La Crepe de France - Downtown — Restaurant in Melbourne

I come here all the time. It's usually one of my favorite places to eat. I always come here for my birthday, which the 20th was my birthday. I ordered something different from my usual crepe because it was my birthday. However, something tasted off to me. I didn't even get one bite down and knew there was no way I could eat it. Now I will tell you everything else I have tried, I love! I didn't think it was a big deal that this time I didn't like it. So I ordered a different one. As soon as the chef seen I sent it back he started giving me horrible looks from the window. Mind you I brought my two kids with me for my special day. When I got the bill I noticed the waitress didn't take off the crepe I could not eat. So I politely asked that she fix my ticket. That was a mistake. I had a woman who I'm assuming was a manager, ask me if I read the menu. I said I had. She said "Well the menu lists all the ingredients, and this is a top seller, It's perfect! So you will pay for it". I told her I was sorry but I didn't even get a bite down and realized it didn't taste good to me. I said it might be perfect to others and I'm sure many people love it, however I am sorry that I did not. Please take it off my bill. She said that It's perfect and everyone loves it and she would take it off this once, but never again. She said "from now on order something you know you like." Then the chef came out and said " Take it off, look at her she obviously needs the money!" I have NEVER been so offended in my entire life! If I needed the money so badly I wouldn't have gone to a place where I wound up paying $24 for the drinks alone! I did nothing to deserve such treatment! I usually come here 4-5 times a month! However, sadly I no longer feel welcome. All due to the fact that the crepe they adamantly told me was perfection, I happened to not enjoy at all! Thank you for ruining my birthday lunch with my two children, and thoroughly embarrassing me in front of the entire restaurant full of people!! I have worked in the restaurant business my whole life and I have never seen anyone treated in such a disrespectful way! Usually if a guest doesn't like something and didn't eat it the food was taken off the bill, no questions asked. Sadly the staff at this establishment likes to embarrass customers instead of giving good service! I must say our waitress was amazing and was quite embarrassed for the way I was treated! That's why I tipped her so well! I will never forget the horrible way I was treated on my birthday thanks to the staff at this restaurant! Future diners be wary when wanting to try anything new as you will suffer the same...

[Somewhat long winded review] One those places you so badly want to love but cannot. If you care more about food than you do service, this place is is great. The food is always very good, along with the drinks. Delicious crepes, thick French toast, and my favorite is the toast with jam and brie cheese. They have great mimosas as well as coffee/lattes and the like. I would easily give 5 stars for the food alone. The atmosphere is a cute little French farmhouse style with lights outside on the patio (dog-friendly patio as well).

I knocked down the stars to give this a bland experience as, for me, the cons outweigh. You can't fully enjoy the quality of the food because you have considerably long wait times that really are not necessary for the amount of people. Only once were we seated within 10 minutes of arriving. They often have a waitlist and I have no issue waiting a long time (sometimes upwards of 45+ minutes) as I have at many other restaurants. However, there are always tables where the patrons have left and they have not been cleaned up for 10+ minutes. Sometimes I even see people seated and they come back saying they need to spray it down. You walk to check your waitlist and 3 tables outside are empty, 4 inside are empty, 2 are waiting to be bussed and somehow you still have a 20 minute wait. They call you when they have a table ready and I have a feeling that they allow you to take your time coming back to the restaurant because I often see "new" people arrive and be seated before us. After FINALLY being seated, most servers immediately come over to your table, bring you drinks and then good luck seeing your server again.

*I do want to say the manager/owner is very kind, he gave us our meal free once because the food came out slightly undercooked, but the rest of the staff just does not seem to have the same level of...

We have eaten at the downtown melbourne location several times and i want it to be known this was the first bad experience we have had there. We were sat outside which was fine as they said that was only table available, we ordered our food and drinks and our server told us several times over about 35 min that she was “checking on our order”. Then a different person,”not the owner as we have met him” came to our table and said that they “lost our ticket somehow” and then proceeded to ask us to order our food again. After we waited over 35 min to be told that food was not only not ready but that they didnt even remember what we in fact ordered the first time so that they could i guess start to make our order, at which point we said we were just going to pay our bill for the drink we ordered and go. The second server then came back and said oh dont worry about it and let us just leave without an apology, any kind of explanation and in a room full of other patrons which was extremely embarrassing and in my opinion unprofessional. I do not take leaving bad reviews lightly and do not usually leave reviews at all or possibly have i ever left one that i can remember. I just feel like the way the situation was handled was very disrepecful and unprofessional and because of that wanted to share my story and hopefully someone else doesnt experience the same thing as my wife and myself did. We try to always patronize our local businesses and for one that we always enjoyed going to treat us that way was not an acceptable way to do business. I left 2 and not because they were always good in the past but this was utterly upsetting and i waited a few hours to write this to make sure it wasnt just from...