Café Berlin — Restaurant in Washington

Went to the restaurant on a Thursday afternoon at around 4pm. We wanted to dine outside and luckily, there was no one there except for one person, who was looking at their laptop. Went inside and was asked by the server if I had a reservation. Since the courtyard was completely empty, albeit this person with the laptop, I assumed that their policy must be that you had to have a reservation, no matter how busy they were. I stood in the courtyard with my cell phone and brought up my Opentable app, made a reservation, and then went back inside to let the server know that a reservation had now been made. As we are walking back out to be seated, this person with the laptop starts to admonish me, saying 'you didn't have to make a reservation now that you're here. You're costing us money'. Huh? Found out that this person at the laptop was the manager/owner of the restaurant, a woman named Clytie. Very rude. How about when we arrived, saying hello and letting us know that someone would be with us shortly? Or how about in a pleasant 'customer-oriented voice', saying 'thanks for making your reservation. Just so you know, the next time you come, there is no need to make the reservation unless you do it in advance'. This lady acted like I did her a disservice on purpose! She negates a potential $80 or $90 dinner for a $2 fee that she has to pay to Opentable? We ended up leaving. I don't like spending my money in places where I am treated poorly. I wonder if this interaction was racially motivated. We frequently dine out, and I have never been treated this way in a restaurant before. This manager was completely RUDE. Then, when I got riled up by her inconsiderate comments and I let her know that it wasn’t my problem about the fees that she had to pay, she started shouting, 'God bless you! God bless you!' in a snarky and condescending tone. I would NEVER patronize this place again. There is never a reason or an excuse to be rude to potential customers or paying customers, unless they do something to disrupt service of the establishment. This manager obviously does not honor...

Me and my girlfriend enjoyed Cafe Berlin alot! Being a military brat I've been longing for some good authentic German food since I moved back state side. Lets just say that's not the easiest thing to find in DC at least in my experiences. Cafe Berlin came around just in the nick of time! The food so far is the closet I've been able to get to traditional food since I've moved back so I was very happy and excited! They also sell imported beer, giving you the option of a pint or a liter. Another thing I liked about Cafe Berlin is that its set up how I remember restaurants being in Germany. Nice quite inside seating or you can sit outside in the Beir Garden which can be very relaxing on a nice day or evening. For my meal,I had the jager schnitzel with spatzel which is a pounded thin fried boneless pork chop topped with a savory mushroom gravy . The schnitzel had a nice cripsy breading on it and was nice and juicy on the inside, it was served on top of spatzel that was nice and light; almost like a fluffy noodle. The gravy was Amazing! it had a nice deep brown color to it, and had great flavor; the schitzel and spatzel soaked up the flavors from the gravy making the dish even more enjoyable. My girlfriend had the Saur-braten which was also very delicious! The slow cooked meat with the purple cabbage was great together and very flavorful; I would recommend either of these dishes to anyone, even if you've never had German food before. Since I've been craving German food for the longest time, this meal gave me a soul food type happiness! I really missed this stuff! If your ever in the area I would recommend checking out Cafe Berlin, not the best German food I've had but good flavor and the closet thing I've had to authentic since I left that...

The restaurant has a cozy and warm feeling to it. The waiter provided our drinks and took our order quickly. The food also came out pretty fast. I enjoyed most of my dish, but the pork meatballs were interesting. However, I am not familiar with German food and am not German myself. Therefore, there is definitely a chance I am simply not used to some of those flavors. It was a fun experience overall still to try another cultural food. The service was very poor and multiple tables around me also made this comment. It was odd because our waiter didn’t really engage us or provide much feedback on our questions, but all the other tables around us we observed him being thorough with his responses. He also never came back once after dropping the meal in fact someone else brought our meal to us. She had her own tables but it seemed she got frustrated when we asked her questions more than a couple times and responded I am not your waiter. I understand why she might feel that way especially if she has many of her own tables. The waiter walked by us several times, our waiter, and not once made eye contact or stopped over. The manager or supervisor, stopped over to ask us how things were, but we didn’t want to get the waiter in trouble although the service was absolutely awful. So, instead we opted for a low tip, because truly he could have just popped in once shortly after we started eating to make sure everything is ok. We ordered this thick large pork thing and until we asked all we had is a butter knife to cut it with, and trust me if you see this thing you’ll know that isn’t going to work. I wish To try more food, but sometimes you can’t compromise the taste of food for poor service. Unfortunately, we won’t...