The Pancake Parlour Northland — Restaurant in Melbourne

Not even bothered to reply back after sending feedback I booked up a table today at your Northland restaurant at 1PM for Father’s Day. I ordered some food and drinks (iced coffee and unicorn shake) for us. As we have to order through an app, you basically cannot leave instructions or special note, I believe it’s obvious you will serve desserts and smoothies after the food, but no, it came in 10 minutes. Didn’t want to complaint about this but iced coffee didn’t had any ice. But I let that go. We had to go and ask for water and tissue paper on the table. After 45 mins we asked a lady about food and they said surprisingly, “hasn’t it come yet?Will check and confirm.” Came back to us, sorry it’s delayed as we are a little busy in kitchen today, in another 15 mins minutes we will get it to you. Disappointed, but understand it’s one of those days. Checked with another staff, after 20 mins again that we waiting for our food to be served, the guy said let me check in the kitchen. Returned back again saying it’s coming in 15-20 minutes. Out of frustration I said we don’t want food and would like to have refund. Replied, let me call and ask the supervisor. No courtesy, to even come to us and acknowledge the fact, supervisor sent the guy back again saying we will give you the refund if that’s what you want. Is this the service, care or empathy for your guests you have? Went to the desk for refund and no apologies but replied we understand and speak over us and didn’t let us talk. Paid for my drinks separately, as refunded the whole amount, supervisor said, “you sure you want to pay for it? “ It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it matters!! I understand you busy, but would have come to us, felt our frustration, be apologetic and offered a little for kids as a special gesture would calmed the things down. Anyways, your...

Food Quality: In general, so-so. The sweet dishes like rhubarb pancakes or milkshakes are a better choice than the savory. If you happen to get your food hot, consider yourself lucky as there's always a delay with food coming out, especially when you're famished ans can see your order just sitting on the counter. If you ordered your cakes with ice-cream, you'd know how disappointing it is.

Service: Seated usually immediately if you make a big entrance or make intentional eye contact. After that it pretty much goes downhill. Depending on where you sit, you may or may not be able to grab a server's attention. Sit on the side up the steps and probably won't see them at all. If its busy or late afternoon, then service is quite lacking with waitresses forgetting to get your requested water or utensils.

Pricing: Pretty overpriced. Look at the dish I ordered. I paid $18 for the burramundi and a drink. Keep reading to see why I did not get the value for my money.

Location: Convenient, especially after late night movies. Mostly quiet during the day.

Ambiance/Atmosphere: I like the atmosphere.

Conclusion: This particular visit was abysmal. See the photos below - I ordered a Barramundi with Cottage Fries with a drink for $18. The Barramundi is so small, the lemon wedge is like half of the fish's size - even the local fish and chip hub has bigger fillets than this; my salad was less than a handful with a few celery slices, three pieces of beetroot and spring onion. My "cottage fries" were more like roasted potatoe cuts and as you can see, is only three pieces (is three considered fries??) And lastly, my potatoe pancake is just a normal pancake (or was it a short cake who knows). So paying $18 for this was devastating. I can go to the local pub to order fish and chips and would have paid $20 but been more satisfied....

We all know the feeling. You wake up, it's a cold, rainy Sunday and you've aaaalmost just about forgotten the last time you spent $85 at Pancake Parlour for a couple of meals and you start thinking The Thoughts. You're mind starts going "well, it's just me and all I want is a stack of pancakes and a coffee or something, it couldn't be THAT expensive", so off you go. As a quick aside - I remember in Melbourne when businesses started adding 1 or 2% surcharge to the bill on public holidays (because apparently paying staff award wages on a Public Holiday was single-handedly crushing their besieged businesses, lol) and then the pandemic hit and businesses were like "ok, now we're struggling to pay our staff on weekends Ha Ha, so please pay 2% surcharge for a little while to help us out" Today my stomach's Pancake Parlour nostalgia was cured forever. I went in to get a seat but saw a sign saying they are now charging a massive weekend flat-rate surcharge of 10%.... This swollen, overpriced franchise seemingly wants to pass the entire cost of it's wages onto it's customers without blinking - and the small print says that the Public Holiday surcharge is now 15% which made me laugh as I turned around and walked out. Nah. Join me in giving this sub-par relic of a business two middle fingers and never eat here again. It's 100% not worth it - and that is maths that you can bank on. It helps knowing that their pancakes are dry, their potatoes undercooked and the "salsa" consists of diced tinned tomatoes and corn kernels. Don't do it to yourself. A business that can't pay it's staff without surcharges...