Lil Kitch - Melbourne

I don't know why I've not reviewed this place as I'm there at least once a week. I've literally been to every place on Puckle street multiple times. Non come close. Coffee in Melbourne is such a personal thing but for me it's consistently very good. The food is pretty standard in its offerings. There's a great mix of mains and focaccia too. The breakfast items are all good quality and never disappoint. Staff are friendly and always accomodating. Great place

I've been here many times and I've been satisfied. But I had a recent bad experience. I ordered a chargrilled sausage as an extra to my meal. It came to me as not chargrilled, but just a heated up (microwave?) sausage. I know what chargrilled is supposed to look like... and it wasn't such a thing. Told waitress and she came back to say it had been in the oven. Well.. that's NOT chargrilled. When I went to cashier to pay, the cashier charged me the $4 price as an extra. But I didn't get what was promised.. I didn't get chargrilled! A senior worker overheard us and he told the cashier to take off $4. If the senior worker didn't overhear us, then I would've had to pay $4 for a sausage that wasn't chargrilled.

Great service . Meals were reasonably quick. I had a steak sandwich and I can honestly say that it was the best steak sandwich I have had. The meat was tender and other filling was fresh. My daughter had the chicken burger but said that there was too much aoli on the burger. So I suppose if you are not an aoli lover then you could ask for it to be omitted from your meal. Staff were obliging and paying for the meal was quick and efficient. Prices were quite reasonable too.

I have always liked this place. The staff are mostly friendly and it feels very much like a family. I feel the food has slightly gone down hill, but still tastes amazing. You just don't get as much as what you use to for the price. The only time I have had bad customer experience was an extremely busy day where it was hard to grab a waitress.

I have always considered myself to be a very respectful, polite and friendly person and I am genuinely this way in my professional life as well as my personal life and that includes each time when I go to visit restaurants. I have been a very regular and loyal customer of Li'l Kitchen. I have always enjoyed my dining experiences there and look forward to getting my lunch and relaxing in this restaurant. One of the waitresses there who happened to be the owner's niece is a fantastic person and so are their waiters. It seems to be a family-owned business. However, yesterday was one of my most disappointing and disheartening experience in my entire life dining in a restaurant and this happened to be at Li'l Kitchen. Yesterday at Li'l Kitchen, I was served by this female waitress who looked very grumpy and despite how friendly I was to her, she only returned my polite approach with two fake smiles. I felt like she was looking down on me and I am not sure what the reason was. It felt as if I wasn't looking posh enough. Despite that, I kept on being polite and ordered my lunch. Halfway through the meal, I told her that the salad that was served didn't seem as fresh as other times. She was professional enough to get me another serve. I give her credit for her professionalism with what she did. However, towards the end of the meal when I wanted to take away some food and two separate sauces which are the aioli and sweet chili sauces, as she had to return to the counter to pack them for me again since I've forgotten to mention when she packed my main meal, it appeared to me that she was frustrated because it was more work for her. She rudely said to me with a horrible attitude on her face, "You want to pack both of them??" And to that I said, "Yes, please, thank you," with a smile and same politeness. To my surprise when she returned, she clumped both the aioli and sweet chilli sauce into a single plastic sauce box and placed it on my table with an attitude and walked away. The sauces in the box looked inedible and it was a disgusting swirl of mush. By that time, I felt my body shaking with anger and I tried to keep my cool. I caught her attention and she came back and I asked her, "Why did you mix the sauces?" And she said, "Oh, that's just the way we do it here." And then I said, "No, this has never been the case. Every single time when I pack your sauces here, your waiters and waitress always give them to me in separate boxes." With not even a single word of apology till this point, she says to me again, "Oh, that's just the way we do it here." So I asked to speak to the Manager who I think also happens to be the Owner. That waitress with the huge attitude problem went to speak to the owner and she came back stomping into the kitchen and got two different new sauces in separate boxes, left it on my table without making eye contact with me and walked off. I was very angry and upset. I didn't know why the owner did not attend to me even though I asked to speak to him. Then I personally stood up, got hold of the attention of the waiter to ask for the owner. The owner came. I said to the owner, "You know, I never had any problems ever before coming to your restaurant and all your waiters and your wonderful niece who usually serve me have been very nice to me. However, today the waitress who served me did not look like she wanted to do the work and she was rude. She actually mixed two sauces together in a box and said that's the way we do it in this restaurant." The owner then says to me, "Oh, that is because if we give too many boxes away, then it ends up having that I have to pay more for the boxes and I can't get my customers to pay them. By the way, the waitress who served you today is my daughter." At this point, despite me telling the owner that his so-happened daughter who was the waitress who served me today got me very upset and angry, as much as there was not even One one word of apology from her, neither did the owner acknowledge his daughter's spoilt, rude, inappropriate and arrogant behaviour and there was also no apology even on her behalf for the acknowledgement of her rudeness. To add to my confusion as to what I have done to deserve such treatment, I thought to myself that maybe it is because she was having a bad day. However, in the middle of having my meal, came another very posh and wealthy looking lady customer seated next to my table whom the rude waitress seemed to have treated her with a lot more friendliness than with me. I left the restaurant feeling terrible and spoke to few colleagues and friends asking them what they would have thought to be the reason why the owner's daughter behaved that way. Two persons put it down to racism. Another friend put it down to the fact that maybe I look poor (which doesn't make sense because I was wearing decent and neat attire for work). Most came to the conclusion that it was because she thinks she is the owner's daughter and she can do just about anything to get away with murder. My confidants encouraged me to write a review as a way to empower myself. I was very hesitant for the most part because every single person in Li'l Kitchen has been very nice to me especially the owner's niece. However, the owner's daughter, because of her, I have to say, has forever tainted and robbed my experience and desire to ever want to go back there again. A friend said, if the owner is a sharp businessman, he would discipline his daughter because I wouldn't be the first person and the last person to suffer his daughter's ill treatment. However, in a twisted sense, if she did treat me because of racial or wealth discrimination, I really want to thank her for the experience. This is because this lesson has taught me regardless of how you look, what you wear or what your ethnic background is, everyone deserves to be treated with equal respect. Some of us do find it hard to practice this genuinely from our hearts but having experienced this today, my treatment of others will go beyond social mores and conventions and political correctness to understanding the deserving right of every human being to be treated with respect because everyone is valuable. This from now onwards is a learned wisdom that I will carry out for the rest of my life. To the owner of the restaurant: "I hope your daughter doesn't bring your business down and there is hope for her to be a better person."