Phuel Cafe

Great food, great service, well priced. Online ordering is extremely convenient if you’re in a hurry.

The owners are very kind people who genuinely care about their business and customers. I travel all around the US and really appreciated their great service. Even when the café is jam packed they hustle and work very hard to make things right, every experience a good experience for their customers. I honestly found their food to be underpriced… I paid $ 5 for the tofu scramble and in my hometown of Anchorage, AK I would pay around $ 12 – 15 for the amount of food.

This place is a must every time I visit Cleveland. I absolutely adore the smoothies they have. Phuel is located in the absolutely beautiful Cleveland theatre district, right across from Playhouse Square. One of the great things about this place is it’s all organic, fresh, and high quality. Don’t expect your food deep fried… it doesn’t happen here. Both times I’ve been here I’ve ate breakfast. I’ve ordered the pancakes and french toast… both were very good. I’ll be returning to Cleveland again in February and I’ll post an updated review then, although I’m sure it’ll be just as good.

My boyfriend and I stumbled on this café about six months ago when we were apartment hunting downtown and fell in love. The local farm fresh and organic aspect caught our eye first but their AMAZING food kept us coming back. Since we’ve moved from NY to Cleveland 4 months ago, this has been our go to spot. We just had brunch there this morning! Delicious walnut dark chocolate banana pancakes and eggs with walnut raisin toast and homefries. I just can’t get enough. We also love the lunch and dinner menu. The peanut chicken dish is my favorite! Their takeout option is fantastic too.
We strongly recommend Phuel and will be taking our out of town guests here for breakfast next weekend.

Me and my wife went here prior to a show at Playhouse Square. I was hesitant due to the more organic menu. However, I was pleasantly full after my Portabella Reuben sandwich and Macbake as a side. Will definitely go back. Prices were good, and the food was even better!

I just love this place:) whenever I come from California to Cleveland this is my first stop :)

Overall the food was good, but not amazing. The service system needs a lot of improvements as my specialty drink did not come out until my food had been eaten and they ran out of its ingredients and needed to make me a new drink… So I sat after I ate waiting on a drink I didn’t originally want.
BUT that being said, my server (although hard to hear) was very nice and accommodating. Couldn’t give me menu suggestions, but he seemed like the only server for 12 tables at lunch. He needed help!

Too bad I can’t give this zero stars. Horrid service.
Walked in to a server nearly running into me yelling over her shoulder «We ain’t got no tables, sit at the bar!»
Um…ok. That’s an interesting way to greet a customer. I could see at least two open tables and a table of 2 finished with their food, likely to leave in the next 5 minutes. I stood there for another minute only to be approached by a other employee who told us to sit at the bar and then walked away. Still was not sure where the bar was at this point either.
It was about 11:30am on a Saturday and not terribly busy either.
At this point, I just left. Awful awful awful customer service.
Note to the owner: Please fire your wait staff.

The café seems like a cool idea: cute décor, view of Playhouse Square, etc. but the service wasn’t great, and the glasses were dirty, and maybe this is just my California taste for fish, but the salmon wasn’t good at all :(
Potatoes were delicious though!

Nice little breakfast joint. My omelette hit the spot!

Phuel Café is located in the world renowned Cleveland theater district. It is a small café that offers healthier plant based options for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They open at 6:30 am weekdays and 9:00 am weekends. They do offer delivery to all places downtown and some other surrounding areas.
My co worker and I decided on our carpool day that we would place an order and pick it up on our way to work. The order was ready at the exact time promised and everything was correct. I have also dined in at the café on a couple occasions and again customer service was stellar. Note: The owner is really nice and seems to be very hands on. More than willing to answer questions and accommodate.
Now for the MAIN EVENT… the food. Just about everything is made in house or locally purchased. The pancakes are large and taste delicious. The spinach, tomato and mushroom omelet was a huge with whole mushrooms throughout… Yes PLEASE! IF you love yourself you will get the walnut raisin toast. There is something magical almost orgasmic about this toast. You will have only one regret… that you have waited so long to try it.
Tip: When you check in on Unilocal you get your choice of an iced coffee or a cookie… GET the COOKIE!!!

Phuel Café is the PERFECT breakfast spot in downtown Cleveland that serves a variety of breakfast and lunch options all while being health oriented. Its location in the middle of Playhouse Square makes it easily accessible from many areas of downtown. I was told all of their food, sauces and drinks are either made in house or out sourced locally. This makes everything super fresh and does not leave you with that over stuffed feeling you get after eating tons of processed foods.
There was so much I wanted to try after reading through the menu but i went with the yogurt served with granola and fresh fruit. The granola made the whole dish. It was crunchy and really flavorful. Since I couldn’t decide between what kind of bread I wanted I went with a cranberry walnut muffin their walnut raisin toast. Both were delicious and fresh baked but highly recommend their walnut raisin toast. It might have been some of the best toast I have tried.
I can not wait to return to try some of their smoothies, pancakes, french toast and lunch choices.
Phuel does exactly what it claims, fills you up for a great price and not a lot of calories!

I’m so disappointed. I really wanted to like this place. Maybe I’ll have to try breakfast, but my lunch entrée was not good.
I got a Phuel Plate: Buckwheat noodles with salmon and veg. The flavor was good. The veg (celery, red pepper and onions) were good and the noodles were good and served in an appropriate quantity.
However the salmon was horrible. It was dry. It was tasteless; it definitely tasted nothing like salmon. It looked like cubed chicken. I doubt if it was fresh at any recent point. How hard would it be to put a fresh filet on top?
For the side that is included I got sweet potato fries. These were fine. Whole meal with side was $ 10.
I really did like that you can order online for pick up or delivery and pay online. My pick up order was ready at the estimated time and I was in and out within seconds when I went to get it. The workers were friendly and read my order back to me before handing it to me. The place was not busy at 12:15p on a Thursday.

