Paradigm Coffee and Music — Restaurant in Sheboygan

We came here to grab coffee to go and ended up also ordering a couple of breakfast sandwiches.

What we liked: The atmosphere; it was nice and open with plenty of seating inside and out. Seems like a great place to come with friends or bring a book and relax solo for a while.

The breakfast sandwiches, overall good. A little more on the greasy side than I prefer, but flavor was on point.

What we didn’t like: First and foremost, what we came for, the coffee. My husband and I both ordered different latte options. We agreed that neither was very good. The maple latte lacked maple… zero hint of maple anywhere in there. The busy beaver latte tasted more bitter than anything and there was perhaps a hint of cardamom there, though not much. Disappointing, because both sounded delicious when reading the menu!

Second, the gentleman taking our order at the front. He was perfectly pleasant at first, but, this being our first time coming to Paradigm and having zero knowledge of the place prior to actually walking through the door, we did not realize it was a purely vegetarian establishment. I asked if there were any meat options included for the breakfast bagel and when I asked this question, the gentleman‘s face and attitude completely turned sour out of nowhere and he responded with a bit of an attitude and an annoyed stare “We don’t have meat.”

Okay…I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. It was very offputting. Taking that kind of attitude with customers, especially new ones, is a great way to ensure that you don’t get repeat business.

Overall, I would give this place another try in the future. I really did like the vibe, but I’d stay clear of the coffee drinks and go for tea instead. Oh… and I certainly wouldn’t want to offend anybody by asking...

My experience has been unfavorable for many reasons:

1. The tables were dirty. Just finding a clean table to sit down and have a cup of coffee is almost impossible. Nothing like sitting at a table where you can share in the food from the previous customer who sat there.

2. Waiting for the coffee that I ordered to arrive made me feel like Rip Van Winkle.

3. The only thing that helped make that time pass by more quickly was watching them prepare the food ordered by other customers. I was truly amazed that no one wore: plastic gloves while preparing the food (hoped they washed their hands), no hairnets nor beard nets were worn by the staff as they prepared the food either (so if your food arrives looking like it needs a shave you’ll know the reason why).

4. The music playing was overly loud. Which causes the customers to shout just to be heard over the loud music playing in the background. Can you say: “Pump up the volume”?

5. Another “joy” to add to the loud sound of the music is the sound of a tattoo gun buzzing in the background like a bee. I mean, when I think of coffee I think of tattoos and needles. Gross.

6. The last thing is the overly political tone of the place. Bad enough to have a portrait of Greta Thunberg hanging on the wall, but the small picture of Che Guevara who was responsible for the deaths of millions of people throughout Central and South America was the topper. Why not have portraits of Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Castro, etc. hanging on their walls as well? Nothing says coffee like 100 million deaths and counting from socialism and communism.

I’ll never go there again. And I will not recommend the place to...

Let me preface this by saying that I used to like Paradigm a few years back. It was a nice,cozy place to get coffee. I just went there today, and the atmosphere was about the same, generally chill with the same quirky sort of decor that I remember. I was annoyed when our three drinks took about 15 minutes to come to our table. They arrived without an apology or explanation. Later on I ordered some chips and salsa. After about 20 minutes of waiting for that, I went up to the counter to ask what the hold up was. Kate (the owner) told me that they "we're slammed in the kitchen". The place didn't look that busy. She then told me that I was "lucky it's only been 20 minutes" and that "there are other people who've been waiting a lot longer than that".

The chips and salsa arrived a few minutes later. Kate said, "we made it especially delicious for you", which as far as I've ever known, is restaurant talk for "we spit in your food".

I understand it's not Starbucks. I don't go in there, and expect to get my drink in less than a minute, or even my chips and salsa in less than five. I just expect that the owner/manager has some understanding of the fact that her patrons shouldn't be endlessly patient with an unorganized kitchen and slow service. This used to be a fun place for me to check out whenever I came to Sheboygan; now it's just like Collectivo, but with much slower service and rude staff. Oh well. I guess there's still the Weather Center and...