Cafe Mondial — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Abysmal. Absolutely abysmal.

We sat down to order and forty five minutes later the food still had not arrived. We flagged down a waitress who retook our order from scratch. She then returned and told us that a particular item was no longer in stock. My companion then reordered again, stating that she was very unhappy with the service. When the waitress returned again the food was incorrect. My companion had ordered a gourmet sandwich and received instead a ham and cheese toastie, with some rather distressed-looking potato chips on the side. My companion was very upset by this point and told the waitress that she had no intention of paying for the meal. The waitress said that she understood and left the plate. When we came up to the counter to paid my companion stated again that she would not pay for the meal as it was extremely late and not what she'd ordered. Twice. The man at the register, with very distinctive long dreadlocks, disagreed with her and said that since she'd consumed the chips that the waitress had left behind she had to pay the price of the meal. The man became very rude, aggressive and downright offensive to the entire group, asking her loudly, and in between sniggers (he evidently found the whole situation amusing),"Is this the way you treat people where you're from?" He continued to abuse my companion and the rest of the group loudly and aggressively for some minutes. When I looked up the entire kitchen (the cafe is fortunately open plan) was watching us and laughing. Finally, the man with the distinctive long dreadlocks conceeded that he would charge my companion for the cost of the meal, but not her drink. We then paid, each of my companions and I individually stating that his behaviour was inappropriate, aggressive and offensive. When we'd exited the premises we double checked our docket. The man with the dreadlocks had lied. He had charged my friend for the cost of her drink.

To summarise:

We ordered and forty five minutes later the food still had not arrived. When we reordered we were told that the food ordered was unavailable. When the food was reordered a second time, it was incorrect. When the food arrived my friend told the waitress that she had no intention for paying for the meal. The waitress left the plate regardless. When it came time to pay my friend disputed paying the cost of the meal. The man with distinctive long dreadlocks did not apologise. He instead became abusive, offensive, loud, rude, and incredibly inappropriate even though my friend did not raise her voice, did not use bad language and stated clearly that she was unhappy and exactly why this was so. He was also offensive to us as group and included us in the abuse. Instead of a more senior staff member intervening, they actively and loudly laughed at us. When the man with the dreadlocks finally agreed not to charge my companion for her drink, he lied outright and did so regardless.

The food is awful, the service is abysmal and the staff are abusive, offensive and predatory. At least the kitchen is open plan and you can make sure that the chefs aren't spitting in your food. If you are tempted to try this place despite the poor reviews, double check that there isn't a man with long dreadlocks behind the register before you take a seat. I guarantee that if he is indeed there, your experience is unlikely to be a...

Utterly wilfully clueless. Attempted to duck by and grab a quick takeaway coffee here during the peak hour rush en route to the office- bad mistake. In hindsight it’s obvious why nobody else was. There were two seated customers and no customers ahead of me. Somehow, this morphed into a 12 minute wait which was not disclosed nor was any feedback taken on board or any apology given. The Korean looking girl ‘serving’ was instead heating up and cutting 4 slices of cake and messing around with a can of pressurised whipped cream- then cussed and left to go get something she forgot. At no point during the whole time I was there would she acknowledge me. Once paid, I became an invisible low priority. They also have a surcharge for EFTPOS transactions- it says there MAY be one when you enter your pin and after you’ve paid you find out it deducted a surcharge. There is tiny black writing on the top of the machine on a black background but other than that, no obvious upfront disclosure of it. I suspect this is done deliberately to catch people off guard. I then waited several more minutes while she pottered around making other coffees for other mystery people- seeing there was only two people seated and theirs had gone out. More cakes came out to cut and more coffees for dine in. (?) At this point of no acknowledgement still, I asked if mine would be next, and that I don’t have 15 minutes to wait for a coffee when there were zero other customers when I got here and no line up at all. She muttered something to herself to indicate it was, which was a lie. More pissfarting around ensued for several more minutes. I don’t know if she was doing this deliberately or what but her attitude was cold and indifferent the whole time. I then said to her I’m waiting two more minutes and then I’ll take a refund and go somewhere else. I explained the common sense to her that office workers don’t expect a 15 minute wait for a coffee when there is NOBODY ahead of them. I explained that disclosing this at the time of ordering would be basic courtesy to respect customers time and give them the educated decision to make to wait the 15 minutes or go somewhere where they respect, prioritise and understand customers especially during the morning rush with a sense of purpose. She ignored and refused to make eye contact either. I said you won’t get repeat business with this level of disorganisation and apathy towards busy customers during a peak hour rush- she ignored that too. She dumped my coffee on the counter- average at best, and turned to do other things. No apology, no acknowledgment, no nothing- it was like I didn’t even exist. I took the coffee, and said ‘never again’ which like everything else, she in blasé fashion completely ignored. It’s pointless having an offer of a large coffee for $5.70 (surcharges included) if this is the dumb sort of idiots you have to deal with to get it. Stupid ignorant business and undeserving...

Went there today, around 9.20 19/07/20 to grab a quick takeaway latte and banana bread as I had an appointment to get to. The coffee came first and was scalding hot. I had to wait about 10 mins for my banana bread and spent the entire time with the lid off the coffee blowing on it to try and cool it down. No luck. Eventually got my banana bread and walked to Queen St where I sat down in the shade with the lid off the coffee in the hopes that the cold winter air would cool it down. After 15 minutes and running dangerously close to my appointment, I tried sipping it again but it was still scalding hot and burnt my mouth. There was no way it would cool down in time before I had to enter an office and so I threw it in the nearest bin. The banana bread quickly followed as it was like biting into a lump of sugar.

After my appointment I had a hankering for some eggs benny (and still hadn’t had a coffee) and as this cafe was very close to where I had parked my car, I decided to give it another chance. The waiter was initially friendly but when I tried to explain the issue with the coffee earlier he seemed to lose interest and just wanted me to hurry up and stop talking - that was my impression as he started walking away while I was still explaining. A man who I assume was in charge served me my coffee. He laughed when I told him about my earlier experience and said ‘yeah I hate it when the coffee scalds you’. No apology or anything. The eggs benny came out cold, like they had been pulled out of the fridge. One of the eggs was perfect (albeit, cold) and the other was dry and cooked through. I couldn’t finish it. The coffee was still quite hot but tolerable, but my mouth was so scalded from the first one that I couldn’t taste it properly and it wasn’t enjoyable, so only managed half. I was irritated to find it on the invoice when I went to pay, considering the feedback i’d given about the first one. I paid anyway as I had a gut feeling there would be no apologies and I didn’t want to be a ‘Karen’ in their eyes.

Won’t be giving this place a third chance. It will take a few days for my mouth to heal. In all I paid about $35 for half a coffee and a half serving of cold eggs benedict....