Urban Sweet Cafe — Restaurant in San Marcos

I was trying to find a sensible meeting area for someone in Escondido, where I can meet them coming from Oceanside and I chose the Urban Sweet Café in San Marcos.

The Urban Sweet Café is a small coffee shop located in an urban development area of San Marcos. The small shopping Plaza that surrounds it also has a few hidden gems.

This Café has a very distinctively cute interior that comes across as a more organic, down-to-earth and healthy ambiance, as opposed to modern / industrialized corporate appeal.

Although the interior is very cute, it is also very small & feels a little cramped when it gets crowded & boy, does this place get crowded during rush-hour times.

However, I do like that you have a choice of seating along high chairs inside, a small couch in the corner, or outside on high tables.

Please keep in mind that this is a café that you pay at the counter and then return to pick up your order.

Their menu is very straightforward and simple and primarily focuses on a variety of sandwiches and avocado toasts.

I liked the simplicity, because I know I can always customize my order to add variation to my flavors. I also liked that they had a seasonal menu with a few other choice specials.

Because they were only 2 service workers, who appeared to be very young, our service was very friendly & attentive while we were present at the counter.

However, when it gets busy, these 2 servers are so busy that they cannot attend to any other tasks, such as wiping the tables down or cleaning up after others. I observed this & wiped down my own table before seating.

Overall, Urban Sweet Cafe is a nice place for a solid avocado toast & a decent coffee or a latte & is good for a cute date or small get together; avoid if group seating is required. I'm glad that there's free Wi-Fi with a strong signal, because phone reception doesn't work in this area. Also, keep in mind that this is a...

Lucky for this place, it’s really the only convenient coffee shop, so people come. Very slow and poor customer service. I would suggest to whoever manages this location to train the employees:

Always greet your customer. Don’t leave them standing at the counter ignored. If you are busy, you say “hi, I’ll be right with you”. Out of 4 people working 2 feet from me, no one did this.

Train your employees how to use the coffee grinder. It shouldn’t be a mystery how to get a coarser or finer grind.

Get some organization. I only ever get simple black coffees and it always takes a very long time because no one seems to have a designated position. Someone should always have a primary role at the register who can serve as a backup for drink making only when they have nobody to ring up.

Move past the iced coffee and have a cold brew option. For a name like “House of Black Coffee”, there sure doesn’t seem to be a specialty of black coffee.

Make sure your drip coffee is hot. I’ve come many times in the morning and...

This place has really friendly employees, that's the only reason for any stars. They have new hours, that's fine. But if you're going to stop serving food at a certain time, there should be a sign posted or something on the website posted. When I go to a business and they're open, I expect them to have stuff available. If you want to stop serving food 30 mins before closing, then close at 1:30 instead of 2. My daughter and I waited for the front girl to take our order (that's fine, she was making drinks for other customers that got there before us.) And it would have saved us some time if we knew they weren't even serving food anymore. My daughter ended up getting an almond croissant (they still sold the already made baked goods.) And it had some gross filling in it. Which is fine. But almond croissants usually don't have filling. It was so gross :-/ Anyways. If you do go there for food, try the turkey bacon avocado melt. Just make sure you get there a good while...