Red Elm Cafe — Restaurant in Tacoma

Do. Not. Take. Your. Kids. Here. Ever. Even if BFF Susie comes to town and you cannot find a sitter. Don't do it.

Looks deceivingly clean with ample seating, a conference room, and a children's play area that should be removed and all items set afire. Visited once with less than friendly staff. Went back because of the play area in a coffee shop. How neat for us pent up SAHM's, right? And the children's play area/items surely must be as clean as the rest of the cafe, right? Let us spare you a possible ER visit and weeks of agony. Ever heard of Hand, Mouth, & Foot? I had and none of my 5 children ages 2 up to 22, had ever contracted it. Until our 2nd visit here. We had been at home quite a bit the 3-4 days prior visiting here so I wanted to meet up with my pregnant daughter for some girl time. My toddler played supervised in the play area whilst we visited and other than irritated-to-be-working gals at the counter, we were just happy to be able to visit semi-uninterupted. After our visit, life for us, went back to a lot of work at home and no play so no trips or visits anywhere. 3 days after our visit at this cafe, my son had eruptions in his mouth that to me, looked like severe swelling of the gums. It got progressively worse before I took him to the ER (our ped does not accept non-apts) where he was diagnosed w hand, mouth, and foot. The Doc said the older kids can get it but their immune system is much stronger and they are not as affected by it as little ones. We checked over our older kids who were clean and traced our time spent back to this place. My son had terrible blisters and swelling of the mouth and a few of the blisters made it to his chin from touching. His throat and cheeks also had so many of the lesions. Fever, crying, inability to chew food. It was horrifying. I'll never visit again and they seriously need to remove the children's play area because obviously it cannot be kept clean or sanitized even with lysol here and there through the day by staff. You wipe the tables after each use, would it kill you to sanitize a small kids area a tad every...

While the Red Elm may have a fondness with its regular clientele, it missed the mark with hubby and me. The cafe was self serve in that ordering was at a counter. The breakfast menu was quite limited with waffles being forefront on the menu. The waffles were not crispy at all as though they were reheated (microwaved?) and not freshly prepared. Eggs were only available scrambled, and they were presented as though they were prepared in a waffle iron, i.e. they were flat with grid lines on them and absolutely rubbery! The bacon was undercooked and appeared to be microwaved as well, especially since there was no aroma of freshly cooking bacon, waffles, or anything else at The Red Elm. Overall, the space could have been charming, but when one can hear staff bickering and then customers are asked bus their own tables, especially when the price was as much or more equal than what we would have paid at a full-service restaurant with much better, excellent quality, freshly prepared breakfast. It's a shame the owners are taking better advantage of the space and loyal clientele to offer a better experience overall. Simple improvements here would go a long way. Oh! On the bright side, the coffee was very good, but there was a charge for dine-in customers for even one refill of the modest ceramic...

Sofie is the new owner, so there are a lot of changes being implemented. I enjoyed it because it has an old diner feel and it's open to all people to come in. It's a small business, which presents its own challenges, however when there is a change or feedback they are open to it. My favorite food there is hard, I enjoyed the Waffles and customizing, but I will say the stacks for sure. The employees there make it special, and the opportunity to help grow young employees to their career paths made my time there enjoyable. I think you can expect what you get there, its a diner feel that has a great community vibe, and it makes it special. Its hard to rate food, it says what it is it warming up food. I love to dress things up but it's food and it reheated and it also uses local business and others to support the economy. I love that. If you're a student, on the go need a quick meal to prep when you can't do it all, because no one can, it's a great stop in. I also love how passionate everyone is about the work. There are some really unique and cool people here and I very much can say it was also one of my favorite places to work at...