Hobson Rosebud — Restaurant in Melbourne

Went there Today (Sunday October 14). What a terrible experience!

My wife said to the waiter “I am allergic to onion and garlic and all in the family”. She wanted the eggs Florentine.. The waiter came back and said “that should be fine”. Should be or is? Either way we trusted the process . ( we have owned and operated our own cafe for the last 3 years).

My mother ordered the Smashed avo and asked for the egg to be poached hard ( reasonable request)

After 20 minutes of waiting the waiter comes out and says to my mother “is it ok if your egg is normal? The chef said they are really busy and it will take to long to poach the egg hard!”

Really? You have items like steaks sandwiches and the chef is worried about poaching an egg and extra minute and a half ( I’m a chef by the way).

Ok my mother agrees to the weird kitchen requests.

Out comes the meals and my wife’s meal has a bright green oil on it that resembles chive oil, we are told it is just a seed oil... ok?!

Then after a few bites my wife’s eyes start to water and get red, and her nose goes red, and she is slowly getting bumps on her hands.. then she says the magic words “ my tongue is stinging!”

I look at the spinach and there are pieces of what I would say has to be minced garlic!! I try a piece of spinach.. yep garlic, and my mom tries a piece and she agrees.

I go to the manager tell him.. he goes in to the kitchen asks the chefs and I see them shake their head no they didn’t put it in.

I let the manager know sorry pal I’m chef and that is minced garlic.. he said “thE chefs said they only put : salt, pepper, and oil on the spinach”

I said “ so my wife’s reaction and the 3 of us tasting garlic is fake?”

So turns out. The docket had no onion and garlic, but didn’t say “ALLERGY”

A few things.. 1 regardless of it lacking the phrasing Allergy proper precaustions must be met and assume it is an allergy.

So either : the chefs said screw it and still put garlic in or they aren’t washing tongs OR they aren’t washing their pans.

I don’t think the shire will enjoy...

I wanted to support a fellow local business, so I visited Hobson Café several times a week. Unfortunately, my experiences were quite inconsistent. The coffee and food quality varied each visit, and I noticed the price of my coffee changed almost every time. I had a group of friends visit from Melbourne and I took them there for brunch telling them it was lovely and they were a little confused at my idea of lovely…… however I was willing to overlook that. The biggest issue I’ve had there was the customer service from one particular person (the others are generally warm and welcoming).

There’s an employee (or maybe an owner) who was incredibly rude to me every time he had to serve me. To the point it made me feel as if just me being in the cafe bothered him grossly. Most recently, I had my 8-week-old puppy with me in a carrier, walked in the door to order my takeaway and he yelled at me from across the room to leave, despite the fact that my puppy was calm and in a carrier. I was shocked at being yelled at in front of everyone, so aggressively. The situation could have been handled in a multitude of other ways for him to convey that he didn’t want my puppy inside, choosing aggression to a customer is a stupid business decision. If he’s not an owner, the owner should take a look at his attitude in general. This level of service was very disappointing, and I won’t be returning.

A number of my clients at my business who I’ve relayed my experience to, have reported similar lack of general friendliness with this person, although I’m glad it’s not just me he detests, it’s a very odd way to provide a customer experience especially in a cafe that doesn’t have a great google...

Was quite disappointed when I felt the need to write a review about how poor someone's customer service was. From the moment I walked in to the counter to order my coffee, the blonde waitress with glasses wearing a casual hoodie was completely dis-interested in her job. Now, I get that may be something happened before I came in, but her pissed-off attitude towards me was completely disheartening. During the 20 minutes I waited for my one coffee, I watched her, some guys came up to order something, but they didn't have it, so they started talking about what else to order, after maybe 10-15 seconds, the waitress rudely says "Anything else???!". Then, there was a dad and his teen kids who had asked for a cutlery box to eat their food, when the waitress went over to get the cutlery box she spoke with one of her friends in private with attitude, teasing and laughing at the family and came back to rudely dump the cutlery box on their table. The father said something along the lines of a misunderstanding about table service or self serve and that he requested to dine in not take away, but she made his food to go and he was upset about that, he then brought up that he caught the girl being rude and teasing the family with her friend when she went to get the cutlery box and in her response she said "Okay well you don't need to be disrespectful" with a disgusting tone and attitude... I think it's absolutely pathetic to of hired this girl. I understand everyone has their own issues at home, but if you can't separate work from home, then don't come to work. I will never come here again, not for the brought in food, not for the horrible service and definitely not for the burnt,...