The Gold Standard Cafe

I live so close to this place that I can see it from my house, but I never go here because I would much rather give my money to a business that actually cares. The food is mediocre at best, the service extremely slow no matter how crowded or empty it is, and they are ALWAYS out of things. I had the worst chai latte I’ve ever had here. I would suggest taking your business elsewhere until they get the hint.

Good place to work and study. However food is average. I had the spinach, cheddar, and sausage quiche with side salad ($ 8.50). It was tasty but room temperature, overpriced, and I was left hungry. Just how I feel in general about all their food.
Nice service and they let you work in the dining area if there aren’t too many customers.
Front area is also great for working although the the Internet at times is slower.

Under the previous owners, the Gold Standard was passable. The new owners, however, seem not to care about their clientele. We ordered bagels with cream cheese and lox. The bagels were there with one piece of anemic lox in the middle and a single dollop of cream cheese. For the price, it was ridiculous. Better to go down the street and buy the lox, cream cheese, and bagels from Mariposa. Same price, much better quality and quantity. The coffee is mediocre at best. We do not want to risk having dinner there. I would suggest the new owners of Gold Standard make the trip to South Philly to visit Benna’s Café to learn about coffee and bagels.
Skip the Gold Standard. It’s not worth your money or time.

This was my go-​to place in Philly for about 2 – 3 years and I just went this week and was so disappointed. The whole place looks different so it’s possible that they are under new ownership.
I ordered and omelette, a side of chorizo and coffee. The omelette was nothing special — it was fine enough. The coffee was cold. The chorizo was over cooked.
The vibe is ok — older, cozy house. However, the changes since my last visit make the place look dull — it’s all very white in color.
Lastly, they took the hot sauces off the tables! There used to be a selection on the tables!

When the previous owners were in charge, things were a whole lot better. Since new owners arrived in summer, recipes have changed, vegan options diminished, prices were raised and even the pretty red walls in dining room are gone. I live so close and want to support local businesses, but I am not coming back. Like in baseball. 3 strikes and you are out.
First off, Good quality gone out window, for example, if you order the falafel sandwich you used to get this vegan version of tzatziki sauce made with tofu and lemon. It was delicious. Last time, I got something that was dull in flavor. Also, had to wait for my carry out because a catering job was more important than the walk in customer. Also, house dressing with salads was homemade. The last time, it was a store bought flavor with too much vinegar. 2^nd example, today, I ordered the quiche. It used to be delicious. Today, it tasted like frozen store bought crust and shallow pie pan is used. Flavor was ok, but I know I can make it better.
In addition to changing recipes, I believe they are using cheaper and store bought ingredients and gone is the pride. The pastry chef used to come out of kitchen with the newest vegan pie or cake for display cake.
Secondly, I used my Christmas gift card to pay for my meal. I paid tip in cash. So, when I used card again, it declined. The bank balance said Gold Standard debited $ 13.93, sub total $ 11.61. If you do the math, $ 13.93 is the 20% tip amount. I called then came in restaurant with proof (tablet and logged onto TD bank). Since when do they charge recipient fee? I used at movie theatre after meal and the Rave didn’t charge me fee.
Lastly, this is a small business. Big or small, should be more customer focused. I came into the restaurant with proof of the gift card and they act as if I or the bank are to blame. They won’t be reimbursed the $ 2.93. I thin ksince they are making changes, change the name of business to Not A Gold Standard anymore. I will not be returning.

This was a 4.5 star place, now, it’s a complete wreck.
The owners used to bake their own vegan, gluten free, and high quality baked goods. Now, it seems he kitchen buys low quality white flower goods from a wholesale distributor.
The head chef used to put so much love into the plates: amazing French toast, eggs, and so on…
Now, the French toast is fried white bread and the eggs are the lowest quality, and mine came out watery.
I hear the business was sold. It’s aparent that the new owners value profit margins over food quality.
I hope that things change. I don’t believe in patronizing businesses like this.
Hope this helps.
The service is also much worse. The quality and love seems to have been sucked from this business.

A good place to go if you don’t mind waiting a little while. The pancakes were great, and my girlfriend’s food seemed good but we’re still working on communication so I’m not 100% sure. Would have 5 stars but the last time we were there, service was very slow. But friendly. Slow, though.

