Café la Reine

A nice little café in downtown Manchester; I frequently visit this place to get their delectable earl grey tea, which is always perfectly made and gives off a divine bergamot scent. If I only had a few words to describe this place, they’d be: cozy, warm, friendly and nostalgic. The barista and staff are helpful in that they ask the right questions and offer some good suggestions if one wishes to try something new without being overbearing.
Café la Reine is a great place to unwind and relax with a beverage on a cold winter evening or after a busy day at work.

I’m bummed to write my first not awesome review but it’s on the food/​drinks and not the service. Staff is very young but super friendly and helpful: the space is cozy, with free wifi and comfortable seating. The bummer was the iced chai latte hat tasted like iced milk and the croissant that is hard as a rock and dry. I couldn’t eat it. Bummer.

I’ve been here so many times, and the coffee is always great. However, I think they have been using a different baker. I have not seen the brownies that blew my mind in years. It makes me really sad, as that’s what I was hunting out in the first place. Oh well, still on the hunt.

Very small coffee shop in the heart of downtown Manch-​ganistan. Good coffee and some okay sandwich options. Great to sit outside on a sunny day but seating is very limited.

A nice and cozy café. A great place to sit with friends and drink coffee. The caramel ice latte was excellent, I highly recommend it. The sandwiches were pretty good, get the flatbread.

Little bit of a hipster coffee place but people from all walks of life come in here. Really great coffee and friendly staff. Up Charge on soy milk but the coffees work it. Came in around 12 and asked for a fruit cup, which they don’t sell but the barista offered a parfait, which is offered solely in the morning. I was really impressed. Definitely would cone again.

Best place to get coffee. The North end roast is my favorite
They have the best macaroons I’ve ever tasted
There customer service is to the extreme it’s awsome there extremely kind
If you prefer not to use real milk they know how to perfectly foam non dairy milk it’s great.

Good atmosphere, prices are a little high, higher than Starbucks but really great tasting lattes.

Nice atmosphere – cozier than other shops I’ve visited in Manchester. Good food. Good coffee. I had a sandwich and cappuccino. We were able to score an outlet during a busy time. Though finding an open outlet can be a challenge. I enjoyed spending time here during a cold winter afternoon.

I go in and buy espresso grounds freshly ground for myself and I go and buy iced coffee super good. Everyone rants and raves and now I see what they mean, it’s a cozy place with great prices and great food

Mediocre coffee, TERRIBLE service. One barista gives so much attitude when she gets the drink wrong. On numerous occasions. Every time I go and she is making the drink either the cashier relays the order incorrectly or she forgets something and if you dare ask for it to be fixed you will be addressed with a really nasty attitude and nothing apologetic. The customer is always wrong here.
They also are very inconsistent with their student discount. Some baristas will only give it to you if you go to St Anselms. If you go anywhere else they won’t offer it to you.

Stopped in around 8 on a Saturday evening; place was pretty much empty besides the barista, another customer, and myself. I got a white chocolate latte with cinnamon, which was wonderful, and it was also ready very quickly. I hung out in the (super comfy) lounge chairs by the front and enjoyed the décor and music. Will definitely stop by when I’m in town again!
(ANECDOTAL) EDIT: Right before I left, I needed to go to the restroom. I got the key (which was on a string ties to a small metal espresso mug) and went in. I set the key/​mug on the sink and it immediately fell into the sink, with the key going down the drain. It somehow got stuck in the pipe and I went and fessed up the baristas. They were super cool about the mess I caused and were very nice through the whole ordeal. So not only was the coffee and atmosphere delightful, but the staff is also very nice and understanding, even when you mess up their evening.

Super cute! Their espresso machine was out, but the tea and sandwich were delicious. I got the Isabella sandwich. Service was good and friendly. The seating is near the door so it’s a little chilly.

I like the Cuban and hot teas. The Cuban is very good. The staff does accommodate odd requests. Great place to hangout. I have had the rhubarb pie on Two different occasions, it was great.

A cute place with some mediocre service and coffee. See if you can spot the theme:
Visit 1: My boyfriend gets an Americano that tastes horrible. We’re blocks away and it’s freezing so he trashes it. My soy latte tastes like they forgot to put the coffee in. I hem and haw and finally trash mine, too.
Visit 2: Kind of the same «umm did you forget the espresso…» taste. I trash it.
Visit 3: Got an iced tea and did some work inside. I didn’t trash it until it was nearly empty!!!
Visit 4: Got a soy mocha (because I do not learn from my mistakes) and they forgot the mocha syrup. I sit there anxiously debating whether to say anything for five minutes, and then finally decide I paid an extra damn dollar for soy milk, so they owe me the right drink. I go up to the counter and apologize but ask for a pump of mocha I think they forgot. (I used to be a barista so I promise I was EXTRA careful not to be a dick.)
Girl glares at me and says she’ll add «extra mocha» this time, since they already do three pumps. I’m looking at my very obviously white soy latte like, okay? She then trashes my drink for me and proceeds to remake the entire drink. I was kinda like oh, sorry, thanks, um, I just meant you could add a pump of mocha instead of redoing the whole thing but thank you?
ANYWAY if A&E down the street were open later I wouldn’t have come here at all.

I was really excited to try this place, but sad to report it’s pretty meh. If you combined a sub-​par sandwich shop with a slow coffee shop, this would be the product. The menu lacks creativity, and the prices are way too high for what they serve.
Add in some questionable Wi-​Fi, and you’ve got Café la Reine. If anything, the atmosphere is nice, so if you’ve got a bit of time, bring a book. They take forever to make an espresso drink, and their drip coffee is nothing to write home about.

