Manager”, who had done nothing the whole time we were there other than stand at the hostess stand, about the problem. I guess instead of choosing to take charge of the situation, as a good manager would, she chose to have Hannah return to the table and inform me that the two bites I took out of the sandwich disqualified me from returning it because they don’t refund anything that you have eaten more than 25% of. Then Hannah told me that she would remove the sandwich from my bill even though she would have to pay for it. This really bothered me. Not only was the manager too self-involved to be there for her wait staff but she also requires them to cover the poorly prepared food from the kitchen. This struck me as simply ridiculous. Then, after sitting there for about 15 minutes waiting for the replacement sandwich I started to become even more irritated thinking about the whole thing. Hannah had stopped by the table a couple of times during this wait to let us know the kitchen was working on it. I finally went to the Hostess stand and told the manager to cancel the new sandwich and charge me for what we had ordered so we could go. I told her I thought the treatment was very rude and I didn’t think it was right that Hannah had to “take care of the me by paying for the original sandwich”. The last time Hannah stopped by she was in tears. I don’t know what the manager had told her but now I was mad. We told Hannah none of the issue was her fault and her “Manager’s” attitude and lack of involvement was to blame. Then the manager proceeds to bring the new sandwich to the table and I told her I did not want it. She looked at me and said “what do you want me to do with this?”. I told her again just bring me the bill and I will pay for what we ordered because I didn’t want Hannah to have to pay for any of it. Another 10 or 15 minute went by and no bill. Finally, Hannah came by again and said she had no idea what was going on because nobody was telling her anything. I told her to just bring me the bill and charge me for whatever needed to be paid for so that she did not have to cover any of it. She did, and they charged me for all of it, even the untouched sandwich. I paid the bill and left Hannah a 30% tip to make sure she didn’t think she had done anything wrong. I am not sure how the woman that is managing this place ended up in that position but she should not be. A good manager is there for their staff, putting ego and attitude aside and taking the customer service role so that the staff can do their jobs. This woman clearly does not understand how to manage a restaurant or deal...

This was my first visit. We went to lunch for the grand opening of their patio. They advertised $4 burgers and $3 patio pounders. So I went with my husband and two teenagers to get a cheap burger and hang out on the patio. We went in and the hostess seated us under 10 minutes. She seated us inside because the patio is more the size of a porch with very limited seating. That's fine, the special started at noon and we got there at 12:30. So seated in under 10 minutes which was great! It went slightly down hill from there. Our waitress was nice enough but not very informative. She explained that they do not have fountain drinks, only bottled drinks. No bueno. So we just went with water. We asked for the burger special but if we wanted one we either needed to sit on the patio or go back to the patio and order. Not sure why this wasn't made more clear as we wanted to eat and hang out. So we decided to share a plate between the 4 of us. My kids shared the BLT and the bread was toasted so hard that it cut the roof of their mouths. My husband and I shared the cheese steak sandwich which was good but the bread to meat/veggie ratio was terrible. The bread had a great flavor and so did the meat. However, if you want cheese then it's extra. Say what? Again, the flavor was great but there was not enough meat compared to the bread and maybe 5 strips of bell pepper. Sides were chips (only plain wavy offered), fruit or salad. No fries? It took longer to get our food than to be seated. Almost 20 minutes wait. We got our waters and that was it until our food arrived. Our waitress did not come back by until after someone else brought us our food. It would have been nice to have her stop by at least once to say our food would be out soon or to refill our water. While we were eating we did need refills. Our waitress stopped by and said that she would get us a refill. Ten minutes passed and still no refill. She had stopped by several other tables and then went back to the staff area and was just chatting. The water pitcher was right in front of her. This was another problem. The staff spent more time in the staff area than on the floor. They were friendly enough but didn't really work. Still needing water and flagging not working, we caught the hostess as she walked by and asked for water. She brought it right over. We paid and left and decided not to come back for the concert this afternoon. It's too bad because I love hip, little spots with character. Customer service definitely needs to be taught and specials need to be more clear. The people behind the counter should come out and say hi, be friendly. Also, another little annoyance, there was music in the background but the only speaker was in...