This is the first of my “reviews” of Coffee Shops and places to hang out and meet friends in Riyadh. I am rating the Coffee Shops based on a few factors, including: Coffee taste, price, non-smoking (I am a non-Smoker so I will be really biased against places that allow smoking!), extra services (newspapers, Internet access, TV) and so on. So, my first “victim” is the Coffee Shop called “CaZa Cafe” on “Tahliah Street”, right before iTechia. The good points:
- Giant projector and many smaller LCD TVs
- Good coffee and hot chocolate
- Free Wi-Fi Internet access. You can ask the waiter for the password.
The bad points:
- Full smoking area. Get ready to go home smelling like a cigarette.
- They charge you 30% service charges! if there was a soccer game on the TV, even if you weren’t watching it!
I was there tonight attending a “Macintosh Event” right before the game started. And I had to stay to get some work done and didn’t really care for the soccer game. When I got the bill I was charged 30% extra service charge for sitting there! I called the number on the recipe which was the manager’s number and he told me that they charge that if you stayed to watch the game. He also claimed that they won’t charge if I stayed in the chairs outside the cafe (which there weren’t any!). That was my personal experience which will probably not encourage me to go there again!
In the end I give that coffee shop a 1 out of 5 rating. The Lack of non-Smoking section as well as my previous experience were really discouraging and I would avoid that place if there were a soccer game on the TV!