Art Cafe - Village of Nyack

Honestly, I’ve never been to a restaurant like this before, ever. I’ll start by saying that we found most of the food to be unique and wonderful, and we are not even vegetarians. Part of the restaurant experience, however, is the experience of being waited upon. Since I imagine there is quite a bit of tourism in Tarrytown, they should expect first-time customers. The menu, once you have downloaded it to your phone, is complicated. You might wonder how could a menu be that complicated but actually it is. There are literally dozens of choices for toppings for different types of bowls and salads, and it’s in a long list form. I was trying to get something from the coffee list and one of the items was “mod coffee.” There are no descriptions for any atypical items. As another reviewer said, you pay for your meal and the tip in advance on your phone. Everything is done by your phone. It was edging to nearly 30 minutes before my husband and I started getting a handle on what and how to order. There was a lot of frustration involved. Someone does bring you water at the beginning. I overheard another table ask that person “can you go ahead and just take our order?“ The server responded, “not really. But what do you want?“ We attempted once to interact with the hostess, who was seated near us and intently folding napkins, trying to get help with the menu. She wasn’t necessarily rude, but she said “I’m just a hostess and I don’t really know the menu at all. “ She did finally try by saying “well, what do you want to eat?” That just missed the mark and we gave up. There was no offer to get anyone to help. It was very clear that they did not want wait staff interacting with the customers. They were there to deliver the food. We did finally intercept a very nice server , get a few questions answered, and ordered whatever she said was the most popular dish there. She was very pleasant and patient, but again we could tell we were taking her outside the bounds of her job, which we did not want to do. By that point, one might say the vibe was ruined, I was hangry, and we just wanted to eat and get out of there. I’ve never been seated in a restaurant where I overheard other people being frustrated by the same thing we were. I mentioned hearing the table behind us exasperated with the ordering process. After we finally ordered, we waited at least 20 minutes for the food to arrive. I told my husband maybe he better check the phone, perhaps we were supposed to do something like pick it up ourselves somewhere. He checked his phone, it said “ Your order is ready.” At that point, we started looking around and thinking maybe we had to go somewhere specific within the restaurant to pick it up. Just as he was about to get up and go looking for it, the server appeared with the food to our table. At that time, a man seated at the table to the left of me Intentionally caught my eye and grimacing said in a hushed voice “what is going on with this restaurant? How long did you have to wait for your food to get here?” We said “20 maybe 30 minutes. But it is good.” He looked at his wife, and they kind of shook their heads in frustration. So .. I guess if you’re local, know the lay of the land and go there often, you’re golden. Otherwise, without feeling like you are pretty much inappropriately interrupting random staff to help you, you’ll have to pretend that you’re just ordering via Uber eats or DoorDash. If you want to take pack up leftovers, also be prepared to insinuate yourself and shout over to a harried employee you might catch. We couldn’t really gauge the size of some of the items because we just couldn’t ask anybody and so had a lot of leftover food) You say you’d like dessert? Get out your phone! The restaurant should put a description of itself on their website that this is a completely self-serve type thing. It is not a true restaurant experience.

Honestly this spot never disappoints. Always my go to coffee spot when I’m here. Food even though it’s mostly vegetarian I don’t think I ever mind it since it’s full of flavor. If you haven’t checked this spot out def check it out.

Love coffee shops, so I definitely wanted to check this place out especially since I was in town. ? Inside , outside dining available. Outside area is very nice. ? came here on a weekday. It was 810pm . Place closes at 9pm. There were people conversing outside. There was another person inside on his laptop (my point there was people) ? one lady was cleaning a machine. the young lady/cafe cashier said the espresso machine was the only thing available. She had no patience and an attitude problem. I felt very rushed in making my decision on what to get with getting certain looks from her which I don’t and didn’t appreciate… ? ended up getting the mocha chino (which was very good. ? also got the freshly baked chocolate walnut cookie. It was good, not my favorite, but fresh. ? so then I sat down in this bay window seating waiting for my partner. She comes tells me I can’t sit because the place is closing…At this time it was almost 830… Overall nice cafe. They sell art here. There’s books and all…. But the service…. Especially for a paying customer…please, ridiculous. Vegetarian options: Options available Dietary restrictions: Options available Kid-friendliness: Kid friendly. Games and all available

Nice people. Food is not bad, but some interesting combinations of ingredients. If I had to describe it, I would say that a vegan chef is forced to work with some non-vegan ingredients. One of the most convoluted ordering processes I have ever experienced--requiring payment tip before the food even arrives. Digital menu ordering is so Covid yet this restaurant made the process complicated as well as keeping a protocol that was instituted during a disease. The space is pretty but everything else needs work.

Consistent! Always a great choice. Vegetarian options: A variety of choices. Also, GF