Junction Triangle

As residents of the Junction Triangle we were interested in this place - really hoping they'd have some solid espresso etc.

On our first, and only, visit here, we (mom, dad, toddler) were initially pleasantly surprised that they were open, had a reasonable board of food on top of cafe fare and were actually licensed.

However things went quickly downhill from there.

We ordered a latte, an americano and a simple pastry basket to share.

The coffees came quickly but 10 minutes later and no pastry basket.
You surely just need to pick a few, cut 'em up, put them in a basket and bring them to the table.

After fruitlessly trying to get the attention of our harried server (they were quite busy - only one server on the floor) I decided I'd ask to see how the pastries were coming on my return from using their ATM at the back (they currently only accept cash, not the best customer service decision to start with, especially when they charge two bucks per transaction at the machine AND are saving money per transaction by not accepting debit or credit of any kind - "the owner of this establishment, Cafe Neon, charges $2 per transaction", hmmm...but I digress).

As it turns out, our server and I met up at the ATM and I asked how the pastries were coming.

She replied icily with "they're in the line, as you can see we're very busy here".

She then, crazily, asked me "would you like me to cancel your order?".

I had a hungry toddler and I surmised it shouldn't be much longer now for one small little pastry basket so I replied, cheekily, "no, are you baking them fresh?".

To which the server replied "What would you like me to do?"

Not caring to engage any further in this silly and reckless game of "the customer is never right" I brushed past this now nearly combative woman and said, incredulously, "just order it!".

Well, the pastry basket arrived to our table maybe a couple minutes later, and was dumped unceremoniously at our table with intent by said server.

A few minutes later, the bill was literally thrown at my partner, again with no discussion. Wow.

Sorry. But it shouldn't take even a busy little coffee shop / resto close to 15 minutes to pick a few mediocre pastries from the pantry, cut them in half and bring them to our table.

Clearly there's dysfunction along the line in this place as the orders just go in and there seems to be no division of labour between server and kitchen to handle these types of basic requests - felt like a brewing "not my department" kind of thing coming from our server.

Basic word to the wise - don't lay your problems on your customers - particularly shiny new faces like ours who would have gladly returned had we been treated with simple respect and decorum. Now we'll just spread the bad news; I'm sure management will approve.

We will never return and will now post this same complaint directly to the fine folks at Cafe Neon as well as anywhere else we can. In a city this big and with such exemplary options available everywhere for anything this type of attitude is akin to commercial suicide.

Horrible experience.

Naive and self-important service overshadowed our entire, potentially, good experience.

LAME.