Well Met Café — Restaurant in St. Louis

A friend and I went to try out Well Met Café for the first time today and overall, it was an okay experience.

I do want to start by saying it’s an absolutely beautiful space. The dark blue walls and decor in the main area make it feel like a nice, relaxing spot that would be great for catching up with friends or sitting to work on homework or just read. There’s a nice variety of stuff, too, between the menu, shelves, and coolers (e.g. pastries, local honey, variety of wine and beer, variety of cheeses, jam, and pickles). The staff was warm and friendly, too.

Edit to add: I also do appreciate that they are open 7-7. It’s rare to find places like this open past 2pm/3pm since COVID hit.

The pricing is hit or miss, though. For example, the coffee ranged from $4-$6 and was good, but it’s $1 per flavor if you want to add anything, which is a bit surprising considering the bottles of flavoring it looked like they were using generally only cost about $5. It also wasn’t noted anywhere on the menu or website, and we weren’t told about the added cost when we asked about flavors. There also wasn’t a listing of available milk options. The pastries were $4 and well worth that cost (the chocolate twist was amazing). But a small bottle of Naked Juice was $6 (a high cost since a regular sized bottle costs less than $4 at Target and less than $3 at Walmart). The paninis were, on average, $13 but the quality wasn’t what we’d hoped for.

My friend ordered the Axel Foley and it didn’t come with the caramelized onions. When she asked for the onions, she was told they were out and the menu just hadn’t been updated. As we started eating, she realized the fig aioli wasn’t added either. The menu also states the Axel Foley comes with greens but it just had Romain lettuce, which isn’t what we expected when we saw “greens”. On the website, though, it says it comes with arugula.

I ordered the Sara Connor and I did really enjoy the apricot spread but that and the Dijon were really all the flavor the sandwich had. The Brie cheese didn’t seem to have any taste either. I was hoping for something that would make me want to come back for more, but it mostly felt like a sandwich I’d put together for myself at home with some basic ingredients from the store.

Perhaps we caught them on an off day or they’re still working out the kinks, and maybe we’ll come back to Well Met in a few months, but currently, we’re in no...

Poorly staffed during my experience. One person was tasked with taking orders and payment and having to make all the drinks. One person was in the back responsible for cooking and bringing out food orders. If I owned this place and knew that I was tasking only two people to operate a coffee place that also served made to order food, I would have been in there to help.

My customer experience was abysmal. The barista who also had to be a cashier kept taking new orders despite a huge backlog of coffee to prepare. It took the person in front of me over 20 minutes to get an Americano. I was behind him and got my cold brew before him. Barista also put out orders from customers who arrived after the people ahead of me in line.

I don’t know if having two people on staff to operate an entire cafe was due to absences in staff, but if it was, the owner should have stepped up.

If this is due to the owner wanting to cut back on staff for profit and to overwhelm and overwork their only two employees, then I hope you really think about how this will effect the morale of your employees and in customer service terms effect your small business.

Do better, step up, take care and...

This is a fantastic little spot. I wish I had known about it sooner. It may have helped squash the existential dread that comes with being a human. The fact that they have a red velvet cookie just makes me very very sad that I had never been here before. The service was wonderful, the sandwiches were very tasty. I will personally recommend both the Sarah Connor, and the Harvey Dent. Even if I think those are strange names for those particular sandwiches. I don't think there's anything two-faced about horseradish and sauerkraut together, but whatever. A neighborhood Cafe on par with any of the best neighborhood cafes in St. Louis. I only wish that it was on this side of the park being the side that I live on which is the opposite. However it is only a 5-minute drive away. Tip your baristas and service workers or else you are going to Buddhist hell. This is a very important distinction to make because there are a hundred hells in Buddhism. So you know you got that going for you if you're cheap. Aside from that, I took my fiance here on a date after spending too much money at a bookshop which I will also be reviewing. And we were very much not...