Been here several times over the last 5 years, what an interesting fluctuation. Sad to say a full 360 seems to have happened here.
First year, I stopped in for tea occasionally and then a handful of times for brunch or lunch. The food was never fresh and fruit was often served with mold on it. The toilet called every time moments after. I stopped going.
About a year later I gave it another try and was so surprised, everything was absolutely delicious, it became my go to brunch spot!
The owners just sold it and although I really enjoy some of the décor changes the food is once again stomach upsetting. The potatoes, well I’m not even sure you should count them as potatoes I have no idea what these things could be. Everything is $ 2.50 more than it use to be. This was my 4^th time in since the new owners took over, the food is less than mediocre again and diners are asked to leave as soon as they are finished eating with the promise of a free dessert if they want one on the way out.
Hire the old cook back, stop the shortcuts on food and stop running people out to make another buck. Make the gold standard above standard again– we miss it! Sadly won’t be back until then.

The gold standard has vegan dishes. If you are vegan and don’t do dairy some of there dishes are prepared with butter milk and
ask before you buy it
The so called chef is not a chef and some of the dishes are questionable. I worked there and they dairy up a lot of there food. Trust me…

I waited over 30 minutes for two egg sandwiches to go — ridiculous! When we finally got our breakfast sandwiches, they had forgotten the sausage on one (which costs $ 2.50 to add!) and the eggs were runny. Over-​priced and too long of a wait. I live around the corner so I’ve had this reaction to Gold Standard more than once but this is last experience was the straw that broke the camels back for me — I will no longer be giving them my business.

This place was my first time going here to meet-​up with a friend. I ordered their breakfast fried egg sandwich with turkey bacon and a cup of coffee and she got a bagel with cream cheese and a cup of coffee. Our food arrived promptly and was good. The coffee was underwhelming. It was warm, not hot and their coffee condiments area was out of half n half. The dining area inside was cozy, yet a bit cramped. If the coffee was brewed hot and had a better stocked condiment area, I’d have given this place a perfect score. Overall, it was a pleasant experience and would try this place again if I wasn’t moving. One extra star for the cute and friendly counter girl who took our order!

It’s such a cozy and reliable brunch place. I always have the most amazing time here. Already been about three times so it’s a repeat kind of place. The people are friendly and attentive. It’s just warm and homey, delicious food!

I live fairly close to Gold Standard, and for some reason, I do not go here enough. It’s a fantastic place for a delicious, cozy brunch or a nice dinner in the neighborhood.
The food has always been delicious and well-​balanced. On my most recent visit, I ordered Eggs Benedict with Smoked Salmon and breakfast potatoes. Everything, as usual, was delicious.
Big cups of coffee, very friendly and accommodating staff, and a warm environment.

I’ve been this place twice and every time I go I received stale pastry… well thanks to that I discovered that I like my Danish crispy and old so. I guess that worked out?
Their coffee is really good and their other breakfast menu are fairly good. I would say there isn’t anything too special about this place tho… just coffee!

This is a cool hip café with a very large menu. I ordered the special of the day which was shrimp grits and eggs. Maybe if I ordered it to eat in I would’ve enjoyed it more. I was in a rush for an appointment so by the time I got to enjoy my food it wasn’t warm anymore. It still did taste very good. My girlfriend got the deluxe bagel and she enjoyed her food. I would definitely visit again.
When you first enter the café it looks small but they have seating in the back and also seating outside.

Had a fairly terrible experience here a few days ago, which saddens me as I used to go here often. I hope this is not indicative of the new management.
My boyfriend and I wanted to get some food before heading over to an event. We came by around 4:15; we needed to leave at 5-​ish. Considering both of us just wanted a sandwich, not a tall order, right?
A waitress came to get our orders, and everything seemed fine. She said she’d be right back with some water for the table. She wasn’t. We kept waiting and waiting, and finally my boyfriend’s food came, but still no water, and no waitress. We had to ask the food runner to get us some. We’d been sitting there for 20 minutes at least, at an empty table, and no one thought that it might be appropriate to bring some water glasses over.
It was already close to 4:45, and we kept thinking that surely my part of the order would be out any minute now… when we called the waitress over to ask what was going on, it turned out:
a) they were out of a key ingredient from the thing I ordered, and no one bothered to tell us
b) no one actually even started on my order.
The waitress was really apologetic, and promised that whatever I ordered instead would be on the house. It was getting really close to our leaving-​time, but she said she’d expedite the order. (My boyfriend had long finished eating at this point.) She did get it out relatively quickly. Except… it did not come with the right side. It came with fries. I did not want fries. I gave them to my bf. At this point I did not feel up to even trying to get the side I actually wanted; we just needed to eat and run.
When the bill came, it turned out my order was not comped after all; I was just given a 25% discount. I had actually ordered a cheaper item than my original request (really, they couldn’t have comped that?) so it was basically $ 2 off the total. Hooray.
We ended up only being able to leave at 5:15, and I was really upset, since the restaurant had been my idea. We should have gone with my boyfriend’s suggestion. We would have been on time and I would even have possibly gotten to eat food I actually ordered.

