Weekend Cafe Hotspot: A Bite to Eat, Chifley Shops

I have recently moved to Canberra from Melbourne after many years away. And it’s great to find that Canberra now has some cafes which have great food, interesting and fun character and atmosphere and with good service. It’s particularly good, to find a place like this on Canberra’s south side outside of the central city hub.
This cafe is a favourite of mine; it’s often busy, which of course, is due to its popularity, which in turn is due to a whole bunch of good reasons and reflects well on the place. The above criticisms about service do not reflect my experience. I regularly go there (occasionally by myself or family and often with my 5 yr old son) and the vast majority of time the service is fine, the staff are very friendly and generally quick. It has been on the very rare occasion that the service was slow, slow service is inevitable occasionally in almost any cafe due to a whole bunch of reasons.
The food is generally yummy, a great size, interesting and a great variety. A favourite of mine is the luigi (a meat ball based dish in a tomato base) and yes the coffee is fun. However, a limit of the menu is that the meals are generally not kid friendly. My experience is that the kids prefer uncomplicated (or reasonably plain) food and often I end up picking chips for my son.

Samara Gentle said :

pptvb said :

Only heard positive things??????
Read ANY reviews online, there are more negative than positive.
Look at Tripadvisor.

I’ve been there twice…. never again.
The service is…. well.. SO poor, it is funny.
Food is good, but not special & not cheap.

I’m not a huge fan of online reviews as most people will only go to the effort to write a review online if it’s bad. For places to eat locally I’d pick recommendations from friends over online reviews every time 🙂

I was listening to Ross Greenwood’s business show on 2GB a while back and a cafe owner phoned saying a competitor was paying people to post negative reviews of his establishment online and the websites refused to take those reviews down even after being told the reviews were vexatious. This led to several calls from business owners saying much the same. Others complained that Google was listing bad reviews at the top of their search results and that Facebook was refusing to delete defamatory comments about businesses and the staff who work there. I would take any online reviews about any business establishment with a large grain of salt.

Tripadvisor reviews were enough for Mt Stromlo to sack the cafe there!

pptvb said :

Only heard positive things??????
Read ANY reviews online, there are more negative than positive.
Look at Tripadvisor.

I’ve been there twice…. never again.
The service is…. well.. SO poor, it is funny.
Food is good, but not special & not cheap.

I’m not a huge fan of online reviews as most people will only go to the effort to write a review online if it’s bad. For places to eat locally I’d pick recommendations from friends over online reviews every time 🙂

Only heard positive things??????
Read ANY reviews online, there are more negative than positive.
Look at Tripadvisor.

I’ve been there twice…. never again.
The service is…. well.. SO poor, it is funny.
Food is good, but not special & not cheap.

I used to go here a lot, mainly for breakfast and lunch, but I’ve stopped recently because the service is always so poor. The waitresses are often rude, they take ages to come and take your order, they don’t follow up for a second or third drinks order and don’t even think about asking to split the bill when you’re paying. I wish it was better because the location is great, as is the vibe within the cafe and it could easily be awesome. I disagree about the menu though – I think it’s too fussy and there aren’t enough options for those who are say GF or lactose intolerant or even small plates suitable for kids. With a little bit of tweaking, it could be so much better.

Well there are some chips in cups, which make cause problems. Service is always like that, but a lot of the time is very slow. Don’t go there if you are in a hurry. Food is always interesting. Cakes are good, coffee is good. I wonder about the tomato sauce bottles on the tables all the time. Hopefully there is so much preservative in them that they don’t get fungus growing. Read labels carefully as it says “keep refrigerated after opening” but not at this cafe. A funky place, everyone talks loudly because of the background noise.