Art Cafe — Restaurant in Town of Orangetown

Honestly, I’ve never been to a restaurant like this before, ever. I’ll start by saying that we found most of the food to be unique and wonderful, and we are not even vegetarians. Part of the restaurant experience, however, is the experience of being waited upon. Since I imagine there is quite a bit of tourism in Tarrytown, they should expect first-time customers. The menu, once you have downloaded it to your phone, is complicated. You might wonder how could a menu be that complicated but actually it is. There are literally dozens of choices for toppings for different types of bowls and salads, and it’s in a long list form. I was trying to get something from the coffee list and one of the items was “mod coffee.” There are no descriptions for any atypical items.

As another reviewer said, you pay for your meal and the tip in advance on your phone. Everything is done by your phone. It was edging to nearly 30 minutes before my husband and I started getting a handle on what and how to order. There was a lot of frustration involved. Someone does bring you water at the beginning. I overheard another table ask that person “can you go ahead and just take our order?“ The server responded, “not really. But what do you want?“ We attempted once to interact with the hostess, who was seated near us and intently folding napkins, trying to get help with the menu. She wasn’t necessarily rude, but she said “I’m just a hostess and I don’t really know the menu at all. “ She did finally try by saying “well, what do you want to eat?” That just missed the mark and we gave up. There was no offer to get anyone to help. It was very clear that they did not want wait staff interacting with the customers. They were there to deliver the food. We did finally intercept a very nice server , get a few questions answered, and ordered whatever she said was the most popular dish there. She was very pleasant and patient, but again we could tell we were taking her outside the bounds of her job, which we did not want to do. By that point, one might say the vibe was ruined, I was hangry, and we just wanted to eat and get out of there.

I’ve never been seated in a restaurant where I overheard other people being frustrated by the same thing we were. I mentioned hearing the table behind us exasperated with the ordering process. After we finally ordered, we waited at least 20 minutes for the food to arrive. I told my husband maybe he better check the phone, perhaps we were supposed to do something like pick it up ourselves somewhere. He checked his phone, it said “ Your order is ready.” At that point, we started looking around and thinking maybe we had to go somewhere specific within the restaurant to pick it up. Just as he was about to get up and go looking for it, the server appeared with the food to our table.

At that time, a man seated at the table to the left of me Intentionally caught my eye and grimacing said in a hushed voice “what is going on with this restaurant? How long did you have to wait for your food to get here?” We said “20 maybe 30 minutes. But it is good.” He looked at his wife, and they kind of shook their heads in frustration.

So .. I guess if you’re local, know the lay of the land and go there often, you’re golden. Otherwise, without feeling like you are pretty much inappropriately interrupting random staff to help you, you’ll have to pretend that you’re just ordering via Uber eats or DoorDash. If you want to take pack up leftovers, also be prepared to insinuate yourself and shout over to a harried employee you might catch. ( We couldn’t really gauge the size of some of the items because we just couldn’t ask anybody and so had a lot of leftover food)

You say you’d like dessert? Get out your phone!

The restaurant should put a description of itself on their website that this is a completely self-serve type thing. It is not a true...

I suspect if I had been here at a different time of day, this experience easily could have been bumped up even further with the addition of some pastries or breakfast food. My chums and I impulsively stopped here for some caffeine in the mid- to late afternoon this past Saturday after braving a snow squall on the Tappan Zee. Two of our compatriots live in the area and recommended it, and no one was disappointed. The Art Cafe is a few blocks off the main thoroughfare in Nyack (and maybe not coincidentally, is right where I usually end up finding available parking when I visit) and is located in a Victorian house, which strikes me as pretty much the perfect place for a coffee/breakfast cafe. Sort of like a lower maintenance B&B.

It looked like we had the option of a more restaurant/sit-down experience in the room off to the left of the entrance, but since beverages were the only items on the agenda, we stayed in the coffee shop room to the right, where the cashier/baristas, espresso maker and pastry display counter were. Not as many tables, but just enough room for four ragamuffins who didn't make reservations. We were able to actually order and pay for the drinks on one of our phones, which felt freakishly modern whilst literally being in what was once likely someone's ye olde parlour. Everything came out within 10 minutes or so.

I ordered my go-to drink, a double shot lavender latte (I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was actually listed on the menu and not just as a possible flavor option). It was perfectly fine. I thought the lavender was a little too subtle (maybe that had something to do with the milk used?) but you can see in the attached picture that it's visually appealing. Interestingly, I assumed when I saw the design on the top that that was made exclusively from the barista's milk pouring technique - and based on what we could see from our table, that was definitely part of it - but the design actually stayed intact until the very end of the drink, so I think they may have used a fondant or something. By no means a complaint. I think the total came to roughly $6, which is a little high in the grand scheme of things, especially since I don't personally think you get as many ounces with in-house mugs versus to-go cups in general, but the price point is pretty standard for Nyack.

I was hungry enough where I also would have grabbed a snack, but I only saw a solitary croissant displayed - again, we were there later in the afternoon so that's on us timing-wise. Given the menu emphasis on the breakfast food, I feel like we missed out on a hardcore brunch opportunity that we'll have to revisit...

First time here, and unfortunately, the last. I really had high hopes of this place, but unfortunately, my experience was not a pleasant one.

The first disappointment came when I ordered coffee and didn't receive it until the food came. I would've liked to have enjoyed some coffee while I waited for the food to be prepared.

The menu was fairly limited, and many things were pretty overpriced. The food quality definitely does not justify the price cost. I ordered the ricotta pancakes and eggs, which also came with 1 slice of toast. The verdict....the pancakes were okay, a little small, the toast was burnt to a hard crisp with black char, so I didn't eat it, and the eggs are definitely powdered or something artificial because I know what real eggs look and taste like, and this was anything but that. I was highly disappointed at the fact that this restaurant would even serve that type of eggs. I'm a business owner myself, and there is minimal cost to purchase real eggs. This restaurant has a high food markup, so there's absolutely no reason to scale back on eggs. This was a disappointment that caught me off guard, as I did not expect to be served powdered/liquid eggs. There was another review that corroborated this fact, and referred to the eggs as "eggbeaters", and I noticed the counter-comment made by the restaurant trying to debunk that, but it's the truth; they don't serve real eggs out of an eggshell.

Atmosphere is unique, however, not in a good way. It's a cookie cutter house with minimal seating availability and some very impractical seating arrangements. There were no seats available, so we were seated directly next to the bathroom....gross. I know there are many historic properties in Nyack, and I appreciate the preservation of that history, but to have holes on the walls and cracks that are indicative of foundational issues is not the most visually appealing. Also, older homes are known to have used lead based paint, and the Art Cafe certainly looks like nothing has been done to this property since it was built, which has to be well over 80 years ago if not more.

To sum it all up, the coffee was decent, but I would save my money and spend it elsewhere. The Little Diner in New City, Stonypoint Pancake Factory in Stony Point, Red Hill Cafe in New City, & First Watch in Mahwah, are some great options that sell real eggs and have many great healthy options on the menu at more...