Black Rock Coffee Bar

UPDATE: Unfortunately, I have to modify my review from 5-stars to 2-stars. This business has gone down hill like a semi who lost it brakes. What was once one of the best Back Rock (BR) locations on the Washington side, has turned into probably one of the worst ones.

I am not sure what happened behind the scenes in the past year (change in ownership, maybe?), But this location started having problems. To name a few, and not write doctoral thesis, 1) They have consistently run out of essentially items to make their products/drinks. This has resulted in the (shift?) manager to run to the store to purchase replacement ingredients or, which happens the most, not have any of the ingredients. We're talking major essentially ingredients for multiple products/drinks. And it's not limited to one or two instances over two days here. We're talking about consistently over the course of months of visits. 2) Parking started to become absolutely bonkers. Which made the drive-thru line insanely long. On a weekly basis, I witnessed cars pull into the parking lot, not find a spot, see that the drive-thru line was out to the road, turn around and leave. On any given morning, for which I was inside for an hour or so, I would witness this patterns well over half a dozen times. That's a ton of lost revenue. This also happened to me as well when I would see the lot full and no way to safely wait in my car on the road for the drive-thru. When this would happen to me personally, I would usually continue on driving down the road to Starbucks. What made this situation exponentially worse, was that there would be at least four Baristas inside working. With limited parking to begin with, the Baristas took up essentially customer and business parking. It appeared the owner never sought to work with the hotel next door to have his/her employees park there. To his/her credit, the owner did end up buying the adjacent empty land and putting in addition parking. However, one can tell it was done cheaply further evident by the fact that it's a gravel lot and not well laid out. In the end, this alleviated some of the parking situation, however upon my most recent visit every single parking space was full; both the original paved parking lot and the additional gravel parking lot. People simply resorted to parking wherever they could in the gravel parking lot, even though it was full.

I said I wasn't going to do a thesis and so I won't go into the other details of how this business has declined so much, though some of it includes the quality of the products/drinks and the service from employees.

Needless to say, something big internally happened to this specific location which made it go from being one of the best in the area to easily one of the worst. While I have a friend who works for the corporate office, I've been hesitant to talk to them about the problems. It's really a local franchise owner problem and I'm not sure what's going on with them. If the franchise owner or corporate reads this review, you really need to reevaluate what's going on at this specific location.

Because I think BR overall is a good brand and generally provides great products, I'm giving 2-stars and not 1-star, but that's only out of generosity.

ORIGINAL: This Black Rock Coffee always has welcoming, cheerful, smiling staff. They take the time to talk to you and get to know you. I have yet to have a bad experience with this location, which I visit at least once or twice a week.

Overall, it is one of the better locations of this great local coffee chain. Can't recommend enough.

Black Rock is my favorite but, not this one. I don't know why but this one has never been really good. My favorite remains the downtain Vancouver location. The flavor is not as good at this one. It is almost as though the manager tells the employees to short the shots of espresso.

We had a chilly walk and dropped into Black Rock for a hot chocolate to warm up. Such a simple drink but they do it so well. Very good and great place to relax.

Lavender white mocha is the only thing I actually like here. I've tried other flavors and combos but never tastes right. Need more creativity for the drink selection

The employee who took our order was respectful and diligent.

I'm officially a convert. I don't live in town, so I've always gone to my former go-to drive thru coffee when I visit. But my mom introduced me to BR and I'll never go back!

I've been coming to one specific black rock in Vancouver for a very long time. Almost daily sometimes twice a day.
The black rock on 78th and Hazel Dell Ave in the closest to my house but the girls at the black rock on 134th and hwy 99 are so much nicer that I drive out of my way for their customer service. Sophie and Robin specifically they know my voice from the speaker and almost have my number memorized for my rewards.
So I was very disappointed today when I learned it was Sophie's last day. I guess because she asked for a time off request she lost her job, thats horrible.
I manage a couple restaurants in the area and I know how hard good help is to find. Expecially when your customers are grumpy because they haven't yet had their coffee and they are heading to work. To let such a great employee go simply because she needs time off is shocking and the person who made this decision should be ashamed of their self. I will be taking my business back to the black rock near me because I won't support a business that is ran that way.

Great coffee and an even better staff! Just about everyone who works there has a contagiously positive attitude. Which most of us could use in the morning :)

Long line. Cold coffee that should have been hot. We were at window for several mins. I noticed our drinks next to window. And the girl was chatting with her friends at the front counter. I would have grabbed em but not entirely sure they belonged to us.

I love BlackRock, they are my go to local coffee shop! All the baristas are so friendly and always have a smile on they're face :) the coffee here is awesome! Absolutely recommend this place to all coffee lovers in all walks of life!