Cafe Evolve — Restaurant in Bega

Wow! I recently moved to the Valley from Sydney and had invariably found local coastal cafes to be pretentious purveyors of overpriced undersized middling food, accompanied by disinterested service that elsewhere would evoke dismissal after one shift. Dropping in to check out the most excellent @Candelo Bookshop inland in Bega next door (which seems to host the only bookclub in the area), I resigned to lunch at Evolve expecting similar product and service to elsewhere locally. I couldn't have been more wrong. The place was popping, but service was fast. friendly and well staffed. When my spinach and fetta pie arrived it was at least twice the serve size that I had received elsewhere, about 30% lower in cost, and waaay better in freshness, ingredients and consistency. I'll happily drive 30 minutes away from the coastal W ⚓️ s to make...

Cafe Evolve like its name is a 'progressive' cafe. At first you may not notice it given the shops attractive modern front, but there are quite a few political opinions posted around. The other thing that stood out to me is the mismatched decor, I already mentioned the front but the middle is more of an industrial look while the back third is something more ethnic. Despite all this the chefs do make some good food. Their salad ingredients were lovely and fresh, the quiche was beautiful even though they called it a 'pie'. The chicken burger was decent and the stand out was the crispy...

Service was weird, I felt out of place. Asked for chips well done and they came barely cooked. Chips didn't come with anything to dip and weren't salted. Had to ask for sauce. Burger was dry but was extra spicy like requested which was good. Smoothy came dripping and made a mess on the table, couldn't touch it without getting hands dirty. No napkin. Smoothy did taste good though. Toasted sandwich was good. Asked for my coffee to be extra hot, it came less than regular hot. Weird experience, had a good laugh afterwards though. The artwork was hilariously...