Tacoma Java Co. — Restaurant in Tacoma

The Pros: Cool shop, local art available for purchase, seems to be employing women of various experience in coffee service and training people up which is very cool.

The Con: I did however stop in as a first time customer a couple weeks ago because they have on the signs outside that they do milkshakes. I asked if they could do an espresso milkshake which they confirmed that they could and asked what size I wanted, it was a hot day and I was excited as I've not found a local place recently that still does them so I went with their largest size and it came out to just over $30 pretip for the drink and a breakfast sandwich. Unfortunately, the barista that rang me out was apparently new, over promised under delivered and was told by her senior barista that they could just use ice instead of ice cream and most people wouldn't know the difference.

I didn't want to Karen especially someone new that's working off tips but for the senior barista: your service bar, isn't a full wall and if I'm standing right on the otherside of it I can hear you, it'd have taken you 5 seconds to ask if I was okay with that, I probably would have been since I'd been wanting to try this place out for a while. Considering your price points and that I wasn't a regular just that amount of transparency/honesty is the difference between me feeling good about coming back and me feeling like I wasn't valued.

For the other folks that enjoy a good espresso milkshake, the...

I go there everyday for lunch, and today I brought my husband with me. Every other coffee shop I go to has baristas that ask if the drinks are okay or if they need something more. Not today. My husband very politely asked for the drink to be as sweet as every other coffee stand makes them and the little girl working said that she could make it sweeter but she would have to charge more??? When I asked how much syrup she used she responded with “we purposely don’t make our drinks as sweet as other stands, and if you want it sweeter then you have to tell us when you order because we charge extra and use about half of what other stands use” I will not be going back to this stand ever and will be referring everyone in my office to a different stand as well. Customer service was horrible since she had an attitude when I asked why she was charging extra. Not to mention they refuse to give ice water to customers that are even willing to pay because they have no way to ring it up and all of the cups have to be paid for!...

Well. I have visited this place twice now. Each time the coffees were VERY enjoyable. The 1 star for food goes to the breakfast sandwiches. On the window of the 6th ave location, there are these fabulous looking sandwiches on an everything bagel bun, scrambled eggs, thick bacon and melty cheese. I ordered the maple bacon sandwich. The sandwich was NOTHING like the advertisement. The egg was this patty which appeared to have been previously frozen, the bacon was pale and flimsy and VERY thin. The bagel that is was on had maple pockets in it, not maple bacon. The bacon appeared to be those microwavable slices of bacon. It had like 1 and a half pieces of that thin bacon on it.

I have driven past this joint many times salivating at the advertisement on the window of the sandwiches. Bottom line is that it is false advertisement- such a let down. I'll go again but only for the coffee or maybe a...