Cafe Mystique — Restaurant in San Francisco

On Christmas Eve, few of my friends and I went to our tradition for the San Francisco Gay Men Chorus Christmas Eve concert in Castro Theater. To continue our joyful night, we went cross the street, with a reservation, to be dining at Café Mystique, which turned out to be a very unpleasant experience. There were total 9 of use, arrived the restaurant before 8:30pm. We were told to be waited for our table, right outside of restaurant door. Few of my friends needed to use the restroom and went inside to do so. The restaurant personnel at the door, single-handedly only stopped one of my friends, L, who happens to be an African America. She told L, the restroom is only for the customer. Needless to say, L responded her: “I am a customer, waiting outside with the group for our table”. But she replied: no, you can’t use our restroom. That person is a white woman, she stopped the black person for the group of them wanted using restroom. That has made my L totally upset (I would be too!). He did not want to eat there anymore. To maintain the mood for the rest of friends, I convinced L to stay and tell him, I will need to speak to the restaurant manager. To protect our food and service, L asked me not to confront her until the dinner was served, which I did. After the diner, I went to that woman, asked if I can speak to the restaurant manager. She said she is the manager. I pointed out to her, the way she treated my friend was wrong, she needs to apologize to L. Only thing she said to me was “I did not know he was a customer”, even she later served our table and clearly saw L was seating with the group. She refused to apologize. In the culturally integrated city of San Francisco, especially in the district of Castro, the restaurant manager is still practicing discrimination, that is very shameful, and totally unacceptable. She should not be allowed to work in...

I first went to Cafe Mystique - hereafter CM - about a year ago. Our party of four sampled a good number of the dishes and left satisfied by the food and service. Not underwhelmed, not overwhelmed, just satisfied. Perfectly cromulent at that price-point.

Yesterday I returned to CM with a party of three, a bit hesitant after reading the up-and-down reviews here on Yelp. Between the overly-fawning and the fault-finding crowds there must lie a less dramatic truth, I thought.

Again, the food was satisfying. The price-point has crawled up in the intervening year, and what was a go-to neighborhood refuge has become $16-19 per main plate. The lamb burger, which one of my tablemates suspected was lamb-and-beef due to the subdued flavor, is now $13. I know food has become more pricey, but this seems more than necessary (to a customer).

I have two real beefs about CM (beefs, get it?):

(1) No Moroccan mint tea with toasted pine nuts and fresh mint leaves? That ought to be a must-serve. No Moroccan coffee, with cinnamon in place of cardamom in the "Turkish" coffee? Another must-serve. In fact, I wandered away bemoaning the watering down of the wonderful ethnicity of the food.

(2) A basic misunderstanding of the levels of cooking red meats (which, by the way, are "very rare", "rare", "medium rare", "medium", "medium well done", or "well done"). We ordered two items to be done medium, and they came out rare. Upon their return from the kitchen they were at best medium rare. Meh. The staff ought to know these basics, and pay attention when food is returned.

So, in summary, a nice place with satisfying food at a slightly high price and a kitchen that needs to be a bit more mindful about their work (which, I believe, is a general theme of the reviews you'll read here.)

Will I go back, probably. But...

Wish I could leave zero stars. Paid with a $100 bill that had a tear in it and they wouldn't accept it. Had a busboy come over and shout at us when we asked the hostess to call the manager and ask if they'd take the bill. He said "why you come in here with a bill like that?" They were acting like I was trying to get over on them somehow.

I'm literally with the hostess now, walking up and down Castro because each bank the hostess checks (with us following her) is closed. Just take the bill??

With her now, still!! Here's a picture of the bill attached. As you can see, it has a tear, but is not torn in half.

Edit: just left finally. The hostess made change with our $100 bill at a store a block and a half away. When we all finally walked together back to the restaurant, and paid, she refused to let me tip my server. After being treated so poorly by everyone but my server, I wanted to tip her. Hostess physically grabbed my arm and took the money I tried to tip with out of my hand. She said they don’t want my tip. I demanded that the server be allowed to take my tip. Hostess said fine, and motioned for me to give it to her. I said no it’s for the server. Eventually she let I me give it to my server. Will never come back to this place.

So, for no reason, the hostess wouldn’t accept a $100 bill with a tear, took it upon herself to make change with my bill at a different establishment, and then it was pulling teeth to tip my server!!

Btw, had a kale Caesar salad with chicken. It was subpar. Glad the food was meh because the service is trash and I wouldn't come back even if the...