Colectivo Coffee Shorewood — Restaurant in Shorewood

I truly love everything about Colectivo. They do so many things well. The coffee has always been for real coffee and tea drinkers (not for dessert drinks dressed like coffee). In the past few years I haven’t enjoyed their brewed coffee. It always has fruity notes which I don’t care for in my coffee. Now I go for the bakery and food. If I want coffee I have to make sure I it doesn’t have fruit undertones as most of it does. The atmosphere is unique at each location with a few similarities. In recent years it could be cleaner. The staff is friendly and helpful. The bakery is by far better than you will find at other coffee shops. The menu is small, but what they offer is good quality. I was always fairly limited as I try to avoid dairy and gluten. They have decent options. The only challenge can be finding a place to sit. People really camp out for a long time. I have been going since close to the beginning. I was inspired to write a review as I thought about how they started and have grown, yet remain such a great part of each...

This location is my least favorite of the ones I’ve frequented. They mess up my drink probably about 75% of the time, and I don’t have a complicated order. I order the same drink every time (for over 2 years), it’s a menu item with no changes or substitutions. Yet somehow they manage to mess it up. Sometimes they use the wrong milk, sometimes the cup is only about 1/2-2/3 full, sometimes it just has no flavor. And if we take it back to have it fixed, it’s always a problem. The bad customer service experiences have ranged from the baristas just not being happy to fix it to one of them actually arguing with me telling me I just didn’t know what the drink was supposed to taste like because “other locations must be making it wrong”. We’ve tried talking to management about how often the drinks are messed up and it hasn’t made a difference. Also it’s just not a nice place to sit because the music is so loud it feels like a club. (Photo of my messed up...

I have been a loyal customer of Collectivo/Alterra for 20 years and my recent experience at the SHOREWOOD cafe left me wondering what happened to the coffee making quality. Being somewhat as coffee connoisseur, I have always appreciated the cafes attention to making a nice shot of espresso. Many a time I watched the espresso being ground and tamped down and the rich espresso being extracted. Recently I was at the cafe and was watching the barista and noticed their lack of quality control on how the barista tamped down the grounds. He barley touched the grounds, just smoothing them out and then right into the machine. I know there needs to be a little pressure placed on the grounds to ensure they are packed down to ensure a good pot, but that didn’t happen. I feel that there seems to be a lack of training or care shown by the newer employees and I it’s quite...