Cup of the Day — Restaurant in Sault Ste. Marie

In celebration of my aunt’s 77th birthday, my 85-year-old mom and I took her to Sault Ste Marie. After visiting the Tower of History, we decided to go to a local coffee shop and settled on Cup of the Day. Business hours posted online indicated the café was open until 5pm. It was 4:30pm when we walked through the door and were immediately met with contempt from the owner, who was sitting at a table in the customer side of the café. No other customers were present. Near the door of the back area, which was closed to customers, sat a girl who appeared to be a tween. She was not welcoming either and stared at us intently while we placed our order. My mom ordered first – an iced mocha decaf. My aunt ordered next – a pour over decaf. I then ordered a mocha. With each order, the owner grew more irritated. After paying for the order, the owner slammed a cup down on the counter in front of my aunt. I reminded the owner that she ordered a pour over, and he replied in a curt voice that the café has drip coffee, it is the same thing, and she can get the coffee herself from the drip pot. I told my aunt we should just leave, but to avoid confrontation she proceeded to fill her cup. Once we had our coffees, we exited the café and sat at one of their sidewalk tables. In addition to the rudeness, we felt the coffee was subpar. That was the tipping point for my mom. She went back inside the café and told the owner that her iced mocha decaf did not taste good. He then took a drink of her iced mocha, said nothing was wrong with it, and tried handing it back to her. He told her he sells hundreds of these a day. She left her iced mocha with the owner, came back outside and told us what transpired. Something seriously wrong here. She didn’t ask for a refund, so I then went to talk to the owner. As I stepped inside the owner said in a loud cross voice that there is nothing wrong with my mom’s iced mocha. I told him that none of us liked our coffees, but we wouldn’t have said anything if not for the extremely rude way he had treated us. I said I didn’t know why he was angry that we came in for coffee, maybe that it was a half hour before closing. He just became angrier and more argumentative. I asked that he refund my mom for the coffees. He went around to the cash register, took out a ten dollar bill and slammed it on the counter. He then ordered me to get out of the café and started yelling at me – get out, get out, go go go. I rejoined my aunt and mom at the sidewalk table. Within minutes the owner and the young girl came outside, took the empty table and chair next to us inside, and told us the café closes at 5pm. A minute later he came back, said we are no longer customers since he gave us our money back, and ordered us to leave right then. As we drove away the owner and the young girl made faces at us. What a strange and disrespectful way to treat customers.

Made the mistake of not reading Google reviews prior to our visit. Had we read the reviews first, we would have gone elsewhere. From reading the reviews we learned that our experience was not an isolated incident – which makes it hard to understand how the café has been in business for many years. We won’t be back of course, and my mom said she won’t visit Sault Ste Marie again either after enduring his wrath. What is abundantly clear is that this person should not be in customer service and should not be an ambassador for the city.

Our faith in humanity was restored the following day when we visited a coffee shop in Brimley and this time were immediately met by a very outgoing and welcoming barista. Coffee was subpar here as well, but the customer service was top notch. We did not complain about our coffee, and purchased other merchandise to take with us. We will be sure to visit this coffee shop again next time we are in the area – not for the coffee, but for the exceptional customer service.

Updated 9/20/24 From his response, it appears it was my face mask that angered him. As with other negative reviews, his response was snide and based on a...

First I will say the chai latte was fantastic and the spicy thai peanut wrap was delicious. Unfortunately that is where the good review ends. I fully expect the scathing response from the owner that I am sure to earn based on the other owner responses left here. We entered the shop at 345/4pm to buy a cup coffee and to our suprise the coffee was cold. After bringing this to the attention of whomever was behind the counter, the response was inappropriate for anyone working in customer service regardless of their tenure and years of service. We were told there is nothing wrong with the coffee and hundreds of cups are sold there everyday and as for the coffee being cold, that is because the end of day was in 20 minutes (even though the google hours say they are open until 5). They did try to make it right by giving us a chai tea latte but we threw the rest of the money in the tip jar as we prefer good customer service over free items. (Im sure there will be some sort of juvenile rant with name calling in the response). Being in customer service and a small business owner most of my life I found this surprising as your customers should be the focus and if you have to start a pot of coffee or two an hour or so before you close to keep something avaliable then that is what you do. I guess that is the difference between the mindset of an entrepreneur and a manager. I digress, however, good food, cold coffee after 345 apparently and inconsistent...

My friend left a review that covered our experience nicely......the dirty chai was good. The coffee was cold and gross. The customer service was horrible. The shop owner is snide and argumentative. Just look at his responses to other people who have left him bad reviews. I have a right to review our experience as it happened, and I do not appreciate this guy trying to intimidate myself and others if they give a bad review, because of how he treats his customers. I prefer good customer service and I would give this place zero stars for customer service if it was an option on Google. (This review is a few days past our visit as we were traveling and I am now catching up on my reviews of the places we visiting...