Drink Coffee Do Stuff — Restaurant in South Lake Tahoe

Unfortunately, location has gone precipitously downhill. I’m an espresso lover and barista, and their machines are really excellent and the coffee itself is good. However, the staff, environs and service were extremely disappointing. The staff: 3 girls. One wearing an oversized sweatshirt with mac miller plastered on the front, whose music, incidentally, was blasting over the speakers, vulgar and offputting - Please don’t treat the cafés as your personal living room, so don’t play music as if it were - and a black beanie, another girl with purple lipstick, white shirt and piercings, both rude and hilariously condescending. I felt as if they were talking to a stupid child. And falsely cheery to new customers. Super negative vibes. The third with a ponytail and all the sweatshirt was actually nice if nothing but meek. I order an Americano, to my surprise It’s over five dollars. I turn around and look at the board indeed an Americano cost 4.75 and espresso four or 425. This itself is absurd to charge 50 or $.75 for 6 ounces of hot water. There should be no price difference b/w espresso and Americano. At least the coffee is still good not excellent as it used to be but pretty good. This is the reason why I usually come to this café. I asked one of the girls how many oz of hot water they use in Americano and she said we just have one size and showed me the mug which I suppose is an acceptable answer but she doesn’t know how many oz? I sit down and look around. The interior looks grimy and sad, almost abandoned. There is some furniture and plants I remember now missing. A woman beside me is reading, she gets up and goes to the bathroom. It’s locked. She sits down, and a few minutes ago by. She tries again, still locked. She asks is there a key to the bathroom. They say if it’s locked then there’s someone in there. So she turns around and sits back down. a few more minutes go by at this point I have a feeling that maybe the door is stuck locked. I try the door of course it’s still locked. I ask is anyone in there? No response. So I tell the front either someone is very sick in there or the door is simply locked, they looked at me like I was crazy. a minute or so goes by and When the girl with the white shirt knocks a few times looks under the crack in the door, she says out loud it looks like the light isn’t on. She goes back to the cafeteria, she comes back with the key. It’s the wrong one. She finds the right key, and opens it. indeed the light was off and no one in there. At this point, I was nearly laughing out loud, the situation was becoming Kafkaesque. She Turns around says “ it’s ready for you hun” to another guy sitting there also waiting, but had gotten there after the first woman. He gets up without a second thought. are people totally oblivious to the world?. Do they have no standards, no desire to have dignity and demand proper service? People are willing to tolerate mediocrity, and this is what we get, but I digress… The guy leaves, the woman leaves, now it’s my turn. I go inside and wash my hands and look around. Wow a complete mess! And to top it off, there’s absolutely no toilet paper. I go outside and tell them the bathroom is out of toilet paper again I get responded with a sarcastic smile and a condescending “will get right on that in just a minute”. I sit and wait. They have to go find it somewhere in the back, this is when the girl in the olive sweatshirt makes her appearance carrying the box. I go in now. The bathroom was dirty. The trash was full. Clearly, what happened is that these girls forgot to even unlock the bathroom and check its state before opening that day. I wonder how many people wanted to go to the bathroom, but it was locked said nothing and gave up and walked away. This was around 10 AM Sunday March 23. Visconti, please lay down the law as the owner of the establishment and hire workers who are grateful for a job and take it seriously. Your café is being denigrated by this staff. And make sure Machines, grind, settings are calibrated, as my drink was not as...

I really wanted to like this place... I tried three times to like it. But realistically it's too small and seems to be poorly managed for the amount of business they do. Parking is a nightmare, especially with snow on the ground. They have a grand total of 2 actual parking spots and the rest is street parking in the back that may or may not actually be allowed. They are always busy, which you could take as a good sign. I did the first time. But, the service is SLOW and they're always sold out of nearly everything, which says to me that they either don't care to get better at managing their heavy patronage or don't know how. You shouldn't be sold out of almost everything to eat by 930am. That's crazy. Someone messed up somewhere if that's the case, and it's been the case 2 out of 3 visits for me. Furthermore, they were out of the bagel to make the sandwich I wanted and had to sub sourdough bread. No problem there. But they then tried to upcharge me for the bread??? Run your business how you want, but forcing customers to pay MORE, because you ran out of something is pretty backwards. I declined the sandwich and won't be back.

The plus side -- the coffee is good, and when you can get it, the food IS...

As a local, its a tough pill to swallow when the customer service is neither friendly or welcoming. We have been drinking DCDS since before this location was thought of. The hipster gentleman working the front counter was horribly rude and absolutely did not care to be there. The sighing at the questions we asked regarding merchandise and alternative milk options was overlooked because it was a holiday weekend- but still inappropriate for an employee to act that way. He shoved the carton of oat milk at me when I asked if it was gluten free, which normally I would appreciate but it was done hastily and not in a nice way. I brought him the water pitcher because it was empty and my son was very thirsty. He yelled at me to put it down and stated he would get the water when he was ready. I had already asked politely for a cup of water upon ordering and he barked that it is self service. I tipped extra because he seemed flustered and they were probably having a busy day… anywho… the chai late that I ordered was horrendous. Like actually sour and tastes very foul. We left without water, disappointed, and probably will not return. Big bummer! A crappy chai served...