Middle Ground Café — Restaurant in Melbourne

Maybe 2.4.

This is a sizeable cafe attached to a facility that’s being temporarily used as an early voting centre. AEC staff and various voters were wandering in and out Of the cafe. You almost get assaulted on entry from party workers handing out how to vote cards at these early polling places. The workers get very excited. I took my mum here to vote today. She’s a person of firm opinions my mum. Once she had the how to vote card she wanted she simply yelled “NO” to all of the other card distributors who were thrusting how to vote cards at her thereby sending them into shock and retreat. It was a tad brutal, I thought. By contrast, I’m more forgiving. I take them all and give them all back. Live and let live, eh.

Back to the adjoining cafe. It’s got a fairly basic but not unpleasant set up here. You’d describe the menu similarly. A small and predictable range of meals and snacks. Mine was just a coffee today, my customary long black. It was just ok although the more I think about it the more I’m inclined to revise it down. The coffee had very ordinary flavour and was well short on length. I actually liked it less and less as I kept drinking and ended up leaving a third of the mug, a very uncommon experience for me.

There was a nice happy cheery lady serving here. I liked her instantly. It’s just one element of the whole experience though and it couldn’t save the...

Ladies here are unwilling to help mothers at the play space e.g getting boiling water for the babies milk and even last time I didn’t get served because in the middle of my order I told the lady to just wait a sec while I grab my child off the steps, directly behind me. But for some reason she just disregarded my entire order and served the next person, an older lady behind me. I found that quite rude to be honest and it made me feel a little unwelcome. I am not part of the church community nor white so it’s important for staff specially at the cafe to try and be more inclusive and helpful if they want people to use...

Pumpkin soup excellent! Coffee great! But. . . . . . it took 20 mins for anyone to come near me. Not even a glass of water, let alone given a menu. When I had to ask for a menu, finally, it came with a bottle of water and no apology. We then had a different server who took our orders, brought our food and couldn’t be nicer or more attentive. The server who ignored us definitely needs training! Can you imagine sitting there while the server walks right past you and serves the couple next to you who came in after you!!! A very disappointing start, but...