Caffe Verde

No-​password Wi-​Fi, decent coffee and tolerable croissants, they sometimes play wonderful classical music/​opera, but beware it can indeed be cold! This is a problem endemic to Edinburgh, which has too many old buildings with a very high ceiling and total lack of thermal insulation.

This café opened recently in the bustling Tollcross area of Edinburgh. I ate here on Sunday when Two Thin Laddies was too packed to find a table. The fact that the Laddies was packed and this place right around the corner was only about ¹⁄₃ full should have been a clear enough warning for us not to eat here — we weren’t thinking to the best of our ability, clearly.
Visually, the café is charming. It’s nicely appointed and colorfully painted.
We sat down and noticed a waitress so figured it was table service. We waited and waited until eventually we assumed she simply brought the food out and went to make our order at the counter. The man who I’m assuming was the owner took our order — actually WROTE IT DOWN — didn’t take our money (we were standing there with our wallets out, just take our cash and save an extra step in the end!), and instructed us to take a seat and our food and drinks would be brought to us.
About 10 minutes later we were still waiting for our coffee and the waitress came up to take our order. We informed her we’d ordered at the counter and she asked if we were waiting for drinks. Yes indeed we were — so she went to make them.
It is important to note that there was one waitress, one guy making food behind the bar and TWO employees hiding downstairs. There were about 6 tables of 2 – 3 and the two staff should have been plenty to handle the «rush» (as the waitress called it) but no, they lost the plot and called people up to help.
The girls next to us placed order after order and every time the waitress came back several minutes later to inform them they were out of whatever it was they ordered. Eventually she started avoiding their table alltogether until they hunted her down and forced her to take their order.
When our food finally arrived it was wrong — completely wrong. The guy actually had the gall to bring it back to us and ask three times if it was what we ordered. He wasn’t terriby impressed with the fact that we wouldn’t just eat what had been brought.
When what we’d actualy orderd arrived, the «side salad» was raw onion and iceberg lettuce and the cheese on my panini (brought on ciabatta) was fake — like american «cheese» singles or something.
Need I go on?