There are heaps of trendy places for breakfast in Collingwood (check out Gluttony It’s a Sin, Proud Mary and Cibi)…and Mezina isn’t one of them.
It looks trendy on the outside – it’s housed inside the ground floor of the refurbished Collingwood post office with a touch of a Middle Eastern vibe in the decor and with high benches facing the passing parade of Smith Street. But really it’s a bog-standard cafeteria with pretensions of coolness.
On the day I visited the vast space was practically empty and the staff seemed to care more about chatting to themselves than serving customers. In the whole time I was there, dirty plates with congealed egg sat uncleared at the next table – gross.
It does have one thing going for it. If you want to start the day with a no-fuss and filling breakfast, Mezina’s breakfast bowl is the way to go. Check out the overflowing heap of oat, seed and dried fruit muesli, honey-tinged yoghurt and cinnamon poached fruit or fresh fruit salad for the bargain price of $7.50.
The rest of the breakfast menu is your standard litany of eggs and toast and is pretty uninspiring. Personally I won’t be returning to Mezina unless I run out of muesli at home.
- Mezina Cafe, 176 Smith St, Collingwood +61 3 8415 0955
That’s a bit surprising. The place is usually packed for the M-F lunch crowd and do a good lunch.
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Twitter: neil_melbourne
| April 2, 2010, 1:06 pm
Hi Neil
What is on their lunch menu which is good? I admit that I tend not to be around during the week but in the mornings and weekends when I tend to pass it it always looks a bit empty…
Jetsetting Joyce
I guess I’m looking at it from a different perspective. I work in the area and the general consensus at my work is to find a lunch that is good, somewhat quick, filling and not too expensive. I usually get a sandwich (Chicken Focacia or whatever is there), salads are good, homemade sausage roll, lasagna.
In contrast, I went to Proud Mary’s yesterday for lunch (a favourite for reviewers) and found it disappointing. Not much of lunch selection (plain sandwiches) and the coffees are ~$1 more than good places on Smith St. A lunch for 2 consisting of 1 coke, coffee, sandwich and baked eggs was $32. A similar and more filling lunch could be had at Mezina or similar for ~$22+.
Just sticking up for the white collar office workers in the area.
Twitter: neil_melbourne
| April 9, 2010, 11:10 am
My thoughts exactly. Eggs are bland and staff are so rarely bothered by paying customers they’ve forgotten how to serve.
Twitter: indolentdandy
| April 6, 2010, 12:13 pm
Hi Fitzroyalty
Agree – which begs the question about how they’re surviving? Maybe on the muesli?
Jetsetting Joyce
Yeah, this place has always looked so horribly generic to me — a waste of such great real estate. I’m always surprised that these yawnerific foccacia joints survive in the area when there’s so much other original, interesting, cheap and amazing food available nearby.
Twitter: rbbrown
| April 7, 2010, 12:43 am
Hi Ruth
Bingo! Such potential with some a great historic location and so I was surprised to discover that they served such meh food. Speaking of bizarre uses of great real estate, have you seen the couch showroom which seems to have taken residence on Smith St called ‘Wild Cherry’ (!). There must be some sort of rent control thing going on in Smith Street, because it’s a massive floorspace in a prime location.
Jetsetting Joyce
Although I don’t agree about the bad service the reason could be that these guys pay way below minimum wage .The owner has serious anger managment issues and takes his temper out on the staff, his wife (sometime cafe worker) is bitchy and demeaning. This does not make for a happy working enviroment.