SP Café — Restaurant in San Antonio

this place has all the signs of a small, family-owned business. when you walk in, it looks exactly like a pho restaurant (maybe there was one in this location before?)-- from the booth seating to the bamboo waterfall fixture. but nevertheless, it's a fine place to just hang out and even get some studying in (free wifi and quiet music!). the pastry case has a good variety of options, from macarons to little individual-sized and regular-sized cakes, to muffins and cupcakes. around the corner, there are plain croissants, chocolate croissants, ham/egg/cheese croissants, and a pate-something in puff pastry. everything looks pretty modest and potentially homemade, so presentation isn't a huge wow factor, but for me taste is more important anyway.

so i settled on:

ham/egg/cheese croisssant ($4) | 2/5 croissant wasn't bad --buttery & flaky-- but the ham tasted like cheap store-bought lunch meat and the bright yellow square of cheese was likely a slice of kraft american or equivalent. overall, wasn't a fan as it was too salty and some parts of the croissant were kind of hard and hurt to eat. overall, kinda felt like lunchables but in a croissant instead of on a cracker.

opera cake ($4) | 2/5 i've never had a bad opera cake before, and the lady behind the counter recommended it when i asked what was popular, so i thought "what the heck, sure i'll have cake for breakfast-- it's my birthday!" maybe there are different styles of opera cake, but this one was different from any other i've had. it was more dry/hard and was kind of hard to eat with just a plastic fork (almost needed a knife to cut). to be honest, it tasted like those random generic cakes they have at chinese buffets. and honestly seemed premade/ordered rather than homemade. pretty darn sweet, not terrible or inedible, but not really worth eating, even for a sweet tooth like me. i ate less than half of it and had to put it aside. :[

taro-coconut milk tea, half sweet, made with black tea + taro pudding ($4-something) | 4/5 there was a lot of confusion when i was ordering this drink, mostly from a semi-language barrier. i knew that the combo flavor can't always be done, but eventually the guy at the register understood that i wanted a mix of the two flavors. then i asked for it to be made with black tea since the menu showed an option for black vs. green tea. the cashier was extremely confused, so i pointed to the menu, trying to explain that under "milk tea" it gave 2 options for types of tea. he seemed to eventually understand, so i proceeded to ask for half sugar. he seemed confused again and asked if i wanted no sugar, so i clarified and then added that i'd also like the taro pudding in it. he seemed confused again, but rang me up. the total was a lot higher than expected, so i had to be the annoying customer to try to do mental math and add up the 3 things i ordered. turns out he thought i wanted a milk tea + a black tea, and didn't understand that i was referring to the type of tea in my milk tea. the in the end, my drink came out alright. it was still on the sweet side, but was pretty good, especially considering it was a traditional milk tea with ice cubes rather than the ice-blended type that i usually prefer. no taro pudding to be found in my drink, but oh well, the order was confusing enough! and i could tell that the cashier was really trying to understand me and provide good customer service. he even came by to my table later on to give me a drink punch card. oh, and i also asked to upgrade my breakfast croissant + coffee/milk/juice combo to a milk tea, so he gave me 10% off. sweet.

other notes: $4 credit card minimum punch card: buy 10 drinks to get a free drink

i'm not sure if i'd come back for the food, but i'd consider returning for the milk tea! there isn't any competition really in the area, so i'll take what i can get. yay for more local...

I frequent this cafe and have even brought my parents, son, nieces and nephews. Even have worked remotely here. Yesterday morning (2/15/22)I really wanted a decent coffee. I came here then hit the road. I picked the cup up to sip and it fell apart at the seam! Literally,a scalding hot Americano all over my hand leg and seat! Luckily the road wasn’t too busy because it caused me to swerve some. The only tiny bit of saving grace was the sleeve.

I called, a girl said “oh I’m sorry. I can give you your 3.50 back. I’m sure the coffee was just way too hot and melted the cup.” I was like “you don’t say? Considering it just fell all over me and my vehicle.” I was pretty aware of the temperature by this point. I was pretty ticked and couldn’t quite get the 16 or so oz cooled off and soaked up. I asked to speak with someone else. I was told the owner would call me. And of course, NO phone call.

I came back this morning (2/16/22 at 9am) with the deteriorated cup in hand. Two employees present and neither acknowledged me. I stood at counter awkwardly while the girl on the phone chatted away and ignored me. Finally, I just left the cup on the counter and walked out.

It’s one thing for a business to make a mistake, but absolutely no empathy for the girth of the situation that could’ve occurred on the roadway nor the acknowledgment of returning customers simply SUCKS. I’m done with this joint. They have a ton of competition within feet of their place of business.

For now, someone else...

Brought friends here because I wanted to show them this place and my friend had been craving Boba tea. Our main reason for choosing this place. Well Boba is SUPPOSED TO BE CHEWY/SOFT (refer to Google if you don't know). The boba in her tea was so hard and gross. If you have someone on the spectrum who has aversions to certain textures, I wouldn't suggest this place. But why I really won't ever be returning OR recommending this place to people for is because the staff AND OWNER are sooo rude! When my friend (who isn't the type to ever complain but her boba was THAT BAD) went to get a new drink, they wouldn't give her something else! All they gave her was trouble. Because of a price difference (but hello she could just pay the difference). After enough back & forth, my girl friend just asked to speak to the owner directly. If for nothing else, so the employee didn't have to keep running back and forth to consult with the owner who couldn't even be bothered to come out and deal with the now frustrated and disgruntled customer. When my friend asked for this, they said the owner refused to come out. So unprofessional and bad for business IMO. When we were leaving the employee gave the most inauthentic "thank you!" No one was rude to them, but they were weird (cheap af) about a price difference and ONE FREAKING DRINK. So yea...now we're upset and you could say the whole experience left a bad taste in our mouths. The positive: my strawberry banana smoothie...