Hobba

This place is delicious! I had the pulled pork eggs benedict with a side of hash brown.
The pork was tender and pulled to perfection, and the hash brown was crunchy and had a sight bit of chilli to it YUM

Sadly the poor, unfriendly service really overshadowed the food. We visited for an early breaky on Sunday. While it’s a great space with lots of room and the options of booths, the waitresses that morning didn’t seem to want to be there and that became apparent in their service. The breaky menu isn’t huge but I can highly recommend the hot cakes which were amazing. With so many other alternatives offering the same fare, I won’t be going back.

I had the slow poached eggs on toast and it was exactly that. Good atmosphere, casually dressed staff. It feels like a coffee place in disguise as a restaurant, but that also serves restaurant meals.

Found this place on Unilocal as closest to our holiday apartment in Melbourne. Good food was ruined by poor, apathetic service, which was a shame because the venue has a nice vibe otherwise

Ordinary to annoying experience here. Table attendant was too cool for school and couldn’t even deign to say «excuse me» when leaning over to remove plates (while others were eating). Not a friendly happy vibe here. Also had to wait longer than acceptable for food. Had the pulled pork sanger which was yummy. Other food ratings were pretty good amongst the party. But bored /​boring service, not cheap and couldn’t give a !@#$ attitude meant won’t be visiting again.

Great food. Had the alpha which is a great filling breakfast, though another egg or 2 is definitely required for me.
Southern style slow cooked pulled pork served with fried egg, fresh alfalfa, apple salad & pear cider reduction hollandaise… its a delicious as it sounds and definitely has made me add slow cooked meats to breakfast when at home.
Coffee is great too.
Issue i have with the place is the lines and how busy it gets, and the poor management of it. First time I went I couldn’t tell where I had to wait and who to ask. Definitely going again for the food but if there’s a line I won’t stay, as a half hour wait for a table is a bit much for breakfast.

The interior design of Melbourne’s cafes are some of the most unique to be found but there are a few styles that are dominant. Hobba takes on the large open converted warehouse style and makes it fun and inviting for all.
Doubling as a private function space, the front entrance of Hobba opens up into a large open space with exposed brickwork and wooden beams. A selection of funky artwork prints hanging on the walls and hanging basket plants add some colour to the vibrant space. Seating comprises a mixture of individual tables, booths and communal benches. There is also seating outside.
The food menu covers breakfast and lunch with some creative takes on typical Melbourne café dishes. Standouts include the Bubble and Squeak Rosti, rosti topped with brown butter hollandaise, roasted tomatoes, fried egg and cured bacon on sourdough, and the Hobba Hotcakes, served with seasonal berries, whipped mascarpone, honeycomb, vanilla bean and house-​made maple syrup.
On this visit I ordered The Española — a Spanish omelette with chorizo, sun-​dried tomatoes, caramelised onions, kale, Sriracha hot sauce and feta, topped with zucchini ribbon and a herb garnish salad. What a mouthful. Both in the verbal sense and the resulting dish. Served in the cast iron skillet it was undoubtedly cooked in, the omelette was the perfect texture, ever so slightly juicy and full of flavour. The hot sauce seemed a little absent and more of it would have made this a stunning dish. A small downside of served in the skillet was that it took some time for the dish to cool down to an edible temperature.
Coffee was on point with a range of blends and single origin coffees from Five Senses available for both espresso and filter. Draught and bottled beer and wine are also available.
Service at times was a little slow but the café was fully packed at the time so understandable. Somehow my visit lasted for nearly two hours, though I probably lost track of time whilst writing other reviews.
Hobba fills a void in the side roads away from the Chapel Street but manages to bring a bustling atmosphere.

I love me a good brunch & this place definitely delivered the goods! Great warehouse dining spot with plenty of art & craft to catch your eye.
coffee was perfect, the must-​have accompaniment to the delightfully presented & flavorsome brunch dishes! extensive menu choices for both the savory & sweet tooth. the Bircher museli with organic yoghurt & Apple was absolutely beautiful. dr Marty’s crumpets covered in macadamia butter & fresh strawberries hit the sweet spot!
a very delightful dining experience !!

I likey hobba. I love the fact that it’s in an old mechanics, giving it that lovely industrial feel amongst the inner city madness.
Every time I’m here, I seem to get a table pretty quickly which is excellent and the food is consistently delicious.
I’ve been here as a group of 10 and they have been fabulous, not pushing us out the door as soon as we are finished.
On weekends of public holidays, they can run out of certain menu items, so get in.
Two thumbs up from this girl.

This place is big and sure has a coolness factor to it. We went on a Sat afternoon. My Long mac was okay. My hotcakes were pretty tasty (hey, mind out of the gutter please!). My kids got hot choc which they loved, porridge (huge for a kid) and toast with egg. My partner got the special, snitz with beer battered chip and spicy slaw. My guess it was pretty average.
People have complained about the service. It wasn’t anything special for sure, but we were looked after.

