Café Haití

Coffee with legs is a cultural thing here in Santiago, where businessmen come to these cafes to enjoy a cup of coffee with a view of the waitresses' legs, since they are wearing tight and short dresses. The service, however, was rather cold and slow.
If you like real coffee, this is not the place. But if you like mostly milk + a hint of coffee kind of drinks, this is gonna be good for ya.

The first time I went to Santiago on a business trip, my colleagues took me to Cafe Haiti. I was unpleasantly jet lagged and pleasantly culture shocked, and I had no idea why we were making a special trip for coffee. Cafe Haiti was apparently one of the first coffee shops where the waitresses were the star of the show and were dressed in the most incredibly short uniforms. If the caffeine didn't wake me up, the women serving it did. The coffee was really good and much stronger than anything I was used to in the US. I was told that quite a few imitators had cropped up after I left and there was some sort of a competition in the uniforms of the various baristas. Not all of the new coffee shops were supposed to be as classy as Cafe Haiti, which somehow combined skin, humor, and taste in a way that I don't think would have worked at home in the US.

A few years later, some of my Chilean friends came to the United States and I took them to Maine for fresh lobster. I hope they enjoyed the lobster as much as I enjoyed Cafe Haiti. I give Cafe Haiti four stars because it was such a wonderful introduction to a country that I miss very much.

When I first came to Chile I did not know that cafe con piernas existed...it actually took me a month to figure it out (probably because of the language barrier). So one day I am in the centro getting paperwork filed for my visa when I pass by this Cafe. There were a lot of older men in business suits outside as well as men inside talking to the baristas.

I had never quite seen a cafe like this, but I thought it was for business men in a hurry who wanted a cafe. I didn't even think much about the women wearing skin-tight short dresses at the time, except "their bosses let them wear that to work?!" (turns out their bosses made them wear that...)

Regardless, I bought my coffee (despite the stares I got) and I drank my coffee quickly and got out of there. Before I did however, I asked for a bathroom but they had made it clear there was only one for men...no bathroom for women.

After explaining my extremely strange and sexist experience to a friend he explained to me about cafe con piernas and why there were so many business men.

If you are looking for a "real" cafe con pierna experience I would not recommend Cafe Haiti, as it is very "clean all family fun" type of cafe con piernas. However, if you want a quick cafe that is good quality you should come, (but go to the bathroom first).