The Old Garage — Restaurant in Melbourne

Booked for 2 on a Sunday via their website - it was for 10:30am. It was lively and busy around this time! Definitely recommend booking.

We started with coffees - a latte with caramel syrup, and an oat cap. The menu had plenty of savoury options and a few sweet ones - I really want to try the kanefi bircher muesli next time! My friend and I decided on the savoury meals - Grease Monkey (big breakfast), and the Scrambled Salmon with additionals (Spinach and Avo). Having the scrambled salmon, I thought it tasted really nice. I’m used to the smoked salmon and poached egg combo, so it was nice to have the scrambled texture instead, with the smoked salmon mixed in. The Grease Monkey looked really hearty and filling. Alongside our meals we ordered the “Melancholy” watermelon drink. This was incredibly good! Very refreshing, and not sickly sweet like other drinks I’ve had before at other places.

After that, we spoke for a while and felt like something sweet so we had some cakes from the cabinet. We ordered 2 with additional scoops of ice cream - one cake was the Pistachio and Raspberry Teacake, the other was a Hazelnut Chocolate Gold Cake (Or something along those lines). The teacake was so soft, and the raspberries throughout tasted amazing - it didn’t need the ice cream as the cream on top was enough. The hazelnut chocolate one was a bit dry, so it needed the ice cream. It was a lot harder to eat - I wonder if we had gotten the last of the batch in the cake display as it was one of two left on a Sunday. It was fine in general. I highly recommend the teacake though!

It’s a street parking situation, the place is also dog-friendly which we love! There are some tables inside and outside for groups, and plenty of tables for 2. They have amazing staff - really friendly and welcoming.

All together it came to about $110 which I’d say is reasonable given location and amount of...

The staff were friendly, the atmosphere was nice and coffees were good.

However my partner and I both ordered the Lebanese baked eggs and were incredibly disappointed. It was essentially a plate of dry, flavourless beans with two overcooked eggs on top. The dish had no flavour other than beans and eggs, no tomato flavour, no herbs, no spices, no olive oil flavours. It was incredibly bland and dry with an unpleasant chalky texture. We ended up only eating the toast, passable tasting hummus and the chorizo we added as an extra. Between us we did not eat even half a serve of the beans and eggs because of how yuck they were.

Looking at previous reviews after our meal, we saw a Review by Dave B from a year ago who seems to have ordered the same meal based on the photo attached, and we share his same complaints; it felt like eating a can of cheap tinned beans. Unfortunately his experience was not a one off as we can vouch for the same experience a year later.

I cannot speak to any of the other dishes, but do not order the...

If you’re looking for the traditional warm greeting and friendly, morning-chat café vibe, unfortunately this isn’t the place. I walked past the other day when the café was very quiet and decided to try it for the first time.

The staff showed no smile, no greeting, no enthusiasm — just impatience when explaining the types of croissants, even though they were piled up and you couldn’t really see what was underneath. My coffee was served at a temperature far below what I’d expect — just very warm, not hot.

After the coffee was made, I thanked the staff, but received no response. Instead, he left the coffee there and turned away. How odd and rude — not even a simple “No worries”? Most cafés have that friendly moment: your coffee’s ready, you make eye contact, you say thank you, and they reply with something like “No worries, have a good one!” and you respond “You too.” Very basic, very normal — but not here.

Overall, the whole experience felt cold and unwelcoming, which is unusual compared to the majority of cafés...