Candlelight PourHouse — Restaurant in San Antonio

I had one of the worst restaurant experiences in my life the other day at this place. I have been to Candlelight before at their old location and had great experiences every time. This was my first time at the new location.

We were greeted friendly enough at the entrance and sat down in the back area where we were told that ordering is done online by scanning the QR code on our table. We placed our order (French Toast, Candlelight Breakfast, and the Barbacoa Eggs Benedict). Our french toast came out about 10 minutes later, with the Candlelight Breakfast shortly after. The french toast was really good (the only redeeming thing about this visit), and the Candlelight Breakfast was OK in my mind (girlfriend didn't care for it).

We waited another 15 minutes or so for the Barbacoa Eggs Benedict and noticed they brought out the same dish to a table next to us who ordered after we did. We brought this up to an employee (FYI they don't have designated servers; they just have food runners that occasionally ask if everything is OK) who said she'll check on it. They came back saying "since this is a 'made-from-scratch' kitchen these things can take time", and that they will bring it out shortly. First off - EVERY restaurant should be a made-from-scratch kitchen outside of fast food joints. I know how a restaurant works, don't try and come up with some lame excuse as to why you brought our order out to the wrong table. We understand mistakes happen, just own up to it.

We wait about another 15-20 minutes (my girlfriend and I were just enjoying each other's company and conversation so we weren't terribly impatient), but we were still hungry and wanted our food. The sun was starting to hit our eyes so we moved tables right next to where we were assuming it wouldn't cause any issues. After another 10 minutes or so we ask again about the food but I'm sure she sensed our frustration. She comes back out apologizing and admitted they brought it out to the wrong table originally, and that they just put the order in and it'll be out shortly (again). In our heads we're thinking THEY ALREADY SAID THAT THEY PUT IT IN..why are they just now getting to it??

Another gentleman comes out (who we assume is the manager) and explains once again that it is a 'made-from-scratch' kitchen and that switching tables caused all of their issues and essentially put all of the blame on us. We tried breaking it down to him this way:

1. We brought up that our order was taking a long time well before we moved tables
2. We moved RIGHT NEXT to the table - we didn't move across the entire seating area
3. They told us multiple times the order was going to be put in, when exactly did they put it in?

After about another 15 minutes it still hadn't come out. We were incredibly frustrated at this point and asked a server AGAIN about it, she said they are working on it. We told her to just cancel the order and we will be leaving. 10 minutes later the gentleman brings out our check - still no apologies from him. We were just ready to get out of that place.

It seemed like there wasn't a single competent employee working there, and they should not be in a customer-facing role. I would highly recommend AGAINST going here...

I visited Candlelight Coffeehouse in December, and left my tab open at the bar during my visit. At the end of the evening, I paid my tab (about $20 with tip) and went on my way. Everything seemed normal until a few days later, when I noticed my bank balance was lower than it should be. I looked through my recent transactions, and to my surprise found a second charge from Candlelight for $53.14. To be clear, this was listed as a separate purchase in addition to the $20.

I reached out to Candlelight and ended up speaking with the owner, Tammy, who was completely unapologetic and argumentative. She tried to tell me that it was probably just a debit card hold that would go away in a few days, and seemed offended that I thought she/her staff could have made a mistake. After several minutes of arguing with everything I said, she did finally look at the transactions from that night, and found the receipt for the $53 charge, which turned out to be a) signed by some random person I had never heard of, and b) for a bunch of items that neither I nor anyone at my table had ordered. She finally determined that a server had accidentally charged another table's dinner to my card.

If that were the whole issue, it would have been serious enough, but I could have at least somewhat understood-- everyone makes mistakes, after all. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning.

After Tammy figured out what had happened, I still didn't get a real apology, but she did agree to reverse the unauthorized charge. Two weeks later, having seen no sign of my money, I got in touch with Candlelight again and asked if they had issued the refund. They assured me that they had and that it "should be showing on [my] side any day now." More than two weeks after THAT, I still had not gotten my money back. At that point, I called my bank to see whether they could shed some light on the situation. My bank looked at my account records and... oops, turned out Candlelight had never made any attempt to issue a refund. In the end, despite Tammy's promise to reverse the charge, I had to open a formal dispute through my bank's fraud department to get my money back.

This whole situation is incredibly disappointing, and throughout it all, Candlelight Coffeehouse has treated me with nothing but dishonesty and disrespect. It's bad enough that they were careless enough to charge someone else's bill to my card, but straight up lying about issuing the refund is on another level. I have been visiting Candlelight for years, and I truly thought that they were better than this. I obviously wouldn't recommend going here, but if you must, learn from my mistakes and pay cash. Integrity matters, in business and in life, and I hope the owners and staff of Candlelight will learn that before they alienate even...

I really hate to do this, as I try to make reviews only when something is outstanding and do not like complaining. The staff were really nice, but there seems to be major timing and logistics issues here. We sat down and were one of four tables of 2-4, and a big table of around 12.

The online menu is clunky and does not allow you to order things exactly as they are described on menu. For instance: cowboy bowl comes with steak, but the system only forces you to select a meat and steak isn’t an option (and even if you were to select a meat - it would still be $15, a price that accommodates a steak). That’s just one example. We eventually flagged down someone to take our order for us, but then they had the same issue with their handheld system.

We finally got ordered, which included two lattes. One hour later, still no coffees. At this point, it’s us and the big table left from the original tables, with two more tables of 2 people who just sat down. We tried to be patient, because the staff seemed overwhelmed especially because they were carrying drinks FAR from the kitchen to the big table on turf, which would be difficult for anyone. They had to walk so slow, with drinks like martinis spilling on their hands.

Soon after we asked about our coffees, they brought our food out. Cowboy bowl was smaller than expected and just okay and the tacos ordered had eggs that were undercooked or something (they were slimy and odd looking), the tacos were barely filled, and another taco was missing the bacon. The tacos were just not good.

We still didn’t have the coffees, so I went to find someone so they could be cancelled. I get to the barista counter, and they had made one coffee, but it was iced when we had ordered hot…..

They took the coffees off the tab, removed the missing bacon when they brought the final tab, and apologized again and again. As I mentioned, I have a high tolerance and patience for the service industry - it’s a hard business and I personally have had my share of experiences when I worked in the industry. But felt maybe someone from restaurant would see this and consider the following:

check with the point of sale vendor to get the menu ordering issues cleared up

have a water refill station outside so it’s not on staff to refill waters (especially with such a long walk between the kitchen and tables)

when drinks are made, especially martinis, keep the drink in the metal shaker for the wait staff to carry to the table and then pour the drink at the table

reevaluate the tacos and if they can’t be improved,...