Caffe Paradiso — Restaurant in Urbana

Alright this place is the worst coffee shop in CU.

WAIT you say I love this place! I get it. It's a cool space and they make alright coffee.

HOWEVER, there are better places for whatever you want out of a coffee place.

Kopi is a cooler place and has a better vibe.

The Flying Machine coffee place in downtown Urbana has WAY better coffee. (Bonus: Pizza M is off the hook)

Espresso Royale is all over the place and has faster service.

Every other place is cheaper by a mile.

Finally the service at this place is the worst. Just half a hour ago I walked in to get a coffee for my walk back home. I waited at the counter for a good 5 minutes while one employee chatted with a woman and the other stacked cups. I coughed, said excuse me nothin playing they were determined to ignore me.

I realized after leaving without my coffee that this was about par for the course here. The staff is frankly terrible. The coffee is pretty uneven and about half the time you get the feeling your imposing on the staff's free time.

Now that I can go to Flying Machine in Urbana or Kopi in Champaign there is no earthly reason I have to feel crummy every time I want a espresso. Goodby Paradiso you are the worst coffee place in CU and I don't have to put up with...

Cafe Paradiso is a Champaign-Urbnana historic landmark and there is no deny on this. However, unfortunately, the coffee shop has significantly declined over the years. Here are the details:

(1) Coffee quality: simply, it has declined significantly. I don't know what happened, whether it is not a regular cleaning of their coffee machines or wrong beans, etc. but the coffee is worse than Espresso Royale (which we all know is not a high bar to pass!). To Espresso Royale's defense, they don't charge $5+ for their americanos.

(2) Internet speed: In my opinion, a good coffee shop in a college town has to be a convenient place to work. The internet here is just the worst I have seen for a loooong time. In 2025, with not so busy house, the speed of 1.96 Mbits/second (see the attached screenshot) is just unacceptable. This is despite of the fact that many companies provide fiber optics services.

(3) Unhappy baristas: Again Paradiso was the place that you used to interact with a lot of happy baristas and now, most of them are quite unhappy (and seem rude-but again you don't know why).

There are still many positives about the place that in all honesty should be mentioned: there are power plugs everywhere, and the quality of the pastries is...

First time here and we were excited to try some new coffees but unfortunately they didn't really have any special coffee flavors They did have one with burnt sugar but it only came in iced coffee not hot. I ended up just getting a hot mocha and my daughter got a latte with added toffee nut flavor. We also tried a slice of banana chocolate chip with nuts bread and the overnight banana and chocolate oats. I enjoyed my bread but I got the end piece so it was sort of thick and not as soft to eat unfortunately but it was tasty and I would order again but ask for a middle piece. The overnight oats are just okay we would not order again but that's just our taste someone else may love them. The cafe is cute and spacious but very crowded. It was hard to find a place to sit alone. The employees were helpful when ordering but rushed us when asking suggestions or about flavors. Overall, it's a nice place for a coffee and snack while chatting or doing some work on your computer. I would go back but wish they had some original new flavor combinations for ther coffee drinks. Hint hint...