Ambee Coffee — Restaurant in Somerville

As someone who works for a micro-batch coffee company I speak from lots of experience with small cafes and the industry in general. To start, I love seeing small businesses that take on corporate competition. Cheech opened a block away from Starbucks.

The atmosphere: charming. It’s conducive to studying, work, or a date.

The coffee: I ordered a nitro cold brew. It was okay.. basically what I’d expect from a basic nitro except a little bitter.

The main problem: the service. Whenever I walk into a new independent coffee shop I anticipate that the environment will be at least a little pretentious, but hopefully friendly at the same time. That’s normal and fine. Sadly, “pretentious” would not be a good word to describe the service at Cheech’s Own. The service was actually quite nasty. My interaction with the barista that took my order was short, but somehow between me telling him the item I want and paying for it, he managed to make me feel rather condescended to. Just one example is when I tried to pay with a card I didn’t notice the chip reader underneath the screen. I tried handing it to him. Instead of politely pointing the reader out he decided to cross his arms and look at me with a “I want you to know I think you’re pathetic” expression for a very uncomfortable long period of time until I realized the reader was on my side. When I picked up my 5 dollar coffee I had to wipe it and the puddle it was served in clean. Walking out I thought about how I’ve been to and done business with dozens of artisan coffee houses in cities up and down the coast, and I’ve never had any experience like that. Good coffee and supporting small business are both a huge part of my life, but with that attitude I’d rather go to...

I have been coming to this cafe for years, even before it was Ambee. It through 2-3 name changes, but not sure if it's the same owner. Every time, I had a good a experience- customer service was great and they have great cold brews , interesting flavors, and seasonal drinks. They have a wide selection of vegan pastries. Very cute cafe for meeting up with friends or studying. They have indoor and outdoor seating. Live music is available on certain nights. I have tried the Ube Latte last winter, but it did NOT taste like ube at all. If you have had authentic ube foods before, you will be disappointed, so don't waste your $$! My latest experience left me skeptical about returning. The girl at the register glared at us after we ordered, weird, but whatever, just give me my coffee. I had placed an online order earlier. After realizing they screwed up my order, one worker blatantly ignored me and walked away. Another worker asked me, "Is this enough?" as she was pouring the milk in a slightly annoyed tone...I don't know, you tell me, you work here so you're the expert. No apology was given for the mix up. Another issue with the online ordering is that you MUST give a tip! For some reason, you can't just skip it. So be aware!! You’re better off just ordering in person! Also, the girl that worked at the register was also making a drink- she had very long hair that was not tied up. Not very hygienic. Maybe they were overworked and busy because they all looked miserable. But isn't everyone short-staffed and overworked these days? I'll still return because they have good drinks (coffee and non-coffee) but the staff needs to work on their customer...

It saddens me to give this a one star rating but after my experience last night I have to. I was there with four other people and we got coffee and wanted to sit. The three tables all had two people as two of the seats have signed asking people not to sit in them. They have bar style seats available. We asked if we could sit in them and the clerk said no. A few minutes later a table became available so two of sat at the table and the other two stood near by. 3 minutes later the women making coffee yelling from behind the counter said that there's four to a table and we're at capacity you have to leave. There four people who came in after us sitting at the bar style of seats that were not addressed and came in after us. We took the high road and left but the batista, who clearly was targeting us could've handle the situation better. Yelling from across the counter was disruptive to the other patrons who turned their heads and looked thinking they were being addressed. There was no explanation why we had to leave but four other patrons sitting in seats with signs saying you can't sit in them and came in after us were not addressed and the batista was highly unprofessional in how she handled the situation and we were...