Press Cafe - Ithaca

Favorite little cafe in Ithaca. It reminds me of some of my favorite spots in Brooklyn. The beans they use are perfect (not burnt) and their espresso is my favorite in the city.

Stopped in for coffee while on a road trip. Cool little place. They have a variety of coffee/Expresso options. I had the Mocha Latte and a Cortado. Both were excellent! The service was friendly and efficient as well. We enjoyed our time here!

The barista insisted that this giant drink in an 8 ounce cup is a cortado. I asked for a small espresso drink on purpose because I do not tolerate milk well but like just a little bit (macchiatos and cortados). When I was served this huge drink and I politely asked for clarification on the order, the employee was indignant and condescending, snapping: Well THIS is what a cortado is! Let me know if you hate it! I felt very judged like I could not ask for the drink to be remade. I hope I don 't sound like a snob... I have come before and REALLY enjoyed the milk to coffee ratio of Press Cafe 's cortados when made in their 3 oz cups. But this employee 's defensiveness when I politely asked if it could be made smaller made me want to never come back. EDITED TO ADD: After seeing this review about my frustration and discomfort with the service, the barista continued her condescending and disrespectful tone. She approached me unprompted with a premeditated speech about how I was wrong for criticizing the coffee, and ended by TELLING ME TO LEAVE. I calmly told her I was very uncomfortable with the confrontation as I have never been harassed like this, especially as a customer. I instead of offering to make amends, she badgered me for asking my original polite question and commenting on my experience, and said that my above comment was “nasty”. Do not support this business. They do not value their customers, only their own fragile ego.

Horrible service, not my first time here. After reading other reviews, it seems to be common for both baristas to be rude, impersonal and seem to be annoyed by customers’ presence. I told my friend who I was with that maybe they do it on purpose to give the shop “a flair”. The place is very cute but small which is why they rented out the place next door for more seating. I will not come back due to the poor service from both baristas, hopefully they improve it and are nice to everyone. Edit: After seeing the reply someone from their team wrote back to me, I had to lower to 1 star since I can’t do 0 stars. Truly unacceptable, clearly they don’t care about making things right and fixing their image. Claiming that I am trolling them and that I am the problem is the worst a business could do. Instead, they should apologize and offer correcting this behavior among their baristas like they did with another review. To their reply, there was a male-presenting barista and then a female-presenting barista came on and then the male-presenting barista left his shift, so in fact there were 2 baristas for a second. Happy to not be back to a place with rude staff and from what I can see in other reviews they have also been unpleasant to other patrons.

While waiting for my ice latte a customer referred to her beverage as, a thing of beauty.