Mink Chocolates Factory and Cafe — Restaurant in Vancouver

I have never given a one-star review on Google before, but the service at this store in the past few months has been extremely disappointed.

I have been a regular customer of this store for the past few years and really liked their drinks, but since a few months ago, the old staff left and were replaced with a new one. She made mistakes with our drinks twice, and on one occasion, I overheard other customers complaining that their drinks were made incorrectly. The ingredients in the drinks are not as they used to be, and the chocolate flavor is not as strong as it was before. Moreover, the new staff is very unprofessional. When customers have questions, she immediately runs to the back warehouse to say she’ll call the owner, leaving customers waiting outside awfully. Additionally, there are other reviews mentioning that the owner is quick to come to accuse customers of being rude to the staff without investigation of the situation. I feel that the ownership of this store has changed, and the staff may even be the owner’s daughter. As a result, both the product quality and the service attitude have deteriorated. It is really frustrating and disappointing to see a store I once liked turn out like this. I will never go back to this location again.

to follow up:

Regarding the response from what seems to be the owner, there are two points that need to be addressed:

If your employee feels upset and out of control, she needs to manage her emotion level properly for handling the job as a customer service. However, that does not change the fact that she made a mistake with the customer's drink, and the customer has communicated with her in a normal tone and attitude. Moreover, as a qualified customer service staff, she should have approached the situation professionally and used appropriate language to communicate and understand the customer's concerns. Instead, she immediately ran to the back warehouse to call the owner in a stiff manner. This is behavior typical of children tattling each other, not the behavior of a basic, competent service worker.

As a customer, I did not request “EXTRA OUNCE” chocolate. I only asked to have the chocolate in the drink I paid for separately in a different cup. The way you phrased it implies that the customer was trying to take advantage of you by asking for EXTRA chocolate. Of course, it is all up to you as an OWNER to refuse the business, but by misleading other viewers in Google review by making it seem like the customer was unreasonable and trying to take advantage of you is a manner of immoral and despicable.

Now I understand what the reviews on Google were saying about the attitude and behavior of the staff and the owner. In any case, I wish...

Before today, I would also rate this place a 5-star cafe. Unfortunately, I encountered one of the most horrible experiences.

First of all, the staff (not Angel who usually works there) made us a wrong drink, when I told her what did we actually order, she refused to admit.. it's perfectly normal to make mistake especially if you are new, like who doesn't make mistakes right? OK, we took the wrong drink anyway because I trust it will be good.

Since I like this place so much, I brought along a few of my friends, so it's their first time experience. Not knowing anything about Minks so they might have a few questions to ask, so that might make the server nervous, maybe?

And here's the horrible thing - and it's not even about the staff. Apparently the staff was under so much stress that she had to call the owner to complain about us. And as we were leaving, the owner arrived. And without asking a single question, he started accusing us for being rude to his staff. I'm like... What did we do???

So to the owner of Minks - I myself do not buy the motto "customer is always right", and I appreciate that your staff has your 101% support. Boss like you is hard to come by these days, but please, if something like that ever happens again, please get at least a rough understanding of what has actually happened before accusing your customers.

It is sad that it's the first and likely the last experience with Minks for me and my friends.

P.S. I hope Angel will...

New location in South Vancouver! I have been to the South Surrey location and love that place. I know there is (was?) a location in downtown Vancouver but love they open one here as downtown is probably much more busy and probably no free parking around there.

This is like a factory cafe kind of location. Very quiet still since probably not many people know about here yet.

Only 2 tables here. It's enough for this location as probably it's for the area as there's no walking traffic or maybe people do take out here.

Ordered a large Americano to share and attendant was kind enough to split it into two cups. The Americano tasted pretty good.

Mink sells their own brand of chocolate, so they include a nice piece of chocolate with each coffee.

There's a few parking spots in front of the cafe.

I'm writing this review in hopes that this place can get a little more customers so that they can stay open since it's so quiet in this location which happens to be located in the rear of the building (don't know if there is anything in the front). Drive in is the one just east...