Cora Espresso — Restaurant in Melbourne

We came in to order two egg and cheese rolls, one with mayo and one without, and our order was repeated back to us correctly. As locals, we’ve never had any issues with this order or even the customer service before today. It was our first time being served by this older lady, who I assume could be the owner, and she was the only FOH staff on.

When she brought the first roll out, it had bacon, so we politely explained the mistake. We even apologised as we both work in hospitality, so we understand mistakes happen and didn’t want to make her feel bad. We’re honestly pretty easy going and if it were a minor mistake like no cheese or the wrong milk in our coffees, we’d probably consume it without saying anything just to not cause any inconvenience. But since we don’t eat meat, we had to mention it and did so as nicely as we could. However, she started telling us off about how we needed to specify what we wanted and even after she walked away, she shouted across the venue that we were “wasting her food”.

Was pretty awkward and we wanted to leave but we’d already paid and were hungry so we just sat there in silence trying to stay calm. When she brought out the remade rolls, we thanked her and was about to start eating before she decided to start going on about it again saying that we ordered incorrectly and need to specify and that we shouldn’t say bacon if we don’t want bacon (we wouldn’t have asked for bacon as we don’t eat it). Since she kept bringing it up and blaming us, we calmly corrected her. Again, she walked away and continued shouting at us from across the venue, which was a bit embarrassing and really shocking, so we decided to leave.

Like I said before, we both work in hospitality ourselves as FOH staff, so the last thing we’d ever want to do is cause a scene or make another hospo worker upset because we understand how it is. Even if she truly believes it was our fault, she shouldn’t have started shouting at us after we politely corrected our order and even apologised when we didn’t need to. If she treated us like this, I can’t even imagine what she treats her staff like. I would lose my job if I ever treated a customer like that. Was really quite upsetting. Locals are better off going to Cafe Sapore directly around the corner, or Mother which is a couple minutes walk away on Kambrook Road.

(My partner already left a review regarding our experience, but it was genuinely so terrible that I wanted to leave...

genuinely worst service i’ve ever received. ordered an egg and cheese roll and received an egg and bacon roll. we apologised and said there’s been a mistake and the server/barista yelled at us for “wasting food” and “not specifying what we wanted properly” we stayed seated, completely baffled at what was just said and how it was said. after returning with the food we ordered she continued on angrily about how we need to specify what we wanted and “why would you say egg and bacon if you don’t want bacon” - crazy to say to someone who does not eat bacon and had not ordered it their entire life. especially confusing for us when

we ask for two egg and cheese, one with no mayo then it gets repeated back to us before paying. being a returning customer for years and the same request has not once been an issue.

as a hospitality industry worker myself i understand mistakes do happen and it’s unfortunate but absolutely never warrants treatment toward a customer in that way (or towards staff for that matter). absolutely insane way to behave.

other than that they do make a decent coffee and egg and cheese roll if you can avoid a certain...

I came here a year ago and it was a lovely normal cafe. Yesterday i went in, we sat ourselves because there were no staff to help us. We started looking at the menu that was on the table and went up to the counter to order as no staff had come to us. At the counter i started to order and the staff told me that they don’t actually use their kitchen anymore because their isn’t enough staff so they only have the food available in the cabinet. That’s a bit odd for a cafe but the communication was also none existent until i went to order. The menus should not have meals that aren’t available. So we ended up ordering two breakfast rolls from the cabinet and instead they gave us two ham and cheese rolls. When my partner went and told them that we got the wrong thing the two staff were talking at the front for ages instead of coming to use to solve it. We ended up getting what we ordered but it was missing ingredients that were shown in the cabinet and the bacon was not cooked at all. The unprofessionalism was insane and the staff clearly had no idea what they were doing. Staff need to be retrained. Do not...