Hannah W.
Yelp
maybe I'm just a bougie california girl, but I was soooo underwhelmed by my experience at colectivo. my friend, who's a local, visits this shop often and praised it for its spacious working areas, unique menu, and overall great vibe. however, the coffee was bad, there was NO space to sit down, and staff were just average.
upon entering, it really is a nice space with lots of plants, seating, and a large menu. the guy that took my order gave a /decent/ recommendation when I asked if he recommended the pistachio matcha latte or the salted caramel latte, and he just said it was like apples to oranges. the matcha is completely unsweetened and the salted caramel is one of the sweetest drinks on their menu. so with that, I decided to get the matcha latte.
my order had 2 drinks (one for a friend) and they served hers first. I asked if there was also the matcha latte and they dismissed me and said it was coming up. imo, it's better to have both drinks ready if there's two in the order before calling the customer's name...anyway, I waited another 5 minutes and saw 2 other people get their drinks and still didn't get mine yet. finally I saw a green drink sitting behind the cold brew tap - this is like, 10 feet away from the pick up counter - that had my name on it. it wasn't even CLOSE to the pick up and if I never noticed it, it would have looked like someone just forgot it there while making it. they never called my name a second time, so I guess I should have known my drink would be placed at a random spot on the counter??
unfortunately, the matcha latte tasted like straight up milk. it was green, I saw powder at the bottom of the cup, but I essentially was served a cup of plain milk. it's partially my fault for not asking, but I should have asked for a non-dairy alternative. I'm used to most coffee shops I frequent asking if dairy is ok, so I'm a little disappointed they didn't ask when I ordered. but the worst part was just paying $7 for a cup of milk.
it was very difficult for the three of us to find somewhere to sit at 11am on a Wednesday. the communal table with the outlets had people taking up extra seats for their bags and staggering across the table, so half the seats that should have been available were not. we camped inside, standing and waiting for people to leave before we were finally able to snag a spot for 2. the crowds left after a few hours but having to drift around for a table is not ideal.
maybe I just ordered the wrong drink, maybe I showed up at the wrong time, but I'm probably not coming back here again. there's plenty of other coffee shops to try in wicker park.