Caffebene

I really need to stop coming here. Or at least, I need to find a new go-​to order. I’ve been solely disappointed by my last two orders of the iced green tea latte, and it’s time to move on and forget about the first ever caffebene green tea latte I ever had, which was excellent.
I don’t know if they’ve changed their matcha power or recipe, but I strongly suspect something has changed in the calibration here. Lately, the iced green tea lattes have been (a) too sweet and (b) thinner than they were before. Disappointing.

Dropped on by to satisfy a sweet tooth and cool off from the heat. My eyes lit up when I saw their spread of pastries and bubble tea menu, and it took a lot of self-​control to not over-​order.
Space — Clean and well air conditioned.
Shaved Ice — Green tea shaved ice with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and your daily serving of fruit. My favorite topping was the mochi bits. Highly recommend on a hot summer day or night.

Do not go here. Worst bene experience. Rude, slow staffs and seems like manager is never around. No idea why they keeping those workers since its bad for the business. This isn’t my first time experiencing this. Food was disgusting and staff is not willing to fix this. This business is only running because of the location.

This has to be the worst Caffe Bene I have ever gone to!
I was meeting a friend for coffee and he suggested this location. All the other Caffe Bene’s I have been too have been just dandy. This one, not so much.
The restaurant was empty when I arrived — hint hint!
I got a small coffee and an english muffin with egg, cheese and Canadian bacon. The counter person microwaved the sandwich to rubber, it was barely edible.
The coffee tasted like burnt water, if there is such a thing. Needless to say, I won’t be coming back…

Service absolutely sucked. Employees were rude and disrespectful. We ordered 2 waffles to go and waited for 15 minutes. The waffles have been sitting on the counter this whole time, no one has informed us that they were done and we weren’t even given a buzzer, which we usually do. Guess what? They weren’t even for us to take to go. I told the barista AGAIN that it was for to go and it took her another 5 minutes to finally responded/​do anything about it.

Came here for twice for the mango shaved ice. It’s pretty yummy and a big portion, but a bit pricey and sweet!
I think the portion is good enough for 3 or 4 people to eat. The 2^nd time I came here ate the shaved ice with 1 other person, but it was a lot…
The place is pretty big. I didn’t realize there was a 2^nd floor with more seats.
It gets pretty crowded here, I see people working on their laptops and some people studying as well.

Useless staff, slow service, terrible attitude
Do not come to this location unless you plan to study and chill, the food is subpar at best and overpriced. They sell jimmy deans breakfast sandwiches I get at the gas station. What a joke.

I can attest to all of the reviews posted below in regards to their poor customer service. I came in earlier this week and ordered a simple milk tea with boba, easy ice. However, when I received my order, it turned out to be a different drink (jasmine green milk tea). I wanted to return the drink and see if they can give me the correct order, but instead was told that I had ordered this drink and that they refused to change it.
Honestly, I did not know how to react to this. I firmly told them that I had ordered a regular milk tea and not the jasmine green tea, and was told that I was wrong and that they would not replace my drink.
I normally don’t write reviews on Unilocal,but after receiving such poor customer service, I felt inclined to give my opinion to other potential Unilocalers who were thinking of coming here. There are plenty of other boba cafes/​coffee shops in New York, stay away from this one.

Pros: 1) pastries is amazing; 2) customer service great; 3) tasty of food is good.
Cons: 1) the woman didn’t wear the gloves when filled knives, spoons in a jar, she was touching them all over them; 2) had some problem with music, didn’t work properly.

I was mistaken someone’s drink because they didnt check the order number. While I was enjoying the drink and desserts, the staff walked up and told me that was not my drink and took it away –from-​my-​hand!!! What an impolite attitude! He didn’t even bring me what I ordered then I have to walk up to the station and took it while people stared at me like I did something wrong. This is not professional at all.
Nice place and cozy ambience
but overpriced and bad service
One star!

