Grand Boulevard Cafe — Restaurant in Melbourne

As a last-minute choice for lunch with a friend I chose Grand Boulevard Café. What a mistake that was! My friend ordered the open souvlaki platter, which was reheated, dried out meat, and not good at all. I felt terrible for her having chosen the location, but worst was the Caesar salad that I ordered.

While the egg was poached well, and there was plenty of bacon, there was something very wrong with this salad. It was horrendously over-dressed to the point of being inedible (and I love dressing). Caesar dressing is very tangy so needs to be used with caution. It was obvious it was from a bottle and they weren't accounting for the fact that the poached egg contributes to the dressing too. I had to take it back or I would have left starving. I showed staff the problem and asked them nicely to do whatever they thought appropriate to get it right. I didn't want to tell them how to do their job. I just wanted a nice, light, Caesar salad. They brought me back what looked like a fresh salad. I was optimistic, but oh nooo, it was more of the same. Way too much dressing, and it was as if they had washed the lettuce but not spun it dry or something. The bowl was full of tangy slop that once again made it inedible. I don't even know if there was any parmesan cheese in it. I ended up picking at the over-cooked croutons and the bacon and then had to hand it back in again before leaving. They really didn't want to hear from me.

Worst of all was my friend had shouted me lunch, so she had to pay for this hot mess. There was no offer of a refund, but there really should have been if you can't get it right twice. The kitchen staff just gave me a look like how dare I complain and that they didn't care. This was a SALAD. How can you get a salad so wrong? I know this place does a nice coffee, and the pricing is reasonable, but if you're offering a full menu, you need to be able to cook a full menu. I was terribly embarrassed my friend had to experience that. I won't be going back. They're better off sticking to operating the...

My partner booked a groupon deal for this Café. Online we were requested to book for the following day, however after inquiring via phone, the Manager was happy to accept the booking for the same day ✔️ Upon arrival we were given menus and asked to take a seat while we choose our meal. As we sat unsure of whether to wait to have our order taken at the table or to place the order at the counter, the Barista yelled across the Café asking for our coffee order ❌ Ready to place our Orders, we then waited till our coffee was brought out before we were told we had to place our meal orders at the counter and once placed, the order was yelled across the Café again towards the chef❌ The milk in our coffees were very catching to the eye with pretty art, however coffee the tested quite bitter and burnt ❌ During our wait for meals, our conversation was disrupted by the sound of chairs and tables being dragged across the floor to be relocated in the room next to us ❌ Once the food was delivered to our table, we then had to get up to request cutlery to eat our meals and butter for our toast and other items that were missing from the table. We we're given 3 serves of butter for 8 servings of toast ❌ Finally, i would have to say that our experience ended on a good note as the Chef cooked us an extremely tasty meal and also cleared our plates after each person had eaten, giving us a clear space to sit and finish our drinks before leaving ✔️✔️✔️

3 suggestions... Our experience would have been alot smoother and more comfortable, had there been wait staff to greet us, take our orders and deliver our food. Or, advise when arriving where to order, then have someone quietly take the order to the Chef. Change the brand of coffee or change the grind and perfect the drip. Have furniture placed accordingly before opening...

Brunch Sat 13 Jun 2020 : for 2 : perfect eggs benedict with well cooked and very tasty extra bacon and coffee was hot and beautiful. Topping sauce was to die for. Great to see use of true English muffins ( 2 other restaurants in Craigieburn tried to give us choc chip muffin when we asked for eggs with English muffin ). Lovely staff with professional conduct and courtesy. will come back every 3 / 4 weeks to work our way through the extensive and varied menu. A true treat in the area - no need to visit over priced and unprofessional cafes in...