Read and Eat

It pains me to write this review because I was so excited for this place to open when they first announced that they were coming. This space had previously been occupied by an under-​performing café, but still held so much potential.
I came here on a Sunday afternoon expecting to be able to pop in and out at on off-​peak hour. There were two tables in the back occupied and nobody waiting at the counter, so I thought I would have a quick visit. Instead the sole barista was laboring to make three hot chocolates in a laughably inadequate work space. He barely gave me a glance as he shuffled containers and supplies around just to find flat surfaces to work on, and we’re just talking about making hot chocolate here, nothing elaborate. This went on for probably 10 minutes as more unfortunate souls started to line up behind me before I had even placed my order. There was absolutely no communication from the barista to anyone in line. No «I’ll be with you in a few minutes,» or even a «Hi.» Everyone just stood around wondering what was going on.
That long wait gave me plenty of time to observe just how slapdash this operation was and I started to build up a little anxiety over the cleanliness of everything behind the counter. It was hands down the most disorganized café I’ve ever seen, really on an unbelievable level. I have friends whose regular home kitchens are better equipped than this place. The hand drawn diagrams of coffee measurements for each specific drink taped to the side of the coffee maker didn’t inspire much confidence in the training that this particular barista had, and that showed during the entire comical performance.
Once I placed my order for a latte and danish, I watched the barista scramble looking for the container he needed. He ended up running down the stairs into the basement and finally emerged with something that would suffice. Then he apparently packed the grinds too tightly into the espresso maker and had to use all of his body weight to torque the group handle free from the machine after it was done. The amount of effort he put into that had me bracing for him to lose his balance and equipment to go flying off the overcrowded, undersized counter. He again had to shuffle a number of items off the tiny counter in front of him, precariously balancing a milk carton up on a 4 inch little section of the wall to make space.
While he was working on what should be one of the simplest coffee beverages for a café to make, one of the girls behind me asked about the soups. There were two unlabeled pots on a wicker shelf across from the counter. The barista didn’t remember which soup was in which pot but was somewhat certain which two soups were there. It really can’t be too hard to label something you expect a customer to serve themselves. The customer asked about the other soups they had listed, to which the barista replied that he did have them but would have to heat them up for her. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that they had to microwave cold soup, but it seemed ridiculous nonetheless. I finally walked out the door with my underwhelming latte and danish a good 15 – 20 minutes after walking in.
I’ll usually give a place with a unique concept like this a second chance because I’d like to see Ridge Ave. finally turn into a NW Philly destination, but I can’t see myself ever coming back here.

Last night I came out of Philly on the 9 bus with my husband who gave a talk in the library in Roxborough (bees, pollinators, Wissahickon preservation:-)
I took a walk down street to see what I could see and – I stepped through the looking glass. I couldn’t have guessed it from the peek past the foyer or even standing in front of the pastry case saying hi to the lovely woman on duty there – but I had wandered into my ideal coffee shop. (I had turned my nose up at Starbucks at the corner. Holding out for something local:-) Read and Eat had two kettles of soup hot and ready to serve, delicious espresso drinks and an attractive assortment of pastries. I gathered up some goodies and headed into the next room. Just go see it. The building used to be a shoe store. You enter a long room peopled with tables, chairs and books. Overhead is a gallery (kind of like a synagogue where the women used to sit upstairs?) except that you can see that the mezzanine is wall after wall of books. I went exploring. (Whenever I checked for permission to peek into a new corner, I was invited to be at home.) How do glorious places like this survive? However you do it, Live long and Prosper!

