PAUL — Restaurant in Virginia

I came here with a friend and we ordered two lattes with oat milk and a couple pastries. Very simply, we encountered rude workers and experienced terrible, chaotic service. Workers weren’t dismissive at first. Instead they seemed overwhelmed with the rush of customers, so I can offer my sympathies there. Upon sitting down and opening the pastry box, one of the tarts had a very distinguishable finger smudge in it— marked this as an honest mistake (picture below), but nevertheless it immediately left both of us with a foul taste in our mouths. After waiting 15 minutes we never ended up hearing our names called for the drinks. At this point the rush had died down. My friend goes up to ask the worker if they’d been made, and the worker flippantly tells her that we should’ve been assigned a table number— ours, apparently, was 18, though we hadn’t been informed of this— and that our drinks weren’t ready. No other tables around us had table numbers and we weren’t informed prior of how this system worked. After waiting a couple more minutes, and seeing other customers who ordered after us getting their drinks, both of us went up again. The worker looked exasperated and he said that they’d called our names out already, despite the previous worker telling us our drinks were not yet ready (or simply not caring to explain anything other than the confusing table number assignment), and asked us what’d we’d ordered, after which his peer— the individual who previously told us about our table number— began making our drinks. He asked us if they were just regular lattes, and we said we both specified oat milk. Luckily, the espresso bar here is exposed and we, the customer, can see how the drinks are being made. So we watch as his peer makes them both with regular milk, not oat, to a scalding 170 degrees, give or take— at least hot enough to scald your tastebuds off. Never mind paying extra for the milk; I have a severe milk allergy and could have paid a hefty medical fee if I drank this. I did not have the energy to address this and we left.

I understand that the workers were busy and stressed when we first came in, but losing your customers orders and not caring enough to relieve their confusion; ignoring finger marks in your tarts; and making your customers’ drinks whilst disregarding the actual composition of their orders is unacceptable. I have worked multiple cafe jobs in my teenage years and would not have behaved this way towards a paying customer. We are two young-looking girls (not dressed in designer) so maybe this is why they did not take us as seriously as they could have. To their credit, their pastries are quite good. Maybe their drinks will be better when they’re not pressed for time or try to be more attentive. But beware if you have allergies— they’ll decide whether or not they care about the integrity...

Rude service and dirty environment. Food and coffee are mediocre. Completely ruined my afternoon with my family. Even my 9 year old nephew thought this place is dirty.

The place is small and crowded. There are not that many big table. When I got there, 4 big tables were filled with used plates and cups. I moved the dirty stuff off to another table and asked a staffer to clean the dirty crumbs off the table. The staffer only cleaned my table and left. The other tables were not cleared until other customers came and requested...

Had a dirty plate. I asked for a new one, and it still has a dirty dot on it. I gave up and just scratched it off with napkins.

I ordered 3 cup of coffees, a coke, 3 big macaroons and 2 other pastries . After a while, my family were thirsty so I decided to get water at the front. I go to a young staffer, and she gave me only a cup of water. I said I need 5 cups, and she turned and chatted with a middle aged hispanic lady, which I assume is her boss. The hispanic lady turned to me and said, “No.” I was completely puzzled because I have never had a coffee shop or restaurant turned down a water request. So I questioned with a “No?” And the lady stared at me and said “No!”. At this time, I found her to be completely rude, I told them I order bunch of coffee and pastries, and now my family are thirsty, why turned down 5 cups of water? The two discussed with each other, the hispanic lady then left and the young staffer gave me 5 cups of water. I asked why the hispanic lady said no, and young staffer said she thought I was asking for 5 cups of free coffees. I am completely baffled by this incident. I later thought about it and found this to be completely unacceptable. If she couldn’t understand my request, she should have asked me again. Also, she found out she misheard me, but offered no verbal apology for the rude ‘no’ stare to me. That attitude completely ruined my day.

I would not go to Paul again and I would not recommend other to go...

This is the worst fall I’ve ever been to in or outside of the United States. Everyone here is rude, lazy and especially slow. I’ve waited up to 10 minutes in line just to pick up an order when there was no one in front of me because the staff would rather ignore me and tend to the people. They are bringing orders to than just have someone present at the Cash register. If they’re having a bad day, they won’t even bother applying the discount to people who work in the mall/area. Speaking any language, other than English and a public customer service setting is already rude, but especially rude when they’re not even speaking French, which would at least be on brand lol instead, they talk trash about you in Spanish in your face under the assumption That they are the only ones who understand this basic language. The food is OK at best, the service is a joke, and the atmosphere is pretty bland compared to other Paul’s cafés I’ve been to. There isn’t unfortunately there’s nowhere else to grab coffee before our shopping trip since they’re the only café in the mall. Today I waited 25 minutes for a pick up order and to order a coffee on the side. The barista gave me an attitude when I stopped her, noticing it was ice and asked if that was for me only to give it...