Bookstore Bar & Café — Restaurant in Seattle

If you're not dolled up, don't bother. While there's no Dress code posted online or in person as far as I could tell, I was treated like absolute garbage.

The first time I visited this bar & 'cafe' I had a wonderful experience with my wife and no major outstanding issues, however a dramatic change in customer service must have taken place since then or maybe I came at a bad time, I'm not quite sure what to think.

I came through the Alexis entrance and I was greeted by a host wearing red pants, the establishment was pretty slow/empty as it was mid day and I just wanted a nice quiet work-space and to enjoy a coffee as I presumed that's why the place was dubbed "Bar & Cafe" I was led to a table kind of off to the side when there were more pleasant seating options available.

I kindly asked if I could sit near the window and that's when things started to get heated, the host honored my request but in a very negative manner as I got settled in he hurriedly poured me a glass of water and slammed the bottle down to the point where the water splashed on to the table, I didn't think too much of this at the time other than maybe he's stressed out or something after which I proceeded to look around the room for a menu or specials not to bother the host but to no avail.

It was at this point I hesitantly asked for a menu and he snarked at me 'I have to go get it first' I was shocked at this treatment coming from the same place I celebrated my wedding night at, he carelessly placed a menu at my table and I began to search the menu for non-alcoholic options but apparently they use the word 'cafe' in a looser manner than I was initially led to believe, I then asked if they served coffee and he seemed like he was doing literally anything to get me to leave the establishment, I felt like I was being treated like literal trash and have never been treated so poorly in my life and I'm very used to pubs and bar life, I've been to Oddfellas, The Pink Door, and many other high end establishments and I've never been treated with such hostility in my life it totally took my energy from productivity to just feeling...

Bookstore was one of the first establishments I visited when I was visiting Seattle for the first time, and the high caliber of customer service experience I received not only set the tone for my trip, but it also gives me a (probably misguided) overly positive perception of the city, itself. I'll get into the incident later, but first I'll describe the overall experience.

My best friend, whom I hadn't seen in nearly a decade, and I wanted to go to a cafe/bookstore to catch up and possibly do some work. I ordered an obnoxious iced drink that probably wasn't even on the menu, my friend ordered tea, and I decided to order a breakfast burrito. I honestly don't remember whether I was hungry or whether I even wanted it. We immediately got our beverages and we were immersed in conversation for a while, unbothered.

It got to the point where she wanted more hot water for her tea, my ice had melted, and the place was buzzing. It wasn't really the place for us to just chill, so we decided we'd find an actual coffee shop (even though our server was fine with us working). I wondered whether it was too late to cancel my burrito, which my friend absolutely discouraged because she was sure it was on its way.

I flagged down our server, who at this point was outnumbered, and asked whether it was too late to cancel the burrito, and I insisted that if it was, I'd just take it to go. She went to check with the kitchen, and she came back apologetically, telling us that she forgot to put the order in, and that the drinks were on the house. I ended up tipping her what the drinks would have been because she probably faced negative consequences for that incident, but that is above and beyond my expectations.

I mean... WHAT?? I'm from LA and I was living in NYC at the time. I have found actual shards of GLASS in my ice cream before, and after pointing it out to a restaurant manager the only resolution he offered was a new bowl of ice cream, for which I was still charged. He didn't even comp the item. But that was in NYC. That wasn't Bookstore. Bookstore is different. Bookstore knows...

Made a reservation here to celebrate my boyfriends birthday, a convenient location across the street from the hotel we stayed at. The atmosphere was really nice with the books and pictures, however there was no one at the host stand when we arrive for dinner, and no posted signage about seating ourselves so we stood awkwardly looking around until a bartender caught our eye and said we could sit wherever.

We picked a table in the back room and our server promptly greeted us. We got waters quickly and put in our food order. It wasn't very busy, only one other table had people in that room, but the food took a good while to come out. Not too long, but it was odd considering we ordered the bread to share as an appetizer, but it came out at the same time as our entrees.

The bread was VERY crunchy. It tasted good, and i love crusty bread, but it was a bit too much even for me.

The fish and chips was really good. The fish was juicy and crisp, and the fries were tasty. The burger was fine. Nothing amazing but it was tasty and that's all we really wanted. We asked for it medium and it came out a perfect medium.

Service felt a bit disjointed and I had to flag down our server for the bill even tho only one other table had sat down. I was surprised when they didn't ask if we wanted to order dessert and there hadn't been any mention of the birthday.

I would give it another shot on a more casual outing, my boyfriend definitely wouldn't give it another shot. A bit of a mixed...