"Coffee was great, cortado perfect. Had a breakfast sandwich had to ask for it to be heated up. Girl at counter not super friendly. It was my first time there just traveling through town. Parking is terrible, I'm guessing because it's on campus. No handicap parking & entrance not handicap friendly."

"While dropping my daughter off for graduate school at University of Illinois, we ate on campus at Cafe Paradiso. What a cute little cafe for great coffees, teas, quick lunch sandwiches and bakery goods. Definitely a favorite with locals. Inside and outside seating."

"First time here and we were excited to try some new coffees but unfortunately they didn't really have any special coffee flavors They did have one with burnt sugar but it only came in iced coffee not hot. I ended up just getting a hot mocha and my daughter got a latte with added toffee nut flavor. We also tried a slice of banana chocolate chip with nuts bread and the overnight banana and chocolate oats. I enjoyed my bread but I got the end piece so it was sort of thick and not as soft to eat unfortunately but it was tasty and I would order again but ask for a middle piece. The overnight oats are just okay we would not order again but that's just our taste someone else may love them. The cafe is cute and spacious but very crowded. It was hard to find a place to sit alone. The employees were helpful when ordering but rushed us when asking suggestions or about flavors. Overall, it's a nice place for a coffee and snack while chatting or doing some work on your computer. I would go back but wish they had some original new flavor combinations for ther coffee drinks. Hint hint to the owner"

"Espresso Royale Cafe was the mission control for my UIUC PhD. Me and Soheil turned this café into a coding Colosseum, wrestling C++ memory leaks and design pattern disasters like gladiators. The coffee's so strong and the Wi-Fi's steadier than my sanity. Gonna miss this place when I escape Urbana's cornfields. Only negative keeping me from 5 stars: they don't play enough tango here!"

"Cafe Paradiso is a Champaign-Urbnana historic landmark and there is no denying this. However, unfortunately, the coffee shop has significantly declined over the years. Here are the details: (1) Coffee quality: simply, it had declined significantly over the years. I don't know what happened, whether it is not a regular cleaning of their coffee machines or poor quality beans, etc. but the coffee is worse than Espresso Royale (which we all know is not a high bar to pass!). To Espresso Royale's defense, they don't charge $5+ for their americanos. (2) Internet speed: In my opinion, a good coffee shop in a college town has to be a convenient place to work. The internet here is just the worst I have seen for a loooong time. In 2025, with not so busy house, the speed of 1.96 Mbits/second (see the attached screenshot) is just unacceptable. This is despite of the fact that many companies provide fiber optics services in the area. (3) Unhappy baristas: Again Paradiso was the place that you used to interact with a lot of happy baristas and now, most of them are quite unhappy (and seem rude-but again you don't know why). There are still many positives about the place that in all honesty should be mentioned: there are power plugs everywhere, and the quality of the pastries is still great, although I should add to that: they sell you day old pastries with the original (relatively high) price which is not right."