I normally never try and leave a bad review for an establishment that was re-​introducing its brunch line-​up, HOWEVER, I will make an exception for you, Gold Standard Café.
Before I start, let me state that my fiancé and I have been frequent visitors of Gold Standard Café and no matter what, either they misplace our order ticket, the kitchen is back logged or we’re greeted with some attitude.
So yesterday, unbeknownst to us, we decided to eat breakfast the day that Gold Standard Café was re-​introducing their brunch and wow was it a mess for us.
We were promptly seated in the back and ordered coffee and 2 omelets – one with tomato, spinach and feta cheese and one with turkey sausage and American cheese. We received three refills of coffee during the HOUR it took to get our food. Finally, we had to say something to our waitress (who was the sweetest part of the experience) and she told us the kitchen lost our ticket. She was very apologetic about it, but still. Lost our ticket? We’ve been waiting for an hour and the people around us are getting their food before we did and we sure as hell were there first.
We were given a croissant to make up for the experience and charged $ 24 for the food that came an hour late – and to make it all better – had no feta cheese in the one omelet – and the coffee. I mean, come on Gold Standard, you can charge us for the coffee because that was the only thing keeping our tummies full for the hour we waited, but charge us for the food that came out super late? Are you kidding me?
In the end, after all the experiences, especially this one, I think we are officially done with Gold Standard Café.

My server was lovely and made my meal pleasant with her nice service.
My meal was a spinach salad with 2 thin avocado slices, red onions, grapefruit, a couple of red grapes sliced in half. No dressing was offered but with the addition of a side of delicious white meat chicken salad, the salad was not dry.
The lemonade was being made and not available my entire lunch so i opted for mint iced tea.
The only thing i did not like about my meal was it was hot inside. It was slightly less hot in the DR. ** You have to bite the bullet and crank up the air for diners when it’s already 89 at 12:30 ** Its only going to get hotter as the day goes on. They had a window open out front where all the internet users hang. Perhaps thats contributing to what felt like the 80’s when i dined. I heard 2 other tables complain.
I enjoyed my meal and will return in the fall.

Stopped in today for a cup of java with a friend. Reminds me of someone’s grandma’s house turned into a cute little Café. Coffee was good. It was around 1pm and I was surprised to find that the coffee wasn’t stale. Plans were to sit outside but the uncovered tables with the sun beaming down in 90 degrees wasn’t exactly inviting so we took a walk to Cedar Park under some shade.
We decided to come back for lunch an hour later. Place is a little small in the front but I tend to like establishments like this. Kinda has a community /​homey feel to it and no one feels like a stranger. We waited a minute or so for a table in the back. Felt like I was sitting in my grandmother’s dining room. Loved the setup and ambiance. Cool artwork on the walls. Bubbly waitress gave us the specials, a carafe of cool ice water and let us be for a few to peruse the menu.
Unlike some reviewers, I thought the prices were pretty reasonable. Sandwiches, soups, salads and burgers. Variety but not overwhelming where you’re taking fifteen minutes to decide what to eat. I usually don’t drink water at restaurants because it always tastes like tap water or has a kinda «mineral» after taste yuck! But this ice water, was cool and refreshing with no tap taste. Menu in hand, I had no clue what I wanted. I wanted to try something new so I went with the flank steak sandwich. My Date had the gazpacho and a sandwich. Can’t remember which one though. He liked the gazpacho but said it needed salt.
Food came out in less than ten minutes. Good thing because I was hungry. My sandwich was on this super soft sourdough bun. Amazing texture and taste. Came with a side salad of red leaf lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and radishes. Red pepper dressing. I gave the side eye to the tiny container of dressing but to my surprise, it was just the right amount! My steak sandwich was great. Steak was cooked well done, I do prefer a medium. But I enjoyed it nonetheless. One small gripe was just that they give you a single napkin. Literally just one lol. I’m use I could have asked for more though.
I’d definitely come back here for lunch. It’s a small place and I’m sure the wait times are crazy on weekends so it’ll be a weekday thing for me. Oh yes, it’s BYOB. So bring your bottles. Cheers!

For me, Gold standard is the landmark café when it comes to chilling in West Philly. It sits right on the corner across a big street with beautiful scenery all around…
Ok let’s get to the food.
Service on a weekend isn’t bad. It’s always fast when I go. I’ve been here over 10 times. The ice coffee sucks. Sorry
But the food overall is solid. I’ve had good brunch and good lunch food. Desserts are a bit overpriced but taste good. I love the southwestern wrap. And the pancakes. Salads? Eh.
Soups? Yum!
Sandwiches? Thumbs up.
Another good place to get coffee, watch interesting people frolic by and find a random event in the west Philly local paper.
BAZINGA! lol