With an odd chunk of time to kill in Manchester, I hit up Café la Reine, a narrow but pleasant space on Elm, featuring pleasant seating and good light. The tea menu is on the short side but decent, and the staff were happy to use the mug I brought in. The environment is conducive to both chat and study. The bathroom is trans friendly as it’s a single, but not handicapped accessible. Snacks are heavy on gluten and not marked for allergens.

I love the atmosphere. The staff is nice. However a bit pricey for the quality of the product. I had the Mary Tudor wrap today. The chicken was cold with a sponge texture and the wrap is particularly small. The potato salad side comes in a plastic ramekin its very small like the size of a shot glass. Normally i do not mind a smaller portion but for $ 9.26 i would hope for a larger side.

They manage to excel at the 2 fundamentals of a coffee shop: good coffee and a nice atmosphere.

Be prepared to be less than impressed by the food menu.
I have gone here several times. I really want to like it, and I guess the way to do that, for me, is to stop ordering food there. I got the cold chicken salad wrap today and was again disappointed with the value. On the outside, from the sealed side of the wrap it looks great, but turn it around and take a bite and you’re introduced to a large amount of iceberg (or similar) lettuce. The tiny amount of chicken salad in the wrap was indefensible.
On a positive note, the atmosphere is great and my drinks are always delicious, but this is the third time I am left feeling robbed by their food offerings!

In an effort to write better reviews on Unilocal!I’m rewriting this one because I kind of lost it on this business back in September.
I’ve visited Café La Reine almost monthly since it opened two years ago, and the experience has consistently slid downhill over the past year. I think the reason for that is that it’s regularly very busy, which should be a good problem, but the comfort of the space and customer service has slipped as a result of the crowding. Downtown needed a good café, and la Reine has filled a niche, maybe too well.
The space itself is narrow –maybe 10′ across at most– and there is only enough room for about a dozen patrons to sit down (forget it if you’re a group of more than two or three wanting to sit down and relax). The line from the register bisects the space, and you’ll often find yourself shifting and or being bumped to accommodate new customers. It’s not a relaxing atmosphere and I feel like I can never settle in to enjoy my food or coffee.
The food and coffee are only okay, the coffee more so than the food (which is often bland and dry).
Lastly, I find the service lacking. The staff seems easily overwhelmed and are trying to work the best they can in a tiny kitchen area. It looks chaotic back there, and this is where my order is consistently messed up. I’ve ordered iced coffee or iced tea the last three times I’ve visited Café la Reine and each time I was given a hot beverage (one time I ordered three cold beverages and received them all hot).
The last time I visited, I asked for an iced tea and received a piping hot tea on a 90 degree day, instead. I took one look at the tea and then at the line of customers backed up to the door, sighed in disappointment and threw out my entire order. I was done with this place.
Café la Reine isn’t terrible, it’s just a victim of being too busy and not having the resources to accommodate its success. I hope they figure it out. Until then, I won’t be back.

Bullet point review:
–Blueberry turnover dry, but maybe turnovers are suppose to be I’ve never had one
–Not heavy on the blueberry
–It’s tasty but nothing great
–Blueberry scone was soggy and just okay
–Neat salads and sandwiches named after queens and kings
–Very mellow feel
–Outdoorsy feel with gear on the wall, true grit sticker/​sign and skiing polls
–Staff Polaroid pictures
–Very creamy flavoring to the iced latte
–Flavorings for 75 cents seems like a lot but it is good
-$ 5 for large latte
–Music is oldies or alternative, not sure how to describe
–Free wifi, but I don’t recall the password
–Good seating selection, but as others have said it’s limited
–The work area is very well presented, not something I noticed in coffee shops
–Women who made my latte forgot the flavoring, but she was new so I let it slide
–By itself the espresso was bleh, which says something
–Lighting seemed to irritate my left eye the time I went at night
–White Mountains sign seems odd considering the location
–Tiny bathroom with leaky faucet

Cute little café/​coffee house in the downtown district of Manchester, New Hampshire. I had a medium iced coffee and a chocolate mini-​macaroon. The customer service was quick and friendly. They have table seating inside and outside. Inside seating is intimate and bathed by light from a large store front window, seating outside is on the sidewalk. I was there on a weekday afternoon; the crowd seemed to be mostly students at that point. Check this place out when you’re in downtown Manchester, NH

I really want to like this place because the owner is an alum of my alma mater. I’ve given it a few tries, but compared to other options it’s just average.
The coffee is OK, but nothing great for the price. There is no attempt at personal experience with any kind of art. The service is very retail versus other coffee shops.
I’m bummed to write this, but the 4 ½ stars Café La Reine has at the time I’m writing this just isn’t accurate. I hope there are steps to improve.

What a great spot to grab a cup of coffee and relax for a while. Although it’s rather small inside, I had no problem finding a seat. The staff was very friendly and I will certainly stop in again.

Café La Reine marries a tranquil cosmopolitan atmosphere, bohemian stylings, and friendly staff with live performances and weekly specials. The often collegiate and business clientele can make for as stimulating and thought provoking environment as any coffee drinker might enjoy. Light meals are reasonably priced, and fifty cent refills combined with a free coffee card cant’t be beat.

Manchester’s best coffee shop. Small, comfortable, quaint, with a wide selection of great coffee. Perfect refuge on a snowy day. Great relaxed place for business meetings and dates alike. Doesn’t hurt that the most attractive and classy people in town hang out here.
A wide selection of lattes and all the other usual espresso suspects, as well as decent baked goods and sandwiches. Get a coffee in a mug and two refills and settle in for hours to work on projects or writing.