Lake Mountain Coffee — Restaurant in Statesville

We were passing through on our 2 hour drive back home and decided we wanted coffee after stopping for lunch off I-40. We were within 1/4 mile of two major chains, but we like to frequent local coffee shops when traveling to support a local businesses, so I took to Google to find something close enough. This was the only coffee shop open on a Sunday and nearby, so we made the 8 min drive to downtown Statesville for some coffee based on the glowing reviews. Service from the two teen baristas was great, no complaint there. But the lattes were flat out terrible. We're coffee snobs and routinely pay $30 for a small bag of coffee beans, so we're not the kind of coffee drinkers that thinks Dunkin' or Starbucks has great coffee (they don't, but it'll do in a pinch). This was by far worse than either of those chains and the worst coffee we've had at any of the dozens of local shops we've visited in our travels this year. I couldn't taste a single drop of espresso in either of our drinks. If you like a cup of diabetes, then get a flavored latte here. I had a lavender one, which is typically not a very sweet flavor to add to coffee. I've even had the brand syrup they use, just a week ago in fact, so I know that brand isn't overly sweet if you don't overdo it and if you put the right ratio of espresso to syrup to milk/milk alternative product. But the barista obviously felt the customer doesn't need to actually taste the espresso and instead should have a cup full of sugar. If there was espresso in there, I wouldn't have known. It was just a cup full of syrup and milk that looked like it maybe had some drops of espresso in there for color. And it was $8 for that one latte (they charged $1.25 for the single syrup and $1.25 for the coconut milk)!!! Definitely not worth the $$$ or the time it took to go out of the way to visit this shop. My husband didn't even finish his peppermint latte. It was like drinking a milky bottle of mouthwash. The inside of the shop is cute though and looks like there's lots of places to work. Just get something other than a...

As a regular customer, me and my friends visit this new coffee shop frequently. However, after the encounter with the owner, we do not plan to give this establishment any of our business any longer. As every Statesville resident does on the weekends, we attended Sky Mountain for a drink. As we were outside of the building, we noticed a cat under a nearby car that seemed to be crying out of fear. We were worried that the owners of the car wouldn’t notice the cat underneath the vehicle and try to leave. With that in mind, we tried to chase the cat from underneath the tire. The owner came out and asked us in a demeaning manner, “what’s going on here? What are you guys doing?”. We explained to him what was going on and he took a look for himself. I had a piece of food in my hand hoping to lure the cat out a little further. The owner said to me “It’s not a dog. Cats aren’t like dogs. Just leave the food on the curb and leave it alone.” We explained again we wanted to move it from underneath the car, nothing more. He then said “don’t worry about it. Its just a cat.” He walked away and approached another friend of ours standing nearby. We stood there and hoped maybe the owners of the car would come back soon so we could explain the situation. He stopped the conversation with our other friend and said “I told you, don’t worry about it.” We got our stuff and began to leave. He never said anything more to us. We all discussed that his demeanor was very condescending and considering we are there every single day, our faces are very recognizable and we expected more from a local businessman who we often give our money to. We have decided that we will no longer be giving our money to this business until the owner decides to treat us like the valued customers he...

Edit: Wow, Andy delivered 2 new bags of beans - in person- and gave me a refund on the previous purchase. I have not tried the new beans yet, but I will update once I try them. The attention of this place to customers is mind-blowing though, and I really appreciate it.

Old review: While I hate giving a poor review to a local business, their espresso roast beans were so bad I felt like I was drinking battery acid.

The atmosphere here is pretty awesome though, and maybe they have better beans behind the counter for their own brewing - we didn't try their in-house made drinks. We came here to buy espresso beans specifically, since they claim to have fresh, locally roasted beans. The guy behind the counter told us the beans were roasted max 1.5 weeks ago, but the lack of "roasted on" date on the packaging should have been a dead giveaway. These were the most stale, acidic beans you will ever taste in your life. I am not really a coffee snob - I will drink almost any coffee you put in front of me and when I say these beans were bad, I mean undrinkably bad. Oh and the beans were super expensive as well.

Mountain Lake Coffee, I really like your place, it's really cute, the atmosphere is great, but please just don't sell espresso beans that have been sitting on the shelf for who knows how long. The person that will buy them will never step foot in your...