One Sip Coffee and catering — Restaurant in Henderson-Massey

Just one sip at One Sip is enough to make you question your life choices. We live a short stroll away and are devout disciples of ALL the coffee things. We clung to hope - oh, how we clung - that One Sip might be our caffeine cathedral. But alas, after a parade of letdown lattes, we've come to one sobering conclusion: One Sip Coffee consistently serves the crappiest flat whites this side of the Whau river.

Because it’s the first café you see after exiting SH16 and has enormous windows, it can look busy from the road with its car-weary crowd, the drive-through masses, who can’t look past their own windscreens. Location, location, and, uh, did we mention location? But we find the coffees are too hot or too cold, the beans burnt or stale, and the food lacklustre.

Now don't go and get all judgy on us and our humble slice of suburbia. We've got cafés around here that would make even a Ponsonby snob grudgingly admit, "Hmm, not bad for peasants.".

A hop, skip, and a two-minute drive west unveils a holy trinity of caffeine nirvana. Kreem’s counter food is more French than a Parisian pâtisserie, Little Sister Café has devine Cacao Smoothies, and the ambience of Kings Plants Café is just perfect for a family brunch. Warning: their Hashtag Salmons which are more addictive than a Netflix binge.

Just a breezy 2-minute drive south from One Sip, you’ll find Anastasis, who truly knows how to pay proper homage to the mighty brew. With beans so fresh they practically wink at you from the grinder and parking as easy as Sunday morning this is definitely our fav café in Te Atatū South - for coffees. We just wish it wasn’t so popular with the celebs (no not Robyn Malcolm, she was just pretending).

With our wholehearted dedication to good food out West, we can also recommend skipping One Sip’s overpriced counter food. Westies go to the legendary Westside Bakehouse. At a fraction of the costs that One Sip charges, the Bakehouse’s white-flour carb comas are guaranteed to keep you in a blissful daze until evening, long after the sun has set over the mighty Waitaks. Te Atatū South goes into mourning when this bakery shuts its doors over Christmas.

So, just in case we weren't clear, we'd sooner recommend dinner with David Seymour than this over-priced school canteen. Trust us, your wallet and taste buds...

I thought I would try this cafe out. It was difficult getting to it, after parking across the road at the supermarket, and crossing the extremely loud and busy road by foot; and I just wanted a quiet space to relax. I asked for a large flat white coffee. I was treated extremely rudely. The woman said " do you want it in a take-away cup?" I was confused, as I hadn't asked to take the coffee away. I said "I want to drink it here." She repeated her question aggressively, and gave me a look of annoyance, impatience and contempt, almost rolling her eyes. She finally said "our cups are this big" - pointing to cups that were medium- sized. So I realised she probably meant meant that they do not have large sizes in their proper cups. The failure to explain this at the start was very poor communication and the contempt expressed was outright rudeness. I was a bit concerned at this point, about whether I would be charged for a "large" cup, if I choose a proper cup, since I had asked for a large size; but I didn't dare to ask about that, in case I got treated with more impatience, contempt and annoyance. So, I decided to leave. Then I was stared at by the staff member and another staff member as if I was the unreasonable...

Don't bother coming here if you want to experience a nice breakfast. The cafe is so disorganised and dirty. They don't clean up the tables for ages and when they do they do a bad job, not even wiping for new customers. Had to ask the staff to wipe the table for us and when she did she did a very bad job and I just had to wipe it myself with a tissue because there was still old food on it. Placed an order at the counter and 3 mins later the staff already forgot our order and had to come and ask us again what it was🙃 And the food... the muffin on my eggs benedict was burned. It didn't taste too good but I ate it anyways because I couldn't be bothered sending it back (from the look and taste of their other food we ordered I don't think they could have improved it anyways). They also ran out of hash browns, first time I've experienced going to a cafe and they run out of hash browns🙃 On the other hand, food and coffee came out fast which was good.. But it was quite a bad experience for our first time. Staff were pretty friendly too, not rude, but the disorganisation annoyed me. Even though we are locals I'll probably drive somewhere else for a...