Jafa Cafe

Went to the café for breakfast with my wife. The service was average. There was no «good morning, how are you?» Or anything of the like. We ordered 2 long blacks to start and the eggs benny and some sides. The long blacks never came and we had to re-​order as there was no record of the original order. I would have imagined they’d put a rush on this, but it took a good ten minutes for the drinks to arrive. In fact we were finished with our food by the time the coffees arrived. The food was wonderful and we left with our bellies feeling satisfied. We’ll give Jafa another go, but there is some room for improvement.

Jafa is our local, we’ve been coming since it opened many years ago, but oh how it’s changed. The menu is still largely the same but the service is just terrible these days. Wait staff are just apathetic, how about checking in on your 5 tables with customers and the kitchen to see why they are still waiting for their food after an hour… Maybe seeing if they need another drink? Perhaps apologizing and trying to fix a problem rather than shrugging shoulders and saying my boss isn’t here. I’m sad to see my favourite spot go to the pack with change of owners. We will be walking a little further now and trying out all the other cafés in grey Lynn instead. Sorry Jafa, let me know when you’ve sorted your service and trained your people properly and we will come back.

Jafa is a bit of a ‘place to be seen’ but I really don’t see why. The food is good — but it’s a shame about the coffee & front of house staff.
After several lower than average experiences in the last few months, we won’t be back in a hurry.
Service is slow and inattentive, and the coffee is slow and unreliable, and the juice we ordered on our most recent visit took more than ten minutes. When we questioned it we were rudely told «we just have one juicer, sometimes they get backed up.» But the café was rather empty and no one else had juice…
One of our meals was wrong even though we’d gone through our order twice. They did quickly correct this.
When I went to pay the barista didn’t even acknowledge me, instead merely rang the bell for someone to come out of the kitchen. When this person finally came they looked at me expectantly, not a friendly greeting in sight. We were overcharged by a few dollars but let this go.
Disappointing every time but our most recent experience was something else. The staff are not friendly and everything seems too difficult for them. If service is this slow and messy when they’re quiet, I hate to think how it is on a busy weekend.
The food is great, it’s a shame that the chefs are let down by such lousy front of house.

It used to be that this place was the Grey Lynn place to go, and yes I realise that by saying things like that I’m showing my age. But it’s true; back in my day Jafa was about as good as cafés got in the area. Since then however they’ve had a change of ownership (and more crucially kitchen staff), and other, more exciting contenders have popped up. It’s a bit unfair really — Jafa has slipped considerably down my mental leaderboard, but actually it’s still pretty good. The food’s still good (although not quite like it used to be), and the coffee is still quality coffee. But there’s more competition now, and Jafa just isn’t the top of the pack it used to be. With nothing else to compare it to this is still an excellent café, but how often do cafés operate in a vacuum?

The fact you can come in and literally warm your hands next to an actual fire makes this the sweetest place to come to on a winter’s morning. I used to come here when I worked as a Gardener and it was like being a peasant let into the king’s castle.
We would get a coffee each, perch up next to the fire and tell each other tales of our battles against oxalis. The glory days.
They actually serve really great food as well, with a wide variety of dishes, as well as classics done really well. Also, they give out free jafas. So one could just buy a coffee and fill up on Jafas.

Jafa has become a bit of a last resort café when I’m in the area. The superlative Kokako is less than a kilometre away, and Monterey’s kitsch ‘50s style is just down the road. What Jafa has that the others don’t have is ample on-​street parking and ample space to park ass in the café itself. I can honestly say I’ve never eaten there, but the coffee is tasty and a huge number of meals fly past in the arms of waitresses, attesting to their popularity. I choose Jafa as a place to have work meetings — it’s quiet enough to hear the people you’re with and you’re almost always guaranteed a table.

I used to live in the house next door to Jafa (before Jafa was Jafa and before said house was renovated and zoned as a business) so I have fond memories of this little corner of West Lynn.
It’s a nice spacey, airy café, with two levels and outside tables too. The menu is varied and the quality of the food and drinks is good. Generally pretty easy to find a park on the street too.
My boyfriend comes solely for the large glass jar of jaffas that sits beside the till on the counter — you can help yourself when you order or pay for your bill :)

Sometimes I will drive across town to Jafa just for their soba noodle salad. I don’t know what it is about that dish but I love it enough to pay at least $ 20 and the price of 3 km of petrol for it. My assistant Maddy drives even further for the haloumi sandwich.
So that is the food covered. The drinks are just as good. I talk about this a lot, but I will repeat it because I love it: you can get a freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice here, and that is a huge plus in my book.
The ambiance is good, there’s on street seating and the cabinet sweets are pretty moreish. The place is on the expensive side for a café but there are free jaffas at the counter which kind of makes up for it.