Zoo Café — Restaurant in Budapest

Let me give you a full experience written in a review as this is the best review I can do for zoo cafe. Read until the end because the end is actually just so shocking which made me leave a 1 star review for its menu items as it's literally a tourist trap that u should NEVER go to! Now let me explain:

Before going there, you do your research as a tourist, you know that u have to reserve a spot, u called their phone number many times and they rarely ever pickup so you emailed them about the reservation, once u did that you decided to research about the menu, but you look at the menu and you are really shocked at the food prices. 2300+ ft for hot chocolate. (350 ft is "service fee", the service fee is about 16.5% or less? Around that, which is outrageous considering hot chocolate worth 300ft being marked up to 2000+ ft. Which we thought the markup in price was to help pay for the animals.) But as we got there, which I booked a spor for me and my girlfriend, they were nice about us being about 10minutes late in reservation due to us being lost for a moment. That was nice, but as we entered the atmosphere is beautiful but could be a lot better considering the crazy prices.

So you look at the menu, the menu you look at online didnt show the "service fee", but here they did show it, so yes the service fee is definitely a shocker. We got to stay there for an hour and 30 minutes. And we get to touch 5 animals, with each a turn for 5-10 minutes, like really just that? There were only 2 cool animals we could touch, the chameleon and tortoise, to be honest only the chameleon is worth touching given by them, but the rabbit was pretty soft so that's cool. The cats are really good too and they're huge, but sadly our table didnt even get the best view despite many other empty tables having awesome views. Do not EVER go to this place ever again, maybe a one time experience is enough but never more than once till they improve. I was fine with the place till the price shocked me, here's the part where I mentioned at the start that the end is just horrible. In the policies mentioned at the start that if you dont buy any food/drink which is stupidly priced at 2k (most of them, unless if u want to drink coffee at the night for some reason, which is around 1.5k), u have to pay 1000ft. But i dont really remember seeing them mention it is per person. i ordered one hot chocolate so me and my girlfriend can share it because of how expensive it is, and let me tell you im really dissapointed at the taste, tasted worse than some vending machine's hot chocolates. Really bland, in my opinion worth 300 forint but of course add 2000 forint because of the animals. And here's the thing, you need to order one food/drink per person or else they will charge u 1000 forint. Stupid. Never buy any food item here, it is a complete scam. Don't even feel bad if its for the animals, you're already paying for the ticket which is 1000 forint per person (unless if u buy food/drink, which i again advice NEVER do it.) I would also suggest to never go here again till their prices are justified. It's an incredibly overrated tourist trap. Go to a REAL zoo, far more worth it. And I bet this review is the most useful and helpful one out there for zoo cafe tourists. Also another quick thing of why im pissed about the prices, 2000 forint can get me 5 meals in my country (malaysia) which is why im really dissapointed. Goodbye and just go to my country instead...

I read about this place and loved the concept. I have a newborn baby and we intended to visit with the baby and 8 people. Since the baby will be only 4 months old and we planned that he will be sleeping in the stroller while we visit, I tried to make a reservation via email almost 2 months in advance as I figured that we need a table with extra space for the stroller. I sent an email and got a generic reply right away that kids under 3 years are not accepted. I replied that my child is a newborn and won't be sitting at the table, just sleeping in the stroller. I got another reply that kids under 3 years ar not accepted. I replied and asked about the reason for that as my child is a newborn baby and doesn't have yet the ability to sit or crawl and can barely hold his head at this point therfore he won't be sitting at the table, won't be running around and won't touch the animals. I got a reply that the reasons are that babies can have allergies for the animals since their immune system is weak, they don't have a place to change diapers, they don't have space for the stroller and that the baby might wake up and cry.

I don't buy any of those reasons because it's up for the parents to decide if the immune system of the child is strong enough or not. In addition I didn't require a place to change diapers as the visit is only for about an hour I can change the baby before and after the visit. If the place is not accessible for a stroller, it means that it's not accessible for a wheelchair, which is bad. As for the reason that if the baby wakes up it will cry - this is a very strange reason as kids older than 3 years might cry as well and also there are adults that talk loudly. My baby is accepted in a zoo or a petting zoo and is accepted in a cafe so why not in a zoo cafe?

The impression that I got is that the owners simply don't like kids under 3 and because this place became popular they feel that they can pick and choose the customers. By the way I double checked their website and it's written that it's not recommended for kids under 3 to visit, not that it's completely forbidden.

So to sum up: looks like an interesting concept, but there are a lot of great restaurants in Budapest that have interesting concepts which actually like children and don't select the customers. At the end it's...

We travelled over 600km in one day, just to visit this café, since I've had my eyes set on it for a while. We departed very early and our estimated arrive time had about one and half hour before our 1PM reservation. In the email, they gave us 10minutes past 1PM as a late arrival and I also informed them we were from far away. We were running across Budapest as fast as we could, and tried calling their number multiple times while doing so, nobody picked up. We arrived at 1:11PM, One minute past the late window and rushed in. Yet at our entrace we were informed all tables are full. While running to the café, nobody was standing on the street, did they just give our table away? Very rude male employee informed us that they told us not to be late, we tried explaining we came from afar and we were supposed to have extra time, but it didn't go as planned. He didn't explain why is our table full even though, it has been one minute, to our unanswared calls he said "We are busy, bye" And kicked us out. I understand they are frequented, but why have a phone if you can't answer? I saw at least four employees and they work on reservations only, which means they know how many people to expect that day. Did they just give our table to some locals without confirming, calling, picking up the phone? I was extremely sad, as the trip was expensive and my one goal failed. I broke down in tears in the street and we walked back to our car, just to have another 600km trip back.

0/5, Staff bad, not doing their jobs, giving tables away with reservation. Even if we arrived at the time it would have been away. Bad expierience, no...