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| - Caffe Demetre was the first place I ever tried waffle/crepe with ice cream on top - hard to believe how amazed I was back then about something so common now. Fast forward to 2016, and oh my have things things fallen for this place....
To be honest, I was surprised that Caffe Demetre was still even open. When my friend and I had a sudden craving for ice-cream, we decided to check this place out...and was quickly reminded about why I probably stopped coming here so many years back. The dessert options here still suffice, but are pretty much just on par now with most other dessert places/cafes in terms of selection and quality...the service and management here though literally had me shaking my head.
We were actually surprised at how popular this place still is, but were fine waiting in a short line for our turn to be seated. What was a bit of a turn-off though was watching servers and the manager repeatedly walk right by empty tables (there were at least 3), without realizing it might be a good idea to quickly clean them off and actually seat some of the patrons standing in the growing and increasingly crowded line-up. At first I considered that perhaps they were understaffed, or busy with something else, until I noticed staff members literally just standing around and joking with each other.
I do like how customers are able to customize their crepe/waffle topics - I went with the "Roche" ice-cream, with white-chocolate sauce and roasted nuts on a waffle, and it tasted great! What was much less great however was the $15 cost. $15 for a waffle and ice cream, really?
The fact that the server got my order wrong TWICE, was also a bit frustrating...my friend was not pleased either with the glass of water that arrived at our table, as it was only about 1/4 filled, an looked as though it might have just been another customer's leftovers lol.
I don't know if this place recently changed management or not, but the lifeless expression on the face of our server screamed "I hate my job." So...with the poor table management, inaccurate orders (without even cursory apology), unfriendly demeanor of servers, cheque-pushing, and sky-rocketed prices, I can say that it will again be another long time before I come back to Caffe Demetre...at least to this location.
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