Coffee shop and bakery chain originally from South Korea. This place is not really like a traditional Starbucks type coffee shop. It is more like a Chinese bakery but with higher prices for the same quality.
There is a large selection of puff pastries, meat filled pastries (like hot dog buns, tuna buns, bacon and egg puffs), cold cut sandwiches, slices of cake, bread, swiss rolls, ice cream and much more. Like most Asian bakeries, there are also many offerings with green tea and red bean flavors. The coffee drink offerings are the standard fare you’d find in any coffee shop, but they do offer a lot of fruity drinks too.
The baked goods I’ve tried here were all passable. Not always the freshest and slightly overpriced, but okay overall.

When did Caffebene expand to as many locations as they have? They’re starting to become a Starbucks because every corner I turn, I find another one of these!
But I must say, I can’t complain. The drinks are delicious and if they’re going to be just as expensive as Starbucks, I’d rather come here. This specific location has a great selection of drinks and food, but they do make everything to order, so do expect to wait.
No real complaints other than my drink took a little longer to make than expected, but it was delicious.

Before writing my review on this place, I want to let you know that have my great fair share of taro bubble tea at other places in NYC and NJ. Also, when I’m traveling to other states and there’s a bubble tea joint, I always ordered it.
After lunch in ktown, my family stopped here for some bubble tea. The place was small and the items (pastries and drinks) were overpriced but there’s a long line at the cashiers so the food and drinks must be really tasty, right? SO WRONG!!! As usual, I had the taro bubble tea. Honestly, it tasted like water with tapioca. Someone just threw in the purple dye! There’s no flavor. Never coming here again.

So disappointed at the Red Bean cake I purchased here a few days ago. Never been that big of a fan of their drinks (which are usually on the sweet side) and the coffee is mediocre. The only reason I visit is probably for their patbingsoo.
Back to the cake, I paid $ 32 for a red bean cake that has no red bean taste at all. There are a few beans in the cream between the layers of cake. But the cake layers are just regular cake. I guess you can still call it a «red bean cake» but do you really think the red bean flavor will come through? False advertisement much? And even the cream itself only had a subtle hint of red bean. Not worth the money and total disappointment. I looked around at all the bakeries/​café in korea town and decided on this cake at the end because Caffe Bene was the only one with this flavor.
Definitely won’t be coming back for the cakes and only gave two stars because the server was friendly while boxing my cake.

(Accidentally checked in at the 5^th street store)
Disclaimer: Caffe Bene is a chain store, but I haven’t had any problems here YET, I’ve seen a lot of pretty bad reviews for their baked goods and to be honest I haven’t tried them yet, so my review will not be reflected on how fresh their baked goods are. Also my review is a mixture between last year and this year. I had the Red Bean Ice Parfait last year, everything else was from today!
Otherwise it’s a seemingly great place for «Korean styled» treats. Baked goods in general are always an awesome «on the go» bite and the shaved ice bowls are awesome to have with some friends, but BEWARE the shaved ice is HUGE! My friends and I stopped in after dinner and were completely satisfied sharing a bowl (3 of us). It’s definitely too big for 1 person alone. We got the red bean one and it was pretty good, huge amounts of red bean, which is good, and a lot of other toppings as well. We really enjoyed it, especially since it was my first time too.
The taro milk tea was great, not watered down at all and definitely one of the few places I’d go back just for it and the Tiramisu cups are great if you are into tiramisu products, grabbed it quickly for a bus trip and it was delicious!
However I did give it a 4 star, due to the fact the workers don’t seem to pay attention to what they’re doing most of the time, I guess since they’re busy? But that shouldn’t mean you put a yogurt parfait into a bag sideways… honestly that thing would’ve melted everywhere if we didn’t take it out right away and place it in the bad upside right.
Also I didn’t like how they have on the TV’s advertised saying buy a whole cake and get a mug free and then be told, that they don’t do it there… I know companies have a general screen of flyers, but this was NY if not here where else? Otherwise this is a great chill zone with friends, you can dine in, there’s an upstairs and a downstairs, but it’s usually pretty packed in here.

