We visited Trader & Co. on Easter Monday. The cafe was exceptionally busy and this review takes this into account. I can see how this place usually scores high, but I can only review based on my personal experience. I love the concept of the place and the ambience.

Firstly I don’t believe the cafe were equipped to handle the volume of people and orders coming in. It took us 10-15 minutes to have our order taken. The lady behind the counter was lovely, but speed was an issue. The cafe staff seemed to acknowledge they were busy but they didn’t really do anything to help themselves. The lady at the service counter wandered off into the kitchen for a few minutes while people were waiting at the counter and the barista took it upon themselves to run out coffees to tables despite their being a 1/2 hour wait for coffees coming out.

We were advised that there would be a 20 minute wait for our order, which was fine but it ended up being 45 minutes from ordering to collection (not counting the line up time to make the order).

One poor lady before us just ordered a gourmet sausage roll with sauce with her coffee and she was left waiting for 40 minutes…

When we received our order, my other half’s chai latte was luke warm and my coffee was weak. The bacon and egg roll, the egg was undercooked and hence I had to scrape the undercooked egg from the roll leading to just a bacon roll.

I applaud the business for opening, there weren’t many options in Yass of businesses that decided to open. About half of the people who walked in, walked back out without ordering as they could see the really big line. Trader & Co. could have made more money if they were better organised.

The problems could have easily been solved by staff picking up the pace and the kitchen batching orders together. If you see coming up there are 5 bacon and egg rolls on order, don’t cook each one individually… cook them all at the same time and get them out in one go.

Judging by previous reviews this wouldn’t be an issue in quieter times, but running a business you should be able to cater for the busy and quiet periods.