Cafe Bernardo - Midtown — Restaurant in Sacramento

I'll preface this long review by saying that the food at this place is actually pretty good and the interior is quite cozy. What did disappoint, however, was the customer service. Maybe my partner and I just got unlucky because it was a busy day, but we were pretty upset with how our table got treated.

We got seated almost immediately and were given the breakfast menus to choose from. By the time we had picked out our dishes, the server came by to take the menus away and replace them with the lunch-dinner ones. I understood their reasoning (it had just turned 2 pm) but why seat someone with the wrong menu if you know the kitchen is about to stop serving breakfast in a few minutes? It was pretty upsetting as well because the table across from us got their order taken maybe 5 minutes before us, and they did get breakfast options.

Still not a deal-breaker; we ordered from the lunch menu. My partner also ordered a cappuccino and I asked for water. The cappuccino came out in a half-filled to-go cup with pretty sad looks. Everyone around us had their drinks in mugs. If you check the pictures from the reviews, most drinks look very presentable, hence the expectation. Not sure if the place doesn't have cappuccino cups or if they just ran out? My water, on other hand, did not come out at all. I realized the server had forgotten about it, and I was trying to look around for him to ask for it. I saw glimpses of him moving table to table far from us, but couldn't catch his attention. He did not check on us at all since taking our orders. About 15 minutes pass by. Our food is out - but it's brought by someone else, not our server. I ask for water from that person, and it's still not brought out. A bit later I call out to our server as he passes another table (once again, not stopping or checking on us; at this point we are almost done with our food). We finally get our water! (Yay!)

The food we got was decent, so no complaints here by. Once again, maybe we just got unlucky and it would have been different had we come in any other day. But for now, I'm not sure if we plan to return at all.

Even amidst all the little things that came together to leave a sour aftertaste, the worst one was just a lack of attention from our server. Had we received that, I don't think I would be leaving...

This cafe is absolutely excellent. This is our second time staying at the Fort Sutter Hotel and this restaurant is the reason we came back to stay at this hotel. One of the best things that I can say about this cafe is that you can eat there, as we did, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for nearly every day of our trip, and it does not get old. We are not here to sight see and explore and this restaurant allows us to do the things we need to do here and then have food as if we were at home. The food was very clean and light. Nothing on the menu is too exotic to wear on you quickly. The cafe is clean and the staff is friendly. There always seems to be a manager on the floor overseeing everything.

When we came back for our second trip, I just happened to pull up their Google review page and couldn't believe that they only had a 4.2 rating - which I consider unacceptably low. Out of curiosity, I took a look at the lowest reviews to see if I was missing something. Some of the low reviews were from many years ago, and it seems like the restaurant may be under new management. But a lot of the reviews say more about the person leaving a review and the cafe itself. The restaurant is very clean. The staff is very friendly. Perhaps there is some merit to the claim that the dishes are slightly expensive - but you get what you pay for. The food is fresh and seems to have higher than usual quality ingredients. This is a cafe - so you order at the register and they bring your food to you. For the quality of the food, the service is quick. But if you are looking for a restaurant for you to wait on you hand and food to make you feel special, then of course this is not the restaurant for you. This is a cafe - not fine dining. We tend to like the cafe service more than having a waiter direct your experience and unnecessarily interrupt you to check to see if you need more water for the 3rd time. The cafe service allows you to enjoy your company...

Stopped in around 7 pm Satuday eve and the restaurant was near empty with only four customers dining. My friend ordered the regular Angus burger cooked medium well and I ordered the sausage pizzetta. The burger was delivered quickly but was cooked somewhere between rare and medium rare. My dinner pizza arrived nearly 20 minutes later. By this time my friend was halfway through her meal. The pizza had good flavor and the outside crust was light and crispy, however the interior two thirds of the round were so soggy that it could not be picked up off the plate and it required a fork to eat. The bottom crust was so thin it dissolved into the toppings. Prior to leaving we purchased two chocolate cupcakes to go. These cakes looked decadent but were so dry that you had to have a beverage in order to swallow them down. I have no idea how long they had been in the pastry case but several days is probably accurate.

The customer service was equally poor. The person who took my order failed to deliver my beverage as he said he would; the wait staff that delivered my friend's burger thought I wasn't eating and when I told her I was waiting for the pizza and beverage, she brought my beverage and 20 mins later attempted to deliver my pizza to a lone customer sitting outside before coming to our table to ask if I had ordered a pizza... Really?! It was bad enough that the kitchen crew couldn't time the two entrees to be delivered together to begin with. At no time after our food had been delivered were we contacted to see if we were satisfied with our meal or if we needed anything else. While there were a few walk-ins during our visit that placed to go orders, there were no other sit down diners. This location has high foot traffic and on this day, the Crest Theater was hosting the annual French Film Festival around the corner. Other restaurants were packed and upon checking, had 20 to 30 minute waits for a table, but Cafe Bernardino was empty. I think I...