Brown Cow Cafe — Restaurant in Melbourne

Been coming here since it opened, and it has gotten drastically worse in recent months.

Had maybe 8 groups at tables, and more staff than customers, but still didn’t seem to know how to actually get anything done.

Ordered a coffee and a Parma for me, and a hot choc and chicken strips/chips for my child. My coffee came out just fine, but the hot choc didn’t. 10 minutes later, waiter finally sees that I want them and comes back. Cue 5 minutes of waiter and barista arguing over what happened, only to figure out that he took it to some other table. Another 10 minutes of mucking around, and it finally arrived.

Food service was no better. Parma came out within 10 minutes, and was another half-hour and two prompts to the waiters to confirm that the kitchen hadn’t made them when they did my Parma.

We really loved this place when it first opened, but they have seriously dropped the ball. Staff are slow and inattentive, and just dawdle about behind the bar area. This is actually now the second time that the chicken strips order for my kid has been delivered after I’d finished my own meal.

To top it all off, I raised all this with the staff at the counter when we went to pay, and the response was “oh, ok”.

If you’re happy to lose a couple of hours of your day chasing your order, the food and coffee is fine. But if you’re looking for a relaxing and easy cafe experience, find...

Not Vegan Friendly - Frustrating Experience.

It was fairly busy when we went in for some late breakfast today.

We haven’t been there before, but had heard good things.

After looking at the menu, there were no vegan options. We opted to ask for some plain toast, one with peanut butter and then other with avocado and a hash brown.

We made certain it was clear, no butter.

The order took a long time, maybe 30-40 minutes to come out. It came out... with butter. Both of them...

We sent them back politely, immediately the avo toast was replaced but the peanut butter toast took a least another 10 minutes.

After tasting the avocado toast, we asked the waitress to check if it had dairy in it. She went to the kitchen and never came back to tell us... but walked past us multiple times.

We left the avo toast, explained the situation at the counter and was apologised to but still prompted to pay the full bill. It wasn’t until I said that I’d only be paying for 1/2 the avo toast, as we were unable to eat it, that it was discounted (which we do appreciate).

It was then explained that the smashed avo contained feta - something that isn’t specified on the menu and thought would have been told to us being that we both asked for no butter / dairy on the toast.

Hopefully the staff know for next time, but spending over an hour at a cafe to eat 1 piece of toast wasn’t a...

This restaurant used to be very good, but unfortunately it’s really not what it used to be.

Went in on a Saturday and asked for a table for two. We were directed to sit in a table that hadn’t been cleared (dirty dishes for five people and food on the floor around the table) and we were then ignored by the server who took orders around us rather than clearing the table and taking our orders. After a short wait it became apparent that we were not going to get served so we just left. We’ve had lacklustre service since the renovation took place, but this took the cake! We took a short drive to another cafe and we were served immediately.

They really need to get an older floor manager with hospitality experience to help out the younger staff. I think it’s great to give the younger people in Sunbury a job, but how are they meant to provide good service if nobody is there to teach them? It’s really apparent that they’re overwhelmed and directionless if more than five tables are being...