City Lights Cafe — Restaurant in Sylva

On Monday, my family stopped here on our way home from a short vacation in Andrews, NC. We are a pro-mask family. All 6 of us have masks and take them with us when we go anywhere.

Upon entering the restaurant, we seated ourselves as instructed by the sign at the door. We worked our way through the clunky online ordering system and placed 2 separate orders. After waiting far longer than should have been expected, I walked up to the podium where the lower and upper portions of the restaurant meet. I waited for at least 5 minutes and had several employees look at me without anyone bothering to ask what I needed. My brother-in-law got up from the table to see what was going on and forgot to put his mask on. As soon as he walked up behind me, the restaurant owner stormed out of the kitchen yelling "You don't have a mask on! GET OUT! LEAVE!" She immediately picked up the phone and called the cops. He would have gladly put his mask on. This was not a case of someone being belligerent or refusing to wear a mask. It's also worth noting that no one was within even 10 feet of us at the podium.

He sat back down at our table and my sister and I went to the counter to get a refund for our orders. Two police officers arrived around 10 minutes later and spoke to us all. They waited with us until we received our receipts for our refund that took at least another 5 minutes for whatever reason. An older gentleman who was with his wife (both wearing masks) asked for a refund as well after seeing the way the business owner reacted. Once we got outside the two officers informed us that they were simply there to make sure that we left as the owner had asked. They seemed rather surprised that they would be called immediately without the owner even asking my brother-in-law to put his mask on. One of them stated that the best thing you can do when someone acts like that is to not give them your business. I couldn't agree more!

Yesterday, my sister left a negative review for this establishment on Google. The business owner then solicited her friends on her personal Facebook page to go leave positive reviews to push my sister's review down. This is against Google's Terms of Service, not to mention that it's a shady, dishonest business practice.

Again, we are a pro-mask family. Mistakes happen. Treat people...

Let me preface this review by saying that, as this was my first experience at the City Lights Cafe, and my first time in Sylva, I was trying out a lot of different places, and I liked everything I had until I got to City Lights Cafe. I came in with my family, and we ordered a decent amount of food. Two breakfast burritos, and two breakfast sandwiches. The first warning sign that this place wasn’t good was when we walked in, and my mom, who can’t eat egg yolks requested egg whites in her breakfast sandwich, which the owner was strangely adamant that they could not do (strange for an establishment that caters to special diets). My mom ended up ordering her sandwich with no egg on it, and we took our seats. I noticed as we sat that both of the cooks weren’t wearing hairnets or gloves, which is questionable at best(I read a review of the owner defending this by saying it is dangerous to wear gloves around hot kitchen equipment, and I can say that after working in a restaurant for several years that this is not true). When my family got their food, I did not receive mine, and found out that it wasn’t rung in for some reason, which led to another wait for food. My mom, who specifically requested no eggs, received a large amount of egg on her sandwich, which she couldn’t eat, and my sister received on her sandwich three long blonde hairs, strange considering nobody in my family has blonde hair. When I finally got my breakfast burrito, the egg in it was so overcooked that it had the consistency of rubber, and the flavor of it as well. Needless to say, we sprinted from the establishment once we were done, and will not be returning. I don’t normally leave reviews, but this experience was so different from that depicted by other reviews, that I just had to give it. Nice selection of 80’s pop...

After grabbing a cup of coffee from city lights a couple weeks ago, the menu peaked our interest because as vegans, our dining out options are extremely limited especially in rural areas like this. Although there are some hidden gems all around but this review is about city lights so onward we go. We went there for lunch this past Saturday, after noticing they had a vegan Panini on the menu and what we received was NOT a Panini. It was a toasted sandwich and ordering it was ridiculously tedious. I read a previous review and someone said they’re ordering system was clunky and that’s definitely a good word to describe it. Also I should make mention that we also selected guacamole, and since we also selected chips and salsa maybe it was proper to assume that we wanted our guacamole on the side not on the sandwich, this is definitely a downfall of ordering and such a impersonal way. Communication is important! Communication is key! Communication is ideal to make sure your customer the one that keeps you in business is getting what they want. I understand the need to keep your staff safe, I really truly get that but I think that you’re over the top, and I should also make mention that if I had seen you call the cops on somebody for a misunderstanding or a slight error in judgment I’d demand a refund for myself too. If it’s that much of a concern, only offer takeout! Don’t offer in room dining if you’re going to make it a bad experience for people who go there and spend their hard...