Arcedium Coffeehouse — Restaurant in St. Charles

At first glance Arcedium seems like a great place for coffee, but unfortunately poor service and poor quality beans makes me wonder if the owners even drink coffee at all.

I'll start with service since it's the easiest thing to fix. Across my maybe half dozen visits to Arcedium I've never received my full order in less than 20 minutes. It's a true enigma given that there are at least two but often three baristas all on shift but never more than one shot being pulled at a time. Maybe they have inadequate equipment (e.g. single boiler machines)? Maybe they only have one portafilter? Or maybe their baristas are trained to sit around and wait for a dozen drink orders to be queued to start making coffee?

Even with the slow service, I probably wouldn't mind if the coffee was delicious. But it's simply not. The fact that they don't even bother to put a roast date on their bags should tell you everything you need to know about their roast "quality". Don't let the fact that they offer 10+ different origins of beans, since they all seem to be roasted at a medium-dark and have a distinct ashy taste regardless of brew method.

I find it truly sad that the yogurt shop down the street has much much higher quality coffee than this cute coffee bar. Hopefully the owners are already aware of these issues and can bring in some people who are actually passionate about their coffee to turn...

Our son told us about this place so we decided to give it a try... upon walking in, the place looks cool with the roasting equipment and modern atmosphere. We went for a coffee and late breakfast. The coffee was good, but after that the experience went way downhill. First the girl at the register had zero personality and looked like she didn't want to be there. We decided to get the yogurt and fruit, as well as a quiche... at about $5 a pop I was expecting a bit more than I got... way overpriced for what you got... the yogurt was in a plastic dixie cup with a little bit of mixed berries, and some granola on the side and served with a flimsy plastic fork... OK, chalked that one up to a bad choice, but when the quiche came out is when we decided we wouldn't be coming back... first off it was very small, and over-microwaved... the crust was so soggy as to be non-existent. Had high hopes for this place,...

Usually this is one of my favorite spots but the last two times we’ve been in the customer service was horrendous.

The first time we walked in at quarter till five and did not realize they closed at five. The guy behind the counter acted like the register didn’t work so he couldn’t make our drinks. Miraculously the girl got the register to work and we finally got our drinks. The guy made them and took forever to complete them. Funny thing is, there were people sitting all over inside and we just wanted ours to go.

Second time, same dude. This time it took almost 20 minutes for three drinks. The people in front of us got drip coffee and they didn’t get their coffee until after we got ours. Instead he chose to serve what must’ve been his friends before all of the rest of us.

Will not be back anytime soon. Hopefully they get it together, they’re not the only coffee shop in...