The Grounds Coffee Factory — Restaurant in Sydney

The Grounds - Locomotive South Eveleigh

I have been there 3 times there. And every time it was pretty empty

The first time was on the 27th Sep 2024. The service was really good. I went to the Bar and the bartenders were really friendly, helpful and made a nice cocktail. It was a incredible experience.

The second and third time I went to the bar, I couldn't even order a drink because the service was so bad. It was clear that their priority is not serving the customer, but rather turning their backs on them or doing other things. P.S.: They weren't the same bartenders as the first time I was there.

The second time, in January 2025, I arrived at 3:45 pm and no one served me. It seemed like other things took priority over serving a customer, so I asked for the cocktail menu, which was handed to me. After waiting 20 minutes for someone to serve me, I had to ask if someone could serve me. Then I was told they had already closed the bar. I was informed at 4:05 pm that the bar had already closed after waiting 20 minutes. In other words, I was truly invisible to them since I arrived at 3:45pm.

The third time, on the 7th August 2025 I arrived at 3:10 pm and asked if the bar was open and if there was anyone to serve me to avoid the same experience as the second time I was there. And it turns out that once again, the priority isn't serving the customer, but rather doing their other tasks. Once again, employees were passing me by, working on the machines, and so on, and I felt invisible. I didn't wait long and asked for the cocktail menu. An employee pointed at the table. So I asked again if that was the cocktail menu. This time, she asked a man, and both confirmed it was the cocktail menu. However, they handed me the coffee menu, which only had three variations of Espresso Martini. I kept looking at the variety of alcoholic bottles on the bar and searching the menu for drinks they could make. I asked if they only prepared the Espresso Martini with the three variations. After that, the same employee who gave me the first menu went outside of the bar to get the menu with four more cocktails options. I chose in less than a minute, making a point of waiting for them to serve me. And not to my surprise, for 10 minutes no one served me because I had become invisible again or because other tasks were more important than serving a customer. This time I decided not to waste as much time as the last time and left without ordering anything again. After these two attempts, I went to the city for cocktails, where they were, and still are, much better than at The Ground South Eveleigh.

I have no interest in returning to this place as the service is terrible, there are several places with much better service and better quality.

I live and work near this location and will no longer recommend...

Amazing atmosphere! It was clean, aesthetically incredible, and the theme carried across beautifully in the cutlery, staff uniform, and menu design.

The only complaint/comment is the pricing and value of the food. I understand there's "✨️inflation✨️" however I don't think this is the reason for the amount and quality of food we received. Then breakfast platter was $29, and an additional $4 for black pudding (the thing that looks like a sausage on the plate) so a total of $33 for that plate. This plate had beautiful scrambled eggs but otherwise quite average. The portion was also pretty small for $33. The main problem I had was with the traditional hotcakes. $19 for 2 small pancakes, which I believe are the smallest I've seen a restaurant have. And I expected the taste to be quite phenomenal but it fell short. I didn't taste much of anything, the texture was confusing (soft yet doesn't melt in your mouth, and rather dry). I'd expect more flavour in the batter, maybe the taste of butter or milk or even sweetness from sugar, but there wasn't any. It was mainly just the feeling of flour and the maple syrup providing any flavour. The pastry cart was SO FUN, our server wheeled it over and showed us each drawer. We got a pistachio pastry and it was one of the best croissant-textures I've had in a while. Definitely felt fresh and crunchy but not too crumbly.

Service seemed lovely but a bit iffy at times. We were assigned a server and he gave a quick explanation of the coffees. He explained the first page and said "these are the only options you'll be looking at" after I told him I'm a milk-in-my-coffee sort of girl. I enjoy coffee but I felt a bit rushed in my decision making. I barely got a chance to look at their drink menu (I wanted to see their other things to compare as well). I got a bit confused by the wording on the menu and asked "so what do you recommend? Is this...what's this?" And pointed to the medium roast coffee option for clarity but he wasn't paying attention and just said "a latte?" And I awkwardly agreed because I felt he didn't understand that I was confused based on my wavy tone. Anyways, coffee was a solid option but I was sad I didn't order anything else because he seemed like he was going to judge me for asking questions.

What do you think? Does atmosphere/service make up for the average food or is it not justified? I'd come back for the pastry and coffee/drinks but not for the main...

The Grounds venues know what’s going on. They’ve got a good concept at each venue, carried out perfectly in their aesthetic. The staff are great, food is served fast and it’s of a high standard. It also has great menus with interesting choices and an excellent range of coffee options too. No matter which venue you visit, this is the experiences.

We’ve been wanting to visit the Grounds Coffee House and tried before, not realising it isn’t open weekends. So that said, it was hard for us to get there! Waited until the holidays. It’s also best to book since it gets very busy!

If you get there and don’t have a booking, they do have a takeaway window, with plenty of the cakes and treats and coffees to go. At the front of the store there’s a merchandise wall with plenty of “the grounds themed products” from bags and hats to coffee mugs and travel cups. I also thought these were really decently priced.

We got a table and sat down, hosted by a lovely staff member who was welcoming, and efficient and very good with our 3 year old. Whilst we perused the menu, we took in the beautiful aesthetic, all very much themed to an engine yard retro style with brown, green and orange shades. Open brick and piping and industrial brass.

There is a fabulous dessert trolley but by the time it came to us, it was mostly pastries and croissants and no cakes. However, we did get an amazing cake from the front takeaway window - an incredibly moist and spectacular chocolate cake with hazlenuts. We also ordered dessert from their menu; a very good vanilla slice, with crispy pastry layers. Their dessert menu is quite retro with the likes of this vanilla slice and even a banana split.

We were there for a brunch meal so considered the menu and found a lot of it very appealing, and also decently priced for the size. We absolutely loved the three egg omelette, filled with wilted greens, peas, asparagus, stracciatella, parmesan - so delicious! It was hard to decide if we liked this or the bagel better. The half bagel was served with a beautiful maple cured salmon, Soft boiled egg, cream cheese, dill, pickles, onion, slaw, capers and it also looked like a work of art. We would love to return to try more of their brunch offerings and even the lunch menu (with also has salads, sandwiches and burgers).

What a fab cafe and we hope to revisit...