Excelsior Jones — Restaurant in Sydney

Oh, new owners. That explains it. Ive been here many times in the past, but my recent visit will likely be my last. The menu has changed and nothingreally jumped out at me. I went for eggs on toast with mushroom, sausages, and a hash brown. The sausage was I think a pork and fennel chevap skinless sausage, but it appeared on the menu as "sausage". Maybe just me, but a skinless pork fennel chevap is not what I was expecting when i ordered it. The mushrooms were terrible. They tasted boiled and bland. I guess because the pan was overloaded so the mushrooms boiled rather than fried. For some reason the "hash brown" arrived separately from our other meals. The waitress said, I'm gonna have to bring the has brown separately. Why?? Who knows, but that was just what she was gonna do. Ok... when the hash brown did arrive, it was not a hash brown, but a potato layer bake, cut into a rectangular shape. To be honest, it looked good. But there was no taste. I'd recommend adding cream or at least a stock when cooking these, because without that it just tasted like a boiled potato. Service was so so. The waitress did that thing where as soon as one of us had finished our main meal, she took the empty plate away. Im not sure why wait staff do this. Its either rude, or intended to hurry us along, or both. Either way, it ruins the experience as those still eating suddenly feel rushed. The other annoyance with the waitress was her asking permission to take an empty side dish plate. I think it was the hash brown plate. Clearly empty, yet asking if it can be taken away. Why? What possible reason would we have to hang onto that empty plate when we each have our own plates and meals. "Let me take that empty plate for you" would sound 100 times better than asking if the empty plate could be removed. Suggestions to fix. Correct the menu - google sausage and hash brown. See what images appear first. Update the menu to better describe what will be served. Tweak the hash brown description and recipe so that it has some flavour. Try a few variations til you get it right. And ask the wait staff to fine tune their service. Never take main meal plates away until everyone has finished. Offer to take small dishes and cups away, instead of pointlessly asking permission to do so. Let the customers relax in your company without feeling like they are in your way, especially when it's...

Im suprised with all the 4-5star reviews here.

High ratings on Google, website appears quite flash and pretty hip.

Got to the café walked inside and the atmosphere was cheap and smokey.

Reluctantly greeted by one of the staff who provingly became rude & obviously ungrateful for working there. I sincerely hope she isn’t the manager or anything like that.

I asked if i could “Sit anywhere”. She replied “Yeah anywhere that is free and has been cleared” whereas she could of said “Please, anywhere and if it’s not cleared i’ll clear it in a moment you sit down first”. But that wasn’t the case.

Rudely asked if i wanted a drink. I asked if i could have a coke. Rudely frowned at me and said no we don’t have coke here only our oganic soda’s. So i got a Cap instead.

She cleared my table and gave me small vase of water, with no cup to drink it from. So i asked for a cup, she didn’t even listen to what i said and replied “Yeah! It’ll come when your meal comes”.

Another worker caught on the what was happening and gave me a cup. Other people working there seemed very happy and polite and genuinely grateful to be working there. This one with the rude stuck up attitude is Blonde with an distinct American accent about 1.9m tall and has a distint tattoo on her right forearm of a colour orange butterfly. Management or the owners should really deal with people who are not happy or grateful to be working there.

Coffee was pretty good i have to say.

I ordered the beef burger. It’s served medium rare. Came out half uncooked patty was still half-cold on the inside. Chips looked like they were taken from the maccas thrown away night’s before pile - and tasted like that too.

Pricing was the usual you’d expect from a café like this.

Overall experience was poor, due to mediocre food and really rude customer service from the...

Excelsior Jones is one of those cafes that when you step in, you enter much more than just the inside of a cafe - you enter into a warm, buzzing and doting environment that proves difficult to leave. It is a small knit quaint cafe that owns the corner of Queen and Armstrong street in Ashfield/Ashbury suburbia. The staff are attentive, inquisitive and hospitable which assists with the charismatic atmosphere established by the decor. The menu offers a contained breakfast (till 12pm), lunch (12pm -3) and drinks selection, allowing the kitchen to produce a high and consistent standard of food. All dishes are a hit, with something on offer for all taste buds. If you're looking for something to satisfy those breakfast cravings, you don't have to look much further than the bacon & egg sandwich boasting a poached egg, crispy bacon, capsicum relish and aioli ($10). For something more lunchy, the pork or salmon hash always goes down a treat, featuring a perfectly poached egg and fried buckwheat ($16). I wouldn't leave however without sampling one of their brownies($5) from the sweets display, I'll let them speak for themselves, but let it be known - once delved in to that world, you can never go back. That also goes for the cafe, Excelsior Jones is one of those cafes that always finds you crawling back (in leaps & bounds).

I would note: that weekends are deservingly busy so if you live for that buzz to match your coffee and don't mind a comfortable wait, weekends are a go! If however, you prefer a more subdued atmosphere to accompany your brunching needs, I'd opt for a weekday where the pace is...