One lazy Saturday, I met a hipster mate at Hobba for brunch.
Fab location, service, ambiance and bunch to boot, so we were both happy.
The best thing about this place is the SPACE — visualise lots of exposed brick, industrial fittings and hipsters strolling about. I may have been one of them.
I had the smashed avocado with mint, feta, thyme mushrooms and bacon with a soy latte — he had the Bubble and Squeak which was apparently amazing as well — but he is British #Idigress
I’m definately going back for the lunch menu — sounds awesome. And it is far enough away from Chapel Street to not have over tanned South Yarra Coco Channel ladies shrieking in there #ftw

Very funky and comfortable atmosphere. Delicious food that’s just a bit cooler than normal café food. Gets busy, though, so don’t be surprised if you have to wait a few minutes for a table!

Much like a splay of Halloween candy lied out on the table,
Hobba has a lot of differing reviews, a mixed bag if you will. I did not encounter
problems with service or staff; it was what it needed to be without being too mollycoddling or indifferent. Granted though it was a weekday, and not one of those hellish weekends where seemingly unending streams of customers await in line, including the people who have decided to come in massive groups.
Secondly, I admit rather openly to having stolen an entire booth seating for myself,
when most likely I didn’t need one. It also happened to be quite a nice day.
The layout is what it is; a large open warehouse/​barnyard type thing. This was a
particular flavour of the month in Melbourne several years ago, with many iterations
of the same style copied throughout the suburbs. Pretty impressive menu, I was in
mind of three breakfast options, but the special on the day took the cake.
Pine mushrooms, asparagus and goats curd with hazelnut on toast.
Not the biggest serving, but damm tasty.

Why am I waiting? This place does little to please me.
My last five experiences have been totally blah. I keep wanting to love Hobba but they’re not quite cutting it.
Coffee quality has gone downhill in last six months. Service is poo and the staff look terribly unhappy.
Love what they’re trying to do but it’s just another café really. The food is consistently unappealingly bland and I had a terrible Bircher experience too (hair & dirt inside it — even my replacement Bircher had more hair & dirt). Maybe they mistook the Bircher tub for the dustbin.
Worth giving it a try but maybe it’s just me?
x

I eat here for breakfast and lunch on a regular basis. The food is fantastic, the menu changes seasonally ensuring the freshest produce is used. The staff are friendly and always put water out for my dog. I have not yet tried the dinner menu but plan to soon.

I’ve spent many hours at Hobba and I think it was time well spent. Visiting Melb on 2 occasions recently, I’ve had brunch as well as sat at the big table around the tree in the back, ordering excellent muffins, then the small but top notch pork sandwich. The coffee has always been spot on. The service, though not the fastest, has always been extremely friendly and helpful.
It’s not nearly as good as 3 bags full, but doesn’t have the lines either. You may not sit down right away unless you get there early, but it’s still a nice place with good food.

Friendly staff.
Service was a bit slow, especially getting a coffee on a busy Saturday.
Coffee is well made.
Breakfast menu is available till 3pm — yay!
French toast is amazing — presentation was immaculate.
Hobba breakfast was also good and was great for a post night out hangover.
The pricing was reasonable for the area and there was a minimal wait to get a table.
I’d go back here again.

I’ve been wanting to try this place for ages, as every time we drive past it, it looks packed.
So we did. Ugh. The service is pretty craptastic. The food is good though.
We were told it was busy, but there were outside tables. It was a hot day so we thought to sit down. Took 15 minutes to order a coffee and then when we asked 20 minutes later can we order food, they said «they can’t yet because they’re too busy». What the actual hell? Why not tell us instead of just leaving us sit there?
We had finished our coffees so decided to leave and go somewhere else, because it was too hot to sit outside, but they found us a stool inside and let us order.
Forty minutes later, our Bircher muesli and eggs came. Forty minutes! Like they had to wait for the egg to be laid, grew the wheat, rolled the oats and planted an apple tree out the back.
It tasted good, but it was tainted with the disappointment of having to wait for so long.
Won’t be going back unless they sort out some more chefs,

Surprised to see some of the unfortunate experiences written about Hobba. We’ve been plenty of times and have always had friendly service, fresh and flavorful food, and super smooth coffee.
Four stars from me, particularly for this little number: 62.5c egg, poached salmon, zucchini, goats curd, pickled celery, apple. So good every time, and the egg. The egg! It’s yolk porn to an extreme degree.
Sure, it has the telltale whitewashed fitout and avo smash on toast, like most of its contemporaries around town. But Hobba does it well, and if you arrive on the early side of brunch, getting a table isn’t a problem.

I don’t know if that name is supposed to entice me but it sure doesn’t. Hobba sounds like the noise you might make if you’ve eaten their food. Okay, that comment was below the belt, but I’m sick of cafes assuming huge crowds when they’re not even good. Put some wooden slats across the floor and walls, shove the place into an old garage, and hey presto you can forget about the primary purpose of a café: to serve food.
Firstly, the owner/​manager does not treat staff well. I don’t like that. I think it makes for an unpleasant atmosphere. Secondly, there are always lines — boring. Thirdly, the food is so bland. Fourthly, and there shouldn’t have to be a fourthly, the coffee is really inconsistent. Do yourself a favour and skip this place.