Cafe Saint-Ex — Restaurant in Washington

Café Saint-Ex is located on the bustling and popular 14th St corridor close to U St and has been a neighborhood staple since the early 2000s. On the ground level, there are classy indoor and outdoor dining options, and below ground, you’ll find a bar and event/dance space. I’ve been here on multiple occasions on different days of the weeks and times of day. Depending on when you go, you will get a completely different atmosphere and customer base. Weeknight dining and weekend brunching, you’ll find a classier crowd and contemporary dining experience. If you go late night-drinking on the weekends, you’ll most likely find yourself packed into the basement dancing, sweating, and fighting to get a spot at the bar to grab a drink. They also host free comedy shows on certain weekday nights featuring local amateur comedians (hit or miss). They have a good-sized happy hour menu with lots of different food and drink options. In general, the food and drinks are pretty good, but it can get pricey pretty quickly. The dining experiences and food I’ve had here lately hasn’t been as good as it used to be. However, the staff members continue to be polite, attentive, and...

Decent menu, though very few entrees- which may be good if you just want salads, apps, or a sandwich. The truffled deviled eggs were fine, though I couldn't taste any sign of the truffle part. The crab toast app was just OK as well. You definitely have to get in there with a knife and fork to compile your own well balanced bite. Too much bread or corn, and the crab flavor is lost. The flavors in the dish really didn't come together well for me. My wife had the brisket sandwich, which was good. I had the heirloom grain salad with chicken, which was also OK- the grains disappeared somewhere. Their beer and cocktail list was underwhelming. For a place with a nice outdoor patio, serving up great drinks should be top priority. Replace the Allagash (spelled wrong on their menu) and the Lagunitas taps with two rotating DMV beers and adding four more specialty drinks to the mix, would be a big improvement. The Moscow Mule and Paper Airplane drinks were good. The prices were a little high as well. We didn't have any service issues that other reviewers mentioned. Overall, just fine for a bite if you are in the hood but not really a dining destination if...

If I can rate this place no stars I would. I came here on 7/7/19 to watch some stand up in the basement with some friends. I bought a beer ($5.50). Didn’t tip the bartender (Matt I believe), he got really angry, shook his head, made faces at me and then called me an a**hole for not tipping him. He was very angry and almost seemed unhinged / crazed or on something. I didn’t know someone can get that angry about a small tip not given. I left with my friends before the show began because he spoiled the mood. I didn’t feel comfortable in a small room with him projecting anger towards me and my friends. (He deliberately didn’t clean our table between shows as we were waiting for the show we came for to start) Upstairs upon leaving I asked for a manager, told her what occurred. She was nice, but really didn’t know what to do. She offered me a another beer and my money back, I refused both. Not tipping for a beer is one thing, having a bartender act like that to an otherwise polite patron is another. I’m throughly...