Jafa is not the same as it was before – happy, homely and friendly atmosphere….I believe there was a drastic change in ownership/management?

Food was lukewarm, coffees were ok and pies are not home-made anymore and still charging $7.50?

Shame to see an award winning cafe drop so much in rating in such a short time.

Mother’s Day lunch and very disappointing. We first of all waited a long time and I eventually asked for some menus. The three female wait staff who were standing around chatting exchanged looks between themselves which made me feel very uncomfortable. We then waited a very long time for our food and people who came in some time after us were served first. When I mentioned this to one of the waiters he was very argumentative and challenged me on this. Obviously not happy in his job and lacking the necessary training and customer skills to handle the situation

When we paid our bill the people behind the counter were laughing about us and pointing out to each other that we were the people at table 20 who had dared to remind them that they were waiting too long for their food.

On the way out we overheard a conversation between another patron and a waiter. The patron asked the waiter how he was and he replied ” I’ll be better when I leave this place.”

Although other reviews have hammered the food, our food was very nice, so it is a shame that there is obviously a problem with staff.

Management needs to know that word of mouth, good or bad, is the most effective advertising and the attitude of their staff needs to be addressed very quickly, or they will find their custom dwindling. It takes a very long time to build up a reputation and only a moment to destroy it.
Such a shame.

This used to be my fav cafe in Auckland.
D’d cross town to wait an hour for the food to arrive cos it was fabulous in every way & the people there were great…
But this has changed.
About 3 months ago I took a very good friend for a mid-week breakfast, we were celebrating & it was a special occasion. i’d been talking the place up.
We got there & change was immediately apparent.
Greeting & service was luke warm at best, seemed we were an inconvenience even, coming in to order breakfast & enjoy a coffee & all. The atmosphere was tense & the easy cool vibe i knew there was noticeably absent.
Not to worry i thought, the food will save the day…
except the menu came out & all the good stuff was gone. In its place, basically the same cafe menu you’d find in 90% of cafe’s round the country. I mean ok, the menu established by the previous owners was outstanding. Change of ownership I understand, but I thought they’d continued on in a fashion, but by this point change had very much happened.
So we ordered the eggs benedict. What the hell.
It took ages, & we were one of about 1/2 a dozen people in the place, & we were basically ignored.
when it came out: a bought english muffin, no spread, an over poached egg, plastic tasting cold hollandaise, no garnish, no salad, no nothing.
My friend was disappointed, I was gutted.
I raised my hands as if to say, whats going on?? The smug looking waitress informed that the new owners were making changes & that included the menu. Looking round, i suspected that included cooking in general, as what looked like limp sandwiches & bought baking was the only other choice available to us.
i dont know how much an english muffin costs, but all told i was left scratching my head a bit when i left nearly $60 later, having had only 2 eggs benedicts & 2 or 3 coffees each. grey lynn prices for b-grade grub.
In the 3 months since then, at least 5 or 6 people I know have had similarly disappointing experiences at jafa. It’s actually become something of a talking point. I think what it boils down to thought is that in contrast to having once been so damn good, it has no become simply another average performer in landscape already over-saturated by average performing cafes.
I mean, the coffee was ok, the food edible, not that i’ll be eating there again.
One thing i can say for sure: the magic has gone from Jafa.

Food was OK, asked for my ham croissant heated came out completely squashed. My friend had the bacon and blue cheese sandwich and really enjoyed it as did my other friend who had a savoury muffin.

This eatery was recommended highly for breakfast.
So my partner and I chose this place over the holidays to enjoy breakfast minus the teenagers.
My scrambled eggs with a hash cake on the side was served tepid. Areas of the eggs was still raw and jelly like, I ate maybe a third of it. The toast was like concrete and obviously pre-toasted and left sitting around for quite some time. Hash cake was a small circle of mashed potato with cumin seeds at I think $4. No garnish in site. Husbands Eggs and toast with bacon was a rather small serving and much the same. Coffee very average. The place was not busy, the service was ok.
For all the wonderful breakfast places we have in our area we will definitely not be going back here.

I used to visit this place quite regularly as it was an excellent reliable cafe under previous ownership. However I visited again this week with a friend for coffee and cake and was disappointed at the service. On entering the cafe, a woman staff member stopped us inside the door and told us to take a seat. I told her i wanted to look at the cabinet food/cake, but she said “no sit down there isn’t any”. She said someone would come and serve us shortly. So we duly sat down at an outdoor table. And waited, and waited and waited. About 10 to 15 minutes later a waitress came to us, handed us menus and went to walk away. I asked her if we could order coffee, and she took our coffee order. I would have thought people who had arrived at a cafe and had been seated might like coffee first up? The coffee arrived and it was great coffee. My friend ordered the salami sandwich. About half an hour later a waitress finally re appeared to take our cups and upon enquiring where the sandwich was went back inside. About another 5-10 mins later the sandwich finally arrived. It wasn’t toasted, and nothing was cooked so why it took about 40 minutes is beyond me. Another coffee by this time was desired, so i finally flagged down our disinterested waitress. The service here has taken an appalling dive, on a day where there weren’t an abundance of customers the wait for both service and the sandwich were painfully slow. I was happy to order from the counter (which would have been ten times quicker) but the waitress wasn’t having a bar of it and insisted we would be served at the table. Seriously if you insist that, then serve your customers! Disappointing their cabinet food hadn’t arrived for sale that day but i guess on the 3rd January you can’t expect everything. Serving customers is a super important part of the business. And here its severely lacking. Maybe it was just the day we were here the staff were in holiday mode and not too keen on working, who knows, but i’m not racing back there to find out if this is just a glitch or the way things are at Jafa now. There are too many other good cafes out there in competition that I can go to

One of my top places to go for breakfast or lunch. The menu gives you options as to what one needs. I frequently visit this place, and always, great food. The coffee is great, the portions are generous. One can not notice the effort that goes into presentation and cooking the food to perfection. The staff are attentive and efficient. Great atmosphere.

Great food, Ive been coming here since I moved to the area – have never ever been let down with the meals. The only gripe is that its a large place and sometimes you can really wait a bit too long on a Saturday.
Great service, great coffee and theres always a paper to read whilst you wait.
My favourite meals are the feta & cumin potato cakes with hollandaise or the stick black rice with fruit salad. Both amazing!

Brilliant service. Amazing food and coffee. Great atmosphere. Ideal for inner city weekend brunches off the Ponsonby strip. AWESOME.

Have eaten at Jaffa at least 10 times in the past year – recommend the Espresso milk shake – it’s to die for.

Fun, close by and my girlfriends love it as a “Pearl” the fashion shop is just next door

It looks small from the outside, but it’s a nice roomy place with a small outdoor deck area and I do mean SMALL! Inside the cafe is really nicely decorated and clean with art decorating the walls and a large slap table in a lower section.

The breakfast was great, all very nice. The bacon incredibly so. Coffee was good, but we had to remind the waiter that we had ordered coffee – although in their defence, they gave our drinks for free. Eggs were perfectly well done and the plate nicely presented.

Staff very friendly and its a busy and vibrant place. Highly recommended.