It is that I can't give an even lower marking, but I had a horrible experience at the Gegeven Paard recently. As I was covering an Utrecht Festival, I bought their card for 10 coffee/tea as I'd expected to use this café on a daily basis. Reason I can't advise going here: during the festival the service went from average to awful. Orders people at my shared tables did not order materialiserd. For me, the liimit was, when I got back after a full day for a cup of coffee using my prepaid card and staff actually accused me of not paying my coffee. Worse followed, when I ordered a glass of water with my coffee and a biscuit as an extra. Another waitress than the one accusing me and reluctantly deciding to take my order anyway, brought my coffee, glass of water & cookie. I paid for the extra cookie, but when I started packing laptop etc, the waitress who had taken my order came back & accussed me again of not paying ... for the cookie. When I told her I had, but to her colleague who had the ticket, I was told to pick the waitress who had brought my coffee etc over half an hour earlier ... With that many students waiting at tables in different sections + outside & me only knowing it was a blond, a scene was started with staff behind the bar & colleagues. Of course, I did not accept being treated like that, so walked over and asked what kind of café this sh*t dump was, welcoming paying frequent customers with accusations of not paying etc.
I advise anybody insisting on using this café to make sure they not use the pre-paid card this dump uses + making sure waitresses hand tickets on payment and never ever accept accusations of not paying for drinks when staff clearly has not the foggiest idea which tables order what and with which staff member customers settle bills.
By the way: very good Starbucks nearly around the corner from this dump, plus plenty good pubs like the micro brewery "Oudaen" at one of Utrecht's scenic canals + plenty other places to choose from. read more