Lots of great vegetarian and vegan options, plus meat for carnivores. I loved the seitan Reuben; it he seitan was salty and a little crisp, and the bread was a nicely toasted rye. The side of chilled broccoli with an Asian sauce was tasty too.
However the service was slow, and the waitress, while friendly, wasn’t very familiar with the menu.

I really wanted to like this place more than I did. I ordered the macaroni bake, or something to that extent, and it was more of a mushy curried dish. It tasted fine, but was completely different than I’d expected. My sweet potato fries were tasty. I can’t remember what my husband ordered, but he was underwhelmed as well. We also had the brownie, which was ok, a little bitter in my opinion. I would try it again but get something off the breakfast menu instead. I saw some other meals that looked delicious — I think I just picked the wrong stuff. The restaurant was packed so I think Phuel has more to offer.

This is one of those places you visit, and then afterwards want to tell the first five people you see about it. I actually didn’t expect to like this place that much since I’m not much of a health food junkie (I’m more of a fried chicken and biscuits gal) but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a well crafted salad once in a while.
First thing– this place is on Playhouse Square, which is great if you’re in the area anyways, but if you’re driving her with the express purpose of grabbing a quick lunch, parking will most definitely be an issue, so factor that in your plans.
First impression– the restaurant is split into a «take out» side with a small window bar for waiting, and an eat in/​dining side, which is really tastefully decorated, and because it’s on the corner across from Starbucks, it has a lovely view of Playhouse Square and the new (ish) chandelier.
I was greeted immediately by a girl, even though it was past the typical lunch hour, around 2:30pm. She showed me the menu, and I asked her for some recommendations which she kindly shared with me, but she didn’t hover waiting for me to order which I appreciated, especially considering I was the only one in the restaurant at that time. I think the thing that impressed me the most is the sheer diversity of options on their menu. They serve breakfast all day long (and being the breakfast lover that I am, I was really tempted to go with this option) but I ended up choosing one of their specials written on the blackboard nearby. I ordered a black bean burger with oven baked fries, along with one of their «ginger get well» drinks. If you’re at all a ginger lover like myself, you will LOVE the ginger get well drink– it’s not overly spicy like a lot of ginger beers, but still really flavorful and served cold and frothy almost like a smoothie, but not as thick.
The black bean burger was homeade, which made me really happy since many times when you order a black bean burger in a restaurant, you get one of those Morning Star patties and then ask yourself why you couldn’t have just made yourself that at home. But their black bean burger was clearly made in house– served on a multigrain bun with sprouts and tomatoes. The oven baked «fries» that came with it were really crispy and not oily at all.
Most of all, the girl serving me was an absolute sweetheart! I was really impressed at the quality of service I received, as well as the value of my meal. I would say this place’s prices are comparable to Panera bread, but much better quality ingredients and way better experience obviously.
I can’t wait to recommend this place to my vegetarian friends, and even those that aren’t vegetarian or even health conscious would enjoy this place in my opinion. I’m eager to go back when I have the chance to try out more things on their menu, and experience Phuel café all over again!

Popped in here because I had a work obligation in the area and have been wanting to try this place forever. It was about 11:45am and there wasn’t a big lunch crowd yet. We got sat right away with waters at our table within minutes. I got the salmon and buckwheat noodles & veggies with the Kale mango side and my colleague got the chicken salad sandwich with sweet potato fries. Everything was delicious and fresh. My portion was huge and only $ 10 so I took half home. All in all it is a great place to get healthier fare for breakfast/​lunch/​dinner. They serve breakfast all day btw! I’ll be back for sure. If I lived or worked downtown regularly I would be there all the time.

Guys this place DELIVERS BREAKFAST! Waking up on a Sunday morning to a womping temperature of 10 degrees in CLE means there’s no way in hell I’m stepping foot outside. Which is why I was ecstatic when I found out this place delivers.
The food was delivered to me in the Warehouse District within 45 minutes, which is pretty reasonable considering I had a few friends over and we ordered 5 omelettes. The omelettes are damn good too. Love the goat cheese and caramelized onions (I always ask to add spinach too). Just wish they had bacon. Also you have to pay with a card if you’re ordering for delivery which is no big deal, just woulda been easier to pay w/​cash since I was splitting the bill with friends.

This place is great if you are a vegetarian. Everything on the menu is clearly marked whether it is vegetarian or not. If you order anything make sure you get the walnut raisin toast, it is absolutely the best.
They also offer fresh green smoothies that I haven’t tried yet but I know people that say it’s really good.

I was really surprised when I just saw how high the rating on this place were. Yes, the omelet was great (I got an omelet with goat cheese, spinach, and tomatoes). The size of the portions was literally laughable. It advertises for «fruit» with an omelet and give you one strawberry and the smallest piece of pineapple. HA, they should have just not put that on the menu. Also the size of the potato size was super small as well.
What really turned me off to this place was the service. Our waitress had an attitude and when I politely asked if I was supposed to get more fruit she stated «you get what’s on your plate». It was incredibly rude! It was the consensus that all five of us would never recommend that restaurant to anyone. Service is key at an overpriced, organic place (at least get a good experience!) and it really didn’t cut it.