Boundary Espresso — Restaurant in Melbourne

CAFE OWNER'S AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR

I would like to share my experience at Boundary Espresso cafe to alert others to a concerning situation.

During our recent visit, we encountered significant delays despite the cafe being nearly empty. After waiting approximately 20 minutes without progress on our order, we politely requested to cancel it. At this point, the owner abruptly began making our drinks. When we reiterated that we wanted to cancel one drink and offered to pay for my partner’s partially consumed coffee, the situation escalated unexpectedly.

The owner became verbally aggressive and hostile, raising her voice and chasing us outside the cafe while demanding payment for both drinks. This behaviour felt alarming, as she repeatedly approached us in an intimidating manner. My partner had to step in as a barrier when the owner got uncomfortably close to me.

Several passersby and another customer intervened, witnessing the escalating behaviour. One nearby resident mentioned this was not an isolated incident. wWile another customer shared their own unpleasant experience at the cafe earlier that day. During the commotion, an unusual interaction occurred where the owner mistakenly entered $900 on her POS terminal when asking for payment from one of the customer helping to calm her down. Fortunately, the customer noticed the error and declined.

Eventually, we paid for the single drink we consumed. However, the situation did not de-escalate immediately. After completing the transaction, the owner continued yelling profanities and making inappropriate gestures.

This experience left me feeling genuinely unsafe. While I have deleted the video evidence I captured, the incident was distressing enough that I feel obligated to caution others about this...

Mother’s Day- admittedly never a good day to judge a cafe- but we chose this cafe as a smaller option that wouldn’t be as busy. We waited 40 minutes for our drinks(not at all crowded at this stage) and watched as the coffee machine sat untouched for a good 20 minutes. When a staff member finally emerged to make said coffee, it was a very good one. We then waited another 30min for food, which was pretty average quality. Veggie toastie with cold capsicum inside.

Cafe 101 rule- clear dirty tables as people leave. Staff walked past dirty tables so many times, empty handed. No one seemed to know what was going on. Other guests left without their meals. They were short on staff, and the owner was short on charm- to guests and to her staff. Hard to believe a cafe could be so inefficient in Melb- don’t know how they are still in business. We all left feeling super anxious- just an all round disappointing...

The coffee was nice but the service was horrible. If I could give a 0 I would. It took over a hour to get the 1 coffee, and one juice. When we ordered a chicken burger she gave us a bagel. We said we ordered a burger and then the worker started yelling at us and screaming while other customers watched on. She then waved the menu in our faces and became angry and border line aggressive with her behaviour. This was the first time we go there and last. As we got up to leave she chased us screaming to pay when we had paid upon ordering and had our receipt. We left with the bagel which we never ordered we ordered a burger and feeling unsettled from her yelling. Clearly in their case they have no care for customer service. If they had just said sorry it was misunderstood I would of given them at least 4 stars as the...