Sad.
That’s the first and only word that comes to mind when I think of this place.
These pastries appear exhausted from screaming from neglect. We ordered a peach and cream bubble tea… Yuck it was obvious that it came from a powdered mix, which would have been acceptable if taste was superb. Not! They were the kids that have lost their faith of mankind in foster care. There goes my 14 dollars exhibition fee for touring yet another corrupted system. 2 pastries, 1 Med bubble tea. My wallets mad!
Seating available on both sides of the register and also upstairs.
Large crowd of high school and college kids lounging away upstairs. I guess the ambiance is good for some quick laptop work if u don’t mind the noise level.

Caffebene works well as a place for what most people do here: grab something to drink & go/​chat with folks. You can do light reading here, but otherwise you’re better off at a quieter spot, and I’ll address this a bit later. I usually order the iced green tea lattes (or frappes of the same flavor), which carry that bold, subtly sweet matcha taste. I just wish the ice and milk components of the drink were more integrated, because they’re super separated, so I end up drinking the liquid first, and then the mushed up matcha-​soy ice.
The atmosphere here is pretty lively: you’ll almost always see groups of friends or family members chatting with each other at the larger tables. Which is why this isn’t an optimal place to do super focused work: the noise and the sub-​par WiFi quality will get to ya. Save this place as a quick go-​to spot for something to drink.

That was the saddest $ 6.48 I’ve ever spent.
Warm summer’s eve, I’m making my way downtown, walking fast, faces pass, and I’m home-​bound. But then I think, «Hey, I should treat myself to a bubble tea.» Never in my life has bubble tea betrayed me — until now.
Peaches and cream bubble tea? Well why not? I’ll tell you why not. The girl taking my order looked me in the eyes and said «smoothie or latte?»
Unsure in my clarity I repeated my order. She repeated her question. I went with smoothie, even though it was already dawning on me that I’d made a mistake. It was made even clearer when I forked over $ 6 and change for a «medium».
It was neither bubble tea, nor a smoothie. It was a cold, gritty, thin milk, tasting like a watered down peaches and cream yogurt — store brand, not the good stuff. The bubbles were too small for the straw, stewing in the watery residue at the bottom. I’ve never failed to finish a bubble tea down to the last bubble, but this I threw away halfway through. I can only hope that whoever created this particular recipe will join it in the dumpster.
One extra star for friendly, patient, and efficient service. They may be serving up offenses to both smoothies and tea, but at least they’re professional about it.

I will never come to this location again.
I came here two months ago with a friend, made our orders, and waited about 40 minutes. During the wait time, we glanced over at how they were preparing everyone’s orders. They were disorganized. They were spilling ingredients left and right. They put little to no effort in for each person’s orders, because it looked like they just wanted to thin out the lines. No smiles, no positive vibe, no nothing. The dessert was not worth the price either, both of ours had no taste whatsoever. It was so bad that I had to reluctantly finish mine only because my friend treated me to it. I have to re-​emphasize we WAITED ABOUT 40 MINUTES. I would definitely recommend trying out other locations instead.

This location isn’t the cleanest and is smaller which of course makes it so much more crowded. There’s no clear line which makes you feel a bit silly standing in a mob of people.
Waffles at Caffebene are the best. I’ve visited multiple locations in S Korea so this location isn’t up to par with ones I’ve known and loved but it will do well enough. Haven’t had the waffles here but every location that I’ve tried them at are the same so I’d hope they are here, too.
Gelato cookies n cream was good and has a great texture. Just had a small cup and it was a perfect treat.
There’s a large selection of prebaked items set and ready to go at all hours.
Friendly enough staff but wish they actually seemed like they enjoyed their day more.
Free wifi. Code is at the bottom of the receipt!