neighbours cafe — Restaurant in Melbourne

Neighbour’s cafe is a cafe local to our area, decided to visit for brunch on the 26th of January as the reviews were quite decent. To our surprise, we walked out greatly disappointed.

Firstly, service was horrendous and it was (obviously) due to very poor management… Walked in and got seated ourselves, waited for water and menus but they never came. Had to go up to the counter to help ourselves. No one came to take our order so we also went up to the counter to order as well - (where i stood waiting for about 3 minutes, for a conversation between 2 wait staff to end.) This was consistent with many other tables, there were tables that were not cleaned for quite awhile - which attracted flies. Just not a good sight to see. Some customers were seated at a dirty tables before packing up / clearing was carried out. Unbelievable.. When our food arrived, we had to get our own cutlery too.

Now for the food:

☕️House blend with coconut milk (large) - could be stronger coffee, but the roast used here is quite bitter.

🍵Iced matcha latte - please skip this. Tasted like drinking milk on its own and after watching the barista make it, it makes sense why. Matcha powder isn’t stirred / whisked at all, and there’s simply not enough used. Not to mention, the matcha powder quality used isn’t great. Sent this back for an iced latte instead.

🧋Iced latte - Pretty strong coffee but again, quite bitter. Definitely better than the matcha latte though.

☕️Almond latte to go - Got our order wrong and added 2 sugars instead of 1, coffee was also so hot it was almost impossible to carry the cup. Also went up to the counter to pre-order this (15 mins prior at least) but still ended up waiting 5 minutes for it after our meal…

🥘Bush Lamb and Sweet Potato Hash This was served on toast with a singular fried egg. To be fair, the roasted lamb shoulder was lovely, quite tasty in fact. But it does not pair well with toast. Rice would make more sense.

Vegan Brekkie Wilted spinach was a little too salty, mushrooms came in a very generous serve but was over cooked (cell walls were breaking down). Didn’t like the smashed avo as it was heavily seasoned, tasted almost like a guac. Tofu scrambled and fried kale was nice overall but way too oily (see pictures). Grilled tomatoes were lovely though. Opted for hash browns instead of toast - very crunchy and nice.

Portion sizes here are quite massive, i think it can be dialled down a little so each dish can be made a little cheaper. Was looking around at other tables and there’s always leftovers that go to waste which is very unfortunate to see.

Don’t think we’ve more regretfully spent $72 on...

Now I don’t ever right reviews because normally I wouldn’t care to much but this needs to be addressed.

To start off, I am a chef and have been 10 years. I’m 25 years old which I’d say is a similar age to some of the staff working there. I know all the right and wrong things to do in the hospitality industry. But sadly none of your staff do. No one on your team has the care nor the drive for the business or for the guests. I have been in on multiple occasions as I don’t live far away from your cafe and had hopes of making it my usual. And every time I’ve been in I’ve always been met with a very poor experience.

The service is terrible, on multiple occasions I’ve gone up to order the food and coffee as we have been forgotten and every time I’ve had to wait for the staff to finish having a conversation (normally a good 3-4 minutes) to then being asked “what do you want?”. I’m sorry but if I’m at the counter holding a menu in my hand and I’ve been patiently waiting you’d think I’d like to order.

And to add to this, I ordered some food take away not long ago and upon it’s arrival one of your staff chucked it on the table and then walked away without a smile and without a word. 🥶 Your staff have a serious problem with respect and basic professionalism. There is no care, no enthusiasm and every time I’ve gone in I’ve always left feeling like my existence was the biggest inconvenience of their day.

I have read some of the other reviews on here and they all target the same things i have said on mine. Sadly those reviews weren’t enough to actually change anything in the business.

Seems like the one good thing your cafe can do is turn away customers. But oh well, sucks to...

Been here twice now to give this “lil” corner shop a second try… Just the same as the first.

Food/drinks: Poke bowl and Pinwheel sandwich, 2 iced lattes. Poke bowl had a lot of smoked salmon which was nice but abysmal quinoa and bland steamed veg. Claimed to come with “zesty vinaigrette” which was just a lemon on the side. Had to ask for some dressing to make less bland.

Chicken pinwheel sandwich was potentially underdone and very average. Chips on the side was such a small portion compared to anywhere else my partner and i have been and looked like they were just thrown on the plate. Overall not bad but not great.

Coffee was good.

Atmosphere is nice but the zip tied lamps on the ceiling were questionable. Liked the artworks tho!

Service was okay, busy sunday was hard to get someone’s attention. When I finally got someone’s attention and asked for extra dressing the woman didn’t know whether my meal was meant to come with dressing or not. When I pointed out that on the menu it said it did, she went and got a small ramekin of some dressing. Would also be nice to be provided with some napkins when drinks are served, or at least have them ready on the table as when we sat down there was some water on the table. I did like the fact as soon as we entered a man immediately asked us to take a seat! Was nice to have swift service at the beginning.

Would give three stars but the last time I was here I didn’t have a fantastic experience either. Was on a more quiet day and had trouble ordering as we couldn’t flag someone down and portions were on the smaller side/bland food. I hope this provides some feedback to be taken into...