Cog Bikes & Brew Cafe — Restaurant in Melbourne

The cafe manager Brent gave us the worst travel experience in Australia. While we were renting the bikes, my 75-year old mother tried to use the toilet in the cafe, but she does not speak English. Brent didn't allow her to use it. After finishing renting the bikes from the same shop, I tried to help and started ordering coffee and food, considering the toilet use may be restricted to cafe customers. While we were ordering coffee, cakes, and scones, Brent suddenly claimed that he did not want to serve us any more and asked us to leave. He kicked a 5-people family out of his cafe just to prevent my mother from using his toilet? We left immediately without arguing back, as we respect his right to do so as an owner. However, our family suffered from this experience for days, blaming one another for not being able to avoid it. After all, we cannot understand what we have done wrong to deserve the horrible treatment, and why he was so mean, rude, and disrespectful to us? Is his business too good to care about other people's feelings anymore?

We hope one day, Brent can see our comments here and give us an answer.

By contrast, the bike rental guy is super friendly and helpful. Will definitely rent bikes from him again when we...

In regards to bikes and bike hire they are great and couldn’t fault. The cafe is another story... before we even placed our order I was already feeling uncomfortable as the lady was constantly rudely telling people to not sit on the grass or on the tables. Not sure why they don’t just tape off the tables so people know not to sit there with their coffee? Anyway the cafe experience was the worst I’ve ever experienced, we placed our order then the guy who took our money didn’t offer us change - we had to ask for it. They were busy so we expected to wait but after 25 minutes I decided to ask for our money back as we had to go. They couldn’t find our order and also the people that ordered after us were still waiting. When I complained Josh was so rude. I mentioned I wasn’t happy and would leave a bad review after he made numerous excuses. He said “just join the rest if them” and “whatever” he didn’t care one bit. He had just refused to refund the customers before us... When I said you could at least just offer an apology he said “Sh*t happens get over it”.

Now hesitant to return even to hire bikes as I mentioned to Deb on our at out “you need to lift your game on the cafe” but she just walked off without making...

I can't sing the praises of this place enough. The owner went above & beyond to be helpful, was incredibly friendly, and made great iced coffees to boot!

We cycled from Lilydale, intending to do the return journey after a cold drink & snack. The lady owner manning the cafe & shop noticed that my wife was riding an e-bike & offered to top up the charge whilst we were there. She was concerned that the bike have enough charge to make it back over Mt Evelyn. We drank, walked around town & by the time we returned we had an extra 30 minutes charge as a safety net.

The lady owner (I forgot to ask her name) was really chatty, taking time & interest in all of her customers. She & her brother have run the bike shop & bike hire for 7 years (as well as the same-named bike shop in Monbulk, and bike hire spots dotted around the region). They took over the cafe as well in 2022, it having previously been run as a separate business. Scrolling back through the reviews you can see a stark improvement in the comments about customer service after this point!

If you're cycling the trail to/from Warburton I thoroughly recommend calling...