Illy Caffe — Restaurant in Williamsburg

I'm very familiar with Illy coffee. I used to buy it often to make in a moka pot on the stove in the common European fashion at the home. I always loved their coffee as far as a store/market purchase. This cafe elevated the Illy coffee experience. It looked to me that they have very nice, high end commercial espresso machines. This resulted in very high quality espresso shots. The cappuccinos were outstanding! Their espresso was very balanced. Not bitter, and it was naturally sweet with notes of chocolate. I was quite impressed with the quality of the Illy coffee and their equipment. It reminded me of coffees we have enjoyed in the northern areas of Italy like in Milan and Turin. Also, if you stay to drink it in the cafe, they serve it in porcelain Illy logo cups. This improves the coffee experience greatly over the grab-n-go paper cups that you typically see everywhere these days. Of course, if you need it to go, they can serve it that way as well. The pastries were very good. We had the ham n cheese croissant as well as a spinach croissant. They were fresh and tasty. They also sell coffee cups and many other coffee accessories with many nice designs and artwork. I hope they expand their cafes throughout the US. I was impressed with the coffee quality and their attention to...

I normally love Illy's. The food and coffee are to die for. However, this morning was much more frustrating. Instead of the usual staff I interact with (who are lovely), there were what appeared to be 4 to 5 college students who seemed to be more interested in talking to each other than taking orders. I had to repeat myself a few times when ordering (though it was pretty busy so I can understand that), and as soon as I was finished paying, the cashier went right back to her conversation with her coworker. I had my receipt printed and tried asking for it, but it's like I wasn't even there anymore. Then one of the employees noticed me and I asked for my receipt but she kept telling me to go to the other end of the counter and wait for my food. I finally got her to hand me the receipt.

The coffee I recieved was phenomenal, great job as always. But my sandwich was extremely cold and still very chewy (not in a good way). I had gotten my order to go so I was not there to be able to ask for it to be heated up, and based on the experience I recieved, I did not feel like driving back.

I'd like to reiterate that Illy's is delicious and delightful, I always go there for a morning cold brew and I still plan to. However, whoever they had working today was just...

Good enough coffee, bad pastries. They do know how to do espresso drinks which is good. It’s not top quality stuff but it’s good, and I think better than Starbucks at least. Cafe is nice enough.

They reheat all the pastries in the oven unless you specifically ask, and most are mediocre to bad. Think grocery store quality. Also despite what they may say I’ve def had pastries that were very obviously reheated from frozen so that’s a thing. I suppose they’re in a more rural area so it’s harder to find good suppliers but I would think they’d benefit from finding another baker.

Edit to respond: buddy, go to a real small coffee shop at a big city if you want to know what serious good coffee is. Like blue bottle coffee in nyc or thinking cup in Boston. But I mostly give y’all a pass since you’re in the rural mid Atlantic states, I imagine it’s harder to get quality stuff out here. And I’ll skip the cupcake- I’ve had enough of your pastries to know it’ll be more of the same cheap grocery store fake...