The beignets, for which this cafe are known for, were delicious. They were served fresh, hot and with plenty of powdered sugar. (Don't wear black when visiting!)
The service, however, was absurd.
We were seated by a pleasant enough worker who directed us to an empty but dirty table. As they were so busy, we assumed the table would be cleared prompty when our server arrived to take our orders. Not so. After waiting for about ten minutes at a table with powdered sugar and dirty dishes, we decided to put the dishes on another empty table (also with dirty dishes) to get them out of our way.
Upon doing so, a server finally arrived and screamed at me. "YOU NO TOUCH ANYTHING." I was directed back to my seat and repeatedly told (at a shout) not to touch anything. Our table, at this point, was still not cleaned, nor did she make any effort to take away remaining dishes. This left me feeling quite ridiculous, being scolded like a child and being yelled at as though I'd done something entirely inappropriate.
After about another ten minutes, the server arrived again, and finally took away the remaining dishes and swiped our table with a cloth that looked like it had been plucked from a trench, or possibly a sewer. She made no effort to ensure no sugar/crumbs dropped on our persons or our belongings. She then took our order (two orders of beignets, one coffee, one hot chocolate) and left.
Our orders arrived reasonably prompty (I appreciate that the cafe was very busy and there seemed to be a lot of orders going in at once) but my coffee was wrong, I had specifically ordered a coffee with milk, and upon delivery our server dropped one of our beignets on my skirt. She attempted to wipe the mess with that same dirty cloth, which I tried to stop her from doing, before dropping a large amount of cash on the floor. As it was windy, I tried to help by catching some of the bills... but of course, I had forgotten what had been screamed at me earlier in the chaos of the event...
Once again, I was shrieked at not to touch anything. Our server collected her money and then repeatedly tried to attack my skirt with the cloth.
By this point, it was not worth trying to fix the coffee error, as I did not feel safe in doing so. I was sure I would be either berated again, or I would receive a coffee that had been tampered with, assuming the one I had was clean to begin with. (Or both)
Other customers seemed to be having a much more pleasant experience with their servers, so it's possible we had terrible luck, but I would not have wished this experience on anyone. It left us feeling really awful, not to mention dirty and sticky. It would be wonderful if Cafe Du Monde could have a talk with this server about customer service, and perhaps send her to retraining. I appreciate that everyone has a bad day, but as we were not being particularly demanding on our server or doing anything particularly out of the ordinary, it seems unreasonable for her to have treated us so poorly.
I invite Cafe Du Monde to reach out to me for more information about my visit or about my server, as I'd be happy to help them improve.
I would return for more beignets, but I would absolutely be taking them to go!!
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