Before reading this, let’s just note that I *wanted* to LOVE this place (just like another reviewer wrote as well). The location is convenient and the space is beautiful, so of course, I was excited about checking it out. I was looking for this to be my new neighborhood go-​to when I’m working from home. I wanted to come here and pick up a good cup of coffee after dropping off my son at daycare. I wanted to come here to pick up a few tasty treats for my friends when I may not have time to get to our favorite bakery. Unfortunately, I think this place has a lot of catch-​up work to do before even meeting a «so-​so» mark in my book.
Let’s start with the good:
— Ambience
— Free parking lot (the barista working that day gave me this info — I never actually parked in the lot)
— Charming feel (books line the walls floor to ceiling)
— If the place were packed, you’d still have some elbow room (unlike Starbucks)
As you can see, everything that I’ve noted has to do with the space. With that said, the space hasn’t changed since it was Crossroads Café (previously owned by Mike Loughlin — who was one heck of a guy; SO kind and *WELCOMING*). So… my question is: if there was no time needed to renovate the space or come up with a new design, couldn’t that time have been spent on getting better inventory of food, training the staff, cleaning the bathrooms properly, or just coming up with some sort of business operating standards? Those are a few of the things that fell far short of my expectations… Here’s how it all went down.
After dropping off my son at daycare, I thought I’d head into Read & Eat rather than my usual routine at the Starbucks on Main. I rolled in through Read & Eat’s doors a little after 9am. The barista did not greet me properly (not even a real hello) — he just said to give him a couple minutes as he was just getting set up. Clearly, nothing was ready… the only food out were the desserts from the day before (or so it looked) and there was no coffee available for order. I find that really disturbing as it is a café/​coffee shop that also has breakfast items. We don’t live in Spain… we live in Philadelphia. Most people have their days start around 6−8am.
I decided to let that go and sit down to do some work. It is SO cold inside. I never took off my coat or scarf because of how cold it was. I ordered food to go — the barista was nice enough to ask if I wanted it warmed up, but it ended up being a waste of time as when I got it back, it was still cold. I was trying to use the restroom before I left and upon opening the door, I was really repulsed — it looked like a bathroom in a frat house that hasn’t been cleaned in months. There was toilet paper all over the floor, the toilet wasn’t flushed and had remnants of who knows what, and a smell that was too awful for me to have enough time to even whip out my phone to take a photo.
I left RIGHT after that… and then I headed to Starbucks because I’d rather be cramped up and listen to college girls talk about their dates the night before then drink bad coffee, bad food, and wear a parka while I’m working on my project plans and budgets.
It is not my intention to be this blunt or be perceived as being rude about this review (hence the reason why I didn’t go into too much detail over some other things I noticed), BUT I do want some sort of feedback given to the owner of the business as the current operating plan is going to detrimental to his investment. It is almost making me think that this business is a cover-​up for other reasons because it just really seems like there is very little effort to make this a success. I’d love to see them take it to heart and make some solid improvements… it is too beautiful of a space to go to waste.
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I loved the Read and Eat. Friendly staff, really cozy, perfect place to spend a day working from home. There’s tons of space to spread out, lots of outlets for laptops, and I actually loved the coffee (plus my apple muffin was DA BOMB!!). My only complaint was that it was a little too chilly in there for me to hunker down all day. But it’s still a work in progress, so I’ll be back! It’s so nice to have an alternative to Starbucks in Roxborough.

I want to love this place because the interior/​ambience/​vibe is beautiful/​relaxing/​chill, but the one main problem is that they are serving really bad coffee. If you want your coffeeshop to succeed, you can’t serve coffee-​flavored water lukewarm, no less. I kept giving them another shot, but each time, I have been served lukewarm to borderline room temperature coffee– flavored water, and this includes the cappucino. They need a barista who knows how to make coffee instead of some aloof hipster.

As a lover of books both of the read and eat locations drive me nuts. Poor lighting, no organization and general sloppiness seem to be their style. I will say that unlike the Mount Airy location the food section in Roxborough doesn’t look like it should be visited by the health department. It seems to be the only section with any bit of organization or cleanliness.
I realize that they just opened so I’m guessing that why all the books on the ground floor are at floor level. Upstairs the books in one room were somewhat sorted with no effort to alphabetize the fiction or science fiction sections and the lighting was non existent. In the other half of the second floor all the books were in boxes at floor level. The condition of many of the books on the shelves were so rough that many other used book stores would have put them in a free pile.
I hope they will improve but with the horrible track record of their Mount Airy store and restaurants I think it will be a hope in vain.