Located at Davie and Hornby in downtown Vancouver
Breka Bakery & Café was supposed to be my oasis. I went downtown for an important medical appointment and, as usual, ended up being super early. I thought this would give me time to treat myself to lunch and the place was packed so clearly, it was popular. I thought that was a good sign.
The bakery part of the café was stunning. The treats looked so tempting and divine but I needed sustenance so I ordered a salami and goat cheese sandwich from a very unfriendly server. She automatically put it in the panini press without saying so much as a word to me. I went and paid for my sandwich which was over $7 and picked up an orange San Pellegrino to go with it. I am still sporting a caffeine headache from Starbucks the other day. Decaf my foodie…!!!
I found a place to sit and thought this sign was telling. It kind of summed up the unfriendly atmosphere of the place. Even the patrons seemed to just want to be on their laptops and be left alone.
Here is the worst sandwich in the history of sandwiches of my life. They pressed the hell out of it and turned it to styrofoam. It actually physically hurt to eat and the greens got completely wilted and even blackened inside the sandwich. A panini is an art form and you blew it. You killed it.
Breka Bakery & Café, you failed. You failed with your customer service and your food. I am grateful that I had a place to sit before my appointment but I promise you, I will not be back. I give this experience one out of five wooden spoons.
Ouch, that’s pretty bad. We really like their cakes from the Fraser street location and might have given the downtown location a chance to dine in or takeout based on this, but definitely not anymore!
Oh their baked goods looked amazing, it’s true! My server was so miserable, I just don’t think I can risk spending money there again.
We ate here last Spring and were unimpressed with the pastry and coffee. The servers were hipster aloof, as well. We had better service and food in our hotel coffee shop.
Yes, I hate chewing on cardboard bread that’s been over-pressed too.
It’s horrid, isn’t it? Total foodie blasphemy!
Fraser location is best…..also. next time order the goat cheese quiche with sjndried tomatos and mushroom…that is the best.
Thanks for the heads up Hi-D!
It’s so upsetting to get an unfriendly server. Some of my greatest friends have been servers that I have met at restaurants, and they were so friendly and we ended up as friends. The unfriendly ones don’t know what they are missing out on.
And you know, most of the time service is awesome and people here are friendly which is one of the reasons why I was so shocked at the treatment I received. I do not reward bad behaviour. I wrote the company too and they didn’t write back.
I hope your hospital appointment went well. If you ever have to go back, you should review the cafeteria food there — sounds like it couldn’t be too much worse!
So true! Green Jello would have been better than that panini from hell.
So sorry that it didn’t work out. What a bummer.
i have popped in and out for the sandwiches with the grilled option. nothing melted in any of the ‘grilled’sandwhiesgrilles sandwhices i everr ordered, in multiple visits today, for the first time, i went into breka for an in-store lunch of spicy chicken and bacon panini. i requesedt twice to have my panini grilled twice. when i noticed my orderer say yes to the double grill, there was no note on my order, nor any mention from m order-taker passed on to the the griller-girl as, my order was to be grilled. like toasted, where the bread is brown and crusty, and the cheese and contents are melded together.
thankfully, it cam out double grilled to perfection.\
breka offers wifi. when i was placing my order, i asked if wifi log in was on the bil: in barely intelligible english, i was told something about the banner being on their outdoot banner. is the password.. all that i could surmise from this, was the phone number on the banner. i typed it in, as detailed on banner. no go. it is the number on their banner, without the dadhes. why is this info not on their receipts, sowhy was i not told by this barely-english speaking hostess in the first place? no dashes in the password.
when finally did get logged on, and connected, after 15 minutes, not a single page was loaded onto my break-connected lunch stop.
terrible place for wifi. ok for food.
i will never go back, unless for takeout. this is no place to relax and sit back, do some web surfing, and enjoy a decent food offering.
Wow, even surfing online is a pain in the butt! Thanks for letting me know David.