Benton Park Cafe & Coffee Bar — Restaurant in St. Louis

This is a very delightful restaurant, but after years of coming, had a very unpleasant experience and wrote the email listed on their site, with no response back. So decided I will share here.

So I want to start this off with the fact that me and my family have been visiting BPC since they were on Arsenal. My sister even had her graduation brunch there. We love the place and most of the staff are helpful and very kind. But me and 2 business associates went in on Saturday August 24th and had an unpleasant experience. Upon arrival, we saw that the place was pretty busy so we decided to get some coffees to go. I paid and tipped. When we were leaving, we saw there was an open outside table and decided to sit down for about 15 min to talk about our next venture and finish our coffees. The waitress asked if we were waiting on her or if we were all good and we said we were good. She said to us that she just wanted to make sure she wasn’t neglecting us and we all laughed saying we were ok. After 15-20 min. we decided to wrap things up and we were about to take off. Before we could leave, a very rude employee that was seating customers as they came in, came to the table and very loudly asked if we were waiting on to go food, knowing that we were not. As we told him we paid for coffee and were about to leave, he interrupted and said that these tables were for paying customers. All of the nearby patrons were staring. We responded by saying we paid for the coffees, but we didn’t make a scene. We left without incident. It was VERY embarrassing and demeaning. I feel like if we were dressed in business attire having a meeting over coffee or if we were 3 giddy suburban girls chatting over coffee, that nothing would’ve been said, or at the least he wouldn’t have been so rude in outing us in front of all the other customers. If there was any issue in us sitting there, I wish the waitress would’ve come over when she asked if we needed something without making a scene and kindly told us. I understand that is taking up one of her tables may be taking away her tip from that table. If we would’ve gone and asked for a table upon arriving, and conducted our meeting over nothing but coffee, would the waitress have told us that the tables are reserved for customers that are ordering food? Like I said, we paid for the coffee and the employee embarrassed us. I just wanted to share this with you instead of posting it on...

Found Benton Park & Coffee Bar on an early Saturday morning. They can busy pretty quickly so a reservation is the way to go. I tried to make a reservation online but the only tables that were available were for the next day. I called them and was told they don’t accept same-day reservations. So if you plan to visit, make a reservation the day before. Despite this, we were told that we could be accommodated and to come on by.

When walked in, we were seated immediately. It was pretty busy so our sever took some time but it was an advantage to us because it gave us time to look over the menu and decide what to order.

As a vegan, they do have some options. You can sub eggs with vegan eggs and get a veggie patty. So I got the two eggs breakfast (half order). I got vegan eggs (which I believe where just eggs), veggie patty (which is a impossible burger), hash browns, and a pancake (which is not vegan, don’t judge me, I really wanted a pancake!)

Everything was very delicious. I didn’t know the hashbrowns had cheese in it until halfway through so if you want them, ask for them without cheese.

My husband got a regular egg sandwich. There was a problem with his meal and they were very humble and compensated his meal. This shows that they really care about their customers and the quality of food that they put out.

Overall the atmosphere was nice and laid back. Beautiful artwork adorns their walls and it seems you can buy them if you wish as it had the prices and the artists named! Street parking is available and free. Would recommend this place for meat eaters and non meat...

My sister and her husband talk about this place constantly and they finally pulled me in for the "experience". I now understand their obsession. First, the food. Great menu selections and many of the "old regulars" have a nice twist to them. I ordered the ultimate benedict and will validate my sister's thoughts...better than Grandma's. Speaking those words around my parents would be blasphemy. They have a great drink selction with many coffee, espresso and liquor drink options. Next is the enviroment. Simply said, its a nice place. It's the kind of ambiance that you and friends could sit around in for a couple of hours and enjoy yourselves. The service was great "thanks Badazzle" and all the service staff were kind of hippy/eclectic types.

I have read some of the negative nancy reviews and this is my response after 3 visits (yes Im an addict). I have come to the conclusion that all the negative reviews must be about the Sunday brunch. And it is because the place is a madhouse on sunday. I couldn't believe my eyes there were so many people! It is truly a spectical to behold. To be fair- My wife and I had no issues with our meal (other than waiting for the table) but I could see that if you walked into sunday brunch not knowing what to expect the top of your head could literally blow off.

So, my overall review is this...the best little cafe I have been to in St. Louis. And when people come in from out of town to visit we do Forrest Park, the city museum, a cards game and Benton...