Babka — Restaurant in City of Edinburgh

I really want to like this place as it's just around the corner and the bagels and cakes are good and affordable. Plus there is nothing in the vicinity that offers a good quick takeaway or sit in lunch.

However I found the level of customer Service to be poor on a few consecutive visits. Each time a similar pattern occurred. Upon entering no one was in the front of house, instead 2 people were in the kitchen taking no notice of who might be coming in and wanting served. Granted it was quite empty but it was 2pm so still lunch traffic etc. After waiting a minute or so I had to call out until someone finally served me. I ordered but before I could say what drink and cake I wanted alongside my bagel the guy disappeared back into the kitchen to make it. More people came in and a queue formed but no chance of the 2nd member of staff coming out to take orders of course. The guy was very short with me without me having done anything to be difficult apart from show up and want a bagel and a coffee! This general hostile atmosphere is something I have felt on a few occasions. (The owner seems lovely btw just not the whole team).

Aside from this the coffee was a little bitter, the general decor a bit shabby and dated. Getting rid of the mass of posters, a lick of paint and layout change would make it way more tempting to sit in.

These faults are frustrating as the actual bagels and cakes are great. I could easily forgive the decor on its own but paired with poor customer care mean thinking twice about...

My partner and I wanted to have a bagel, and we decided not to go to our favourite bagel place (which is very close) and try something new. The exploration/exploitation dilemma, you know? So we see Babka has 4.9 stars on Google, and we're thinking great, let's go there. So began the weirdest breakfast I've had. We sit inside and there is only a guy at the cash register, and 5 minutes later another person (co-owner?) comes with a nice older lady and points out we can sit outside if we want, and sets some metal chairs and tables. We moved outside and ordered 2 bagels with cream cheese and jam, and they gave us the bagels untoasted, which is okay, but slightly unusual to serve bagels untoasted, or to not even ask the customer how they prefer them. So far so good, like a 3/5. But the cherry on top occurred when I went to pay. I accidentally knocked a dog bowl full of water with my foot, and spilled a small amount of water on the floor. At which point the nice older lady gets some kitchen paper from behind the counter and tries to absorb the water on the floor and the guy at the cashier yells "NO DON'T!". The lady ignores him and continues to absorb the water and he has a proper meltdown and starts yelling at her. So I awkwardly said "Okay, I am really sorry, thank you" and left. The coffee was okay. The untoasted bagels average. The secondhand...

I’ve been prevaricating about whether to post this, but about a year back I went in daily for gluten free flapjacks. For about a month, I got progressively more ill and couldn’t figure out what it was. I cleaned my kitchen several times over and threw out a lot of my pantry items. It turns out that the flapjacks had not been gluten free - Babka had been making them with regular flour. It’s really irresponsible to mislabel your food stuffs, especially where allergens/ autoimmune disorders are concerned. I’ve not stepped foot in this bakery since.

Edited to add (because I can't figure out how to respond to the business/ am unable to do so): After a month of buying mislabeled flapjacks, the older woman responsible for making them told me that she had been using regular flour. She had updated the recipe, but not the signage. It was absolutely the flapjacks because as soon as I cut them out of my diet, my health improved drastically. This directly contravenes the UK's food safety rules. Again, wildly irresponsible and this has been posted to warn off potential patrons with food allergies or...