Crooked Tree Coffee House — Restaurant in Saint Charles

Disclaimer: I hate leaving bad reviews. I hate "that person" who treats their server poorly. I don't send food back. I have worked at a hole-in-the-wall (not hipster) small coffee shop so I know the difference between good coffee made in old machines and coffee made by a poorly trained or lazy barista. After I placed my order for a lavender coconut latte, I watched the baristas (as I always do because I am a barista and I love the process) and was dismayed to see the barista did not measure the syrups as she poured. My latte had an extra shot. I couldn't taste the shot. I couldn't taste the milk. All I could taste was sugar. It was terrible. I went up to talk with the barista. I could tell this same scenario has happened before and she had not been trained in how to handle it well. She tried to fix the situation by asking me what I wanted her to do about it. At this point I no longer trusted the espresso at this place so I asked for an exchange for just a black coffee. The black coffee was ok-about what I could've gotten at a Starbucks. We also ordered food. My husband asked the barista about how long the wait for food usually was and we were told "not long." We ordered a burrito and a quesadilla. Apparently they add sugar to the burritos and quesadillas too. We asked for the order to go and we asked about the usual wait because we were traveling and on a time crunch. The quality of the food was less than what we would've had at Starbucks and took 3x as long as a wait at Starbucks. We waited 30 minutes for our food. The place had customers, but we didn't stand in line, there were two coffees before ours, and no one after us. There were also 3 employees- not one or two baristas trying to handle a busy shop- none of them appeared to be management and one of them appeared to be trying to find ways to look busy rather than helping in the kitchen to make our food. I try to find local shops to stop at when I travel, but do yourself a favor and skip this place and opt for Starbucks or go deeper into St Louis to find good coffee at a decent time. This place is not worth the effort. Again, I don't like to bash places and I hate to be "that person," but in this case it's worth it to save people the waste of time and money (and the sorrow of your tastebuds) that will inevitably occur if you stop at...

This is an honest, objective review from two coffee aficionados that own a high end espresso machine and manage a coffee shop (we like going to local places to locate the best and telling others where to find it): Using a 1-10 scale for this review, we would rate this coffee shop as an overall 3. The atmosphere was lovely, beautiful to admire, and cozy to sit in and dine. Ordering was easy by standing at the counter. They brought the drinks and food to the table. The prices were decently priced, with a 20 ounce latte as $5.10, a 20 ounce drip coffee as $2.32, a cinnamon roll as $5.50, and the French toast platter as $11.00. This review is only based on these four items ordered.

The attendant taking our order was nervous and stated as such for being new. While we waited, we observed them making espresso: they did not weigh the grounds in the portafilter, therefore creating a weak shot for the latte, which means it had more water running through less grounds. The drip coffee was the light roast and my husband stated that the Sunserra roast from Starbucks was far better than what he had for his drip coffee. The cinnamon roll was excellent with copious amounts of cinnamon but under proofed and flat; it also had an indescribable flavor that I did not enjoy and couldn’t figure out. The cinnamon french toast plate looked beautiful; it came as described from the menu. However, the bread had a metal butane flavor; something just did not taste right from this bread. I do not care for amaretto but the filling was nice with the fresh fruit. The bread arrived cold.

This establishment was busy with people staying, and coming and going, even on a very rainy day. Overall, we are glad we experienced it but...

Upon arriving, the parking is a bit terrible (there’s not a lot of spots) but I guess it’s the area. The place didn’t look very clean inside either. I ordered from an older guy (guessing the owner and/or manager) and he was very rude. I asked if there were any flavors of the lattes that weren’t as sweet (as I ask other places and they have no problem letting me know which ones they recommend since I don’t like my coffee overly sweet) and he talked to me like I was 3 years old and just rushed me and said “a basic latte isn’t sweet” when my question was if any of the flavored ones weren’t as sweet…So basically no help at all. I ended up getting the Flannel Shirt latte and it’s kinda sweet but tolerable. There were also hardly any tables open, so I ended up getting my order to go. The gentleman making coffee was very nice. The other employees not so much. I let him know I would get my order to go and he had no problem letting them know and updated me on the status. I could see in the back though that the employees were whispering and looking out into the café like there was some sort of problem with me changing my order to go. Lastly, my eyes were burning the whole wait from whatever onions they were chopping in the back. Overall, the experience was very subpar and I’ve had better at other family owned cafés. The food was probably the only good thing about it. I’ll just stick to Latte Lounge and my local...