Post Café Marrickville — Restaurant in Sydney

My wife and I dropped in for some breakfast this morning. Upon entering the café, we asked for a table and were told by a waitress to “chose any table”. The café wasn’t that busy, so we chose a table with capacity for four people, so we weren’t cramped.

I believe it was the same waitresses that greeted us that came to get our drink order and made a fuss about the table we had chosen. She advised us that we would need to move, before assessing that half the tables were empty, telling us how busy it usually is on a Sunday, and then graciously allowing us to continue sitting there…

We ordered our hot drinks and table water and then had to ask another waitress to clean our table as it was filthy. All I can say is that it was glaringly obvious that this waitress and the first one we dealt with did not want to be there, which shone through in their absolute lack of friendliness, personality, and care for their customers.

We each ordered the big breakfast with scrambled eggs. Overall, the food was okay at best. I acknowledge that the cost of operating a café in Australia is expensive; however, prices have increased substantially to account for this, and cafes now commonly charge a decent surcharge on weekends as well (including this café), so at $28 per breakfast, I would have expected every part of the meal to be better than okay. The hash browns were not cooked well, were quite soggy, lacked any crunch, and tasted oily. The mushrooms were nice but only just warm, and I had the equivalent of one scrambled egg on my plate. I acknowledge that my wife did better in regards to the amount of scrambled eggs on her plate, so kudos for her. The rest of the items that made up the meal could be described as being okay.

Prior to our meals coming out we had to ask again for table water, which again felt like was a problem for the wait staff. One of the cups that was provided with the water was dirty on outside of the rim, which is pretty gross.

Credit where credit is due, there was one waitress with blonde hair that brought our meals out, who was friendly and capable of smiling, which was a pleasant change from the rest of our experience.

I get that waiting tables is probably not a fun job and that a lot of customers are rude and painful, but if you chose to do that job surely there is a minimum standard of service skills you still need to uphold, which would include being nice to customers on your bad days, and friendly and helpful the rest of the time. Given the number of cafes in Sydney, you would think that good service and food would be the bare minimum of keeping your doors open.

I was an essential worker in retail throughout the COVID lockdowns and experienced abhorrent behaviour from customers. It doesn’t take long to learn how to quickly identify decent customers, which I would bend-over backwards to assist. Even annoying customers would be treated with respect in 95% of situations. This was because it was my job to put my issues aside and provide great service to customers. A lesson that would surely go a long way at this establishment.

All up, two hot drinks and two breakfasts put us out of pocket $75.00. We won’t be making this...

I have never been treated so rudely and poorly in my life as I was by a staff member at this cafe at 2:15pm this afternoon. My family and I stopped here to get coffee and cake but before we could, I asked if I could use the toilets. A staff member showed me to the door where the toilets were and said there was a wait. While I was waiting another staff member came up to me and said toilets are for paying customers only. I said we were planning to order as soon as I used the toilet and they said “I call bulls$it - you can leave, now!”. I’m still stunned and shocked this actually just happened. We just moved into the neighbourhood and this was our first impression of this cafe and the neighbourhood. Not a great look for the cafe or the neighbourhood. If I could leave zero stars I would. Please do better and hire staff who are kind and courteous to your guests.

EDIT: Editing my post to respond to the management team's response below. My family was standing outside the cafe side door waiting for me to come out and get a table on the patio on the front side of the cafe and not "half way down the street" as the management team suggested in their response. I would say check your CCTV, but from the further rude response to my review, instead of an apology for attacking a customer, this confirms the person who behaved this way towards me was the manager. Further confirming that we will not be returning to Post Cafe. It's unfortunate you encourage a culture where your management team and staff speak this way to customers. I see from another review a few months back the same thing happened to another customer. We will not be returning. Please do better and treat people with the respect...

I don't usually go to complain about restaurant's. I'm not that kind of person, but I used to go to Post Cafe a lot in high school with my friends and I'm just amazed at how much it's changed. It was fairly priced and plentiful with serving and service was amazing. Nostalgia made us decide to meet up for breakfast here recently.

I'm assuming it's changed management or something because it's gotten pretty stingy. Most coffee shops have sugar on the table but our waitress was counting the sugars for our coffees we wanted and taking them out of her apron. She ran out and then it was ten minutes until we got sugar - we just drank our coffees and were scared to ask about it.

For five dollars, I'd assume one would get a decent portion of avocado... I got a quarter. It was doused in sesame seeds (which I genuinely love) so maybe that's where the extra money went? I would have preferred more avocado tbh...

The coffee was great, but again served in tiny cups. We tried to flag down a waitress to get us extra napkins but it was like everyone had blinkers on and couldn't see us. We also wanted more water, and we asked but we never got it. The bathroom was a mess when I got there, and the door was never shut so we had an awesome view of the toilet the entire time we were there...

The only thing I commend, is I go there a lot for takeaway bacon and egg rolls and a coffee. It's $11 (or maybe $12???) and you can pre-order your sugar without feeling like an idiot. The...