Flava Coffee & Cafe — Restaurant in Saint Paul

I was here a couple weeks ago with a friend and I was pretty disappointed. I love the story behind the the cafe and the interior was lovely with plenty of seating inside and out. There was also free wifi with the password at the register. Unfortunately, those were the only perks. I work with customer service so I understand there are bad days and bad customers so the staff maybe grumpy, but getting heavy sighs and staff rolling their eyes was a first for me. I came in around 12pm and the cafe was pretty bare. I ordered a coffee and a sandwich to go, but they were out of chicken so I had to pick another sandwich and I couldn’t hear the milk alternatives the staff was saying so I asked them to repeat it. That was when the heavy sigh and eye rolling came. I brushed it off because maybe they were having a bad day. I waited for like 10 minutes for a small coffee and a sad sandwich that were on a paper plate when I asked for it to go. Another sigh was given before they gave me a to go box and at that point I was done. Once again, it was bare and nobody but me and my friend were ordering so the attitude felt like it came from nowhere. I was excited due to the past reviews, but was...

Upon arrival, was told they were out of espresso. Like a coffee shop, out of caffeine? Okay, odd. Although they have food items on the menu and a case that seemed like it should be full of baked goods, there were no baked goods in the case, and I had to settle for a CLIF granola bar. Since they had no espresso, I asked for a recomendation on smoothie, to which the girl behind the counter reccommended bluest eyes, a blueberry banana oat milk blend. It tasted horrible, so I ordered a different smoothie, which did not taste like a fruity smoothie at all and was more like a tea flavor. Definitely needs some type of sweetener as fruit alone should taste better than this, it's horrible. In the end, I left feeling like I wasted $15 on smoothies (the smoothies are very overpriced at $7.50 each and they would not allow me to exchange the first smoothie for the second) Also, there is no public restroom. The only good thing about this cafe is...

Edit: Someone took down the “no public restrooms sign” but I had a chocolate and almond scone that was hard as rocks and tasted like it was a week old.

A chic space for rich non-profit executive directors and board members to cackle loudly and praise themselves while sipping on their drinks named after Black revolutionaries. I don't know, it's fine? Service was good. The drink I had (Electric Lady) was good.

The first thing I saw was a NO PUBLIC RESTROOM sign on the door but there literally are bathrooms that people can use that you can see from standing on Dale St. It's the "bathroom available only with purchase" capitalist behavior that seems to run contradictory to the pro-community vibe this establishment is putting forth.

Anyway, I live three blocks away and don't know when I'll be back. Probably when my internet provider texts me again and says that there will be a neighborhood-wide outage that...