Three Star review, originally posted here on June 7, 2014 and updated to a Four Star review on August 27, 2015.
ORIGINAL POST: I’m trying to like this place because other people are telling me it’s awesome and handing me food/drink from there as evidence. I’ve tried their coffee, which is delicious, and a couple of the brought-in pies, which were also delicious. In fact, I’ve been craving the blueberry pancake batter and bacon pie ever since the last time I went in, because it was the most delicious thing ever eaten by man or beast.
BUT…
I have entered this place exactly twice. And BOTH TIMES I was blatantly ignored by the staff, who were busy chitchatting with friends on the end of the bar. In both of these experiences I was the only customer waiting. The first time I eventually had to interrupt the girl, who seemed annoyed at my mere presence. Today at least she eventually wandered over and was friendly enough. But dang… management needs to talk to their staff about how it may be bad for business to make your customers feel like total shit just for being customers.
Oh, and it didn’t help my review today that they didn’t have the pie I wanted and had been craving. Or maybe they did, but I couldn’t tell because I had to search for the pies, eventually noticed a fridge kinda tucked in and the end of the bar, and then spent a while reading hand-scribbled little pie labels that didn’t actually line up with the pies. Another commenter mentioned this and I agree- they could use a better menu system to help identify what they actually sell. The coffees were listed on a small piece of paper taped to the wall, I think I spotted a tea menu hidden on the bar between pastry dishes, I already mentioned the hidden pies, etc.
If they clarified their selection and surgically removed the chip from their staff’s shoulder, I would be totally sold on this place.
*****************************
UPDATE: I’ve given this place many, many more chances, and overall I’ve decided to boost my review from 3 to 4 stars because, generally, I tend to have decent experiences there. The coffee is really good, as is the pie. I finally tried the gelato recently and it was just kinda meh, which surprised me, but I will give it a second shot sometime. The people have for the most part been nice, and they welcome dogs, which is a big relief. It’s still a bit of a mixed bag, though, when it comes to staff, so I can’t boost them to 5 stars. On the one hand you have the really nice guy who went out of his way to let me know that my dog can come in when he saw me trying to find a safe place to tie up my dog outside (thanks, Nice Guy!), but on the other you have the chick who, though off the clock at the time, was loudly bitching to customers about other customers leaving bad Yelp! reviews and angrily proclaiming that these people are morons for not instantly understanding their menu. Oddly enough my 2 complaints in my original neutral 3-star review were: 1- confusing menu (or lack thereof), and 2- rude staff who prefer to chat with friends instead of help new customers. And here was this girl, chatting with her friends about how stupid MY review was wherein I say that the staff prefer chatting with friends instead making other customers feel welcome. MIND. BLOWN. Anyway, I think that may just be a bad apple or two that I keep encountering over and over, because otherwise the people have been fine, so I’m not docking points for that anymore. Hence 4 stars. Mostly good stuff here.
Helga without the H 