Babycino's South Yarra, Melbourne

User Reviews of Babycino's, South Yarra

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2.3 Not Recommended

Food 1 Ambience 4 Service 1 Value 3

This place is a shocker. I went there the other day for a kids birthday. We arrived and the place was empty, but awaiting the arrival of another separate kids birthday group.

Another person from our party had been waiting at BabyCinos before we arrived and was shocked at how rude the lady who runs the place was. Apparently they tried to sit at another smaller table and was told off by the owner that they would scare off other people there for sitting too close. Huh? So they sat at the bigger empty table for ages, she saw they were sitting there, and ages later she tells them off because the table was booked. Nice.

Our group of 11 therefore missed out on a proper table and was seated on a row of seats (no table) besides the back cubbyhouse play area. I accept we didn't make a booking so I guess that's what you get - no table.

An hour later the lady who runs BabyCino's came to take our coffee order. I ordered a latte, and my husband a flat white (I won't go into detail with the rest of the party's coffee orders). 25 minutes my latte came back, it was half full and the other half of the cup was filled with foamy white foam. Maybe it could have passed for a half a cappuccino? It tasted awful I'm sorry to say. Husband's flat white came out looking like a latte but also tasted very bad.

The problem is, the place doesn't have a proper coffee machine you would expect at a cafe. It was an automatic. You really need a professional coffee machine (with a good barista) if you are going to make coffee on a commercial level. Anyway....

We ordered our food and an hour later some sandwiches came out. We waited about half an hour more until our french toast came out. Our other party members had their orders completely messed up and the wrong food came out. The food was not nice. The prices were cafe prices, but the food was not cafe standard. $10 for one slice of multigrain bread was what we got for our french toast, topped with can whipped cream and a few mandarins. The cheese toasted sandwiches were made with that plastic tasting cheese. Once again, tasted awful but the kids were happy to eat those at least.

The actual place is great for kids. There are lots of toys and cubby's and places for the kids to play. The toys were a bit dirty and parts of the cafe definately were not kid friendly. Also there was no sink to wash your hands in the one toilet available. A sign said to go to the laundry to wash hands but there was no laundry anywhere close to the toilet so i have no idea what that was about or where this imaginary laundry was.

The *problem* with Babycinos was the lady who ran the place was working there by herself and it was therefore understaffed and in turn we received very poor service. We waited forever (2.5 hrs to get our order), got wrong orders, some food never came out at all (but we were charged for it in the bill). The food and coffee was terrible (I feel terrible saying that because I don't like being so blunt but it was terrible). I do not recommend this place.