Mint Takapuna Cafe & Restaurant

It was a relatively busy morning in the area due to one of the many competitions they hold there on the waterfront. Mint itself wasn’t overly busy with about 6 tables to 1 waitress. I had been meaning to come to here for a while as others had given me good feedback about their visits. The first thing we noticed about the menu was it was very substantial so they pretty much have all the usual basics covered with a couple of added extras as well. Whilst we waited for friends we ordered a juice and a hot chocolate, our friends were just leaving Albany as we ordered, and why do I tell you that? Well they arrived before the drinks! For some reason it took ages and although the café was starting to fill I thought the time was excessive especially as when they arrived it was a coffee instead of hot chocolate! This would become a theme throughout our visit, it wasn’t that the service was bad but the waitress shouldn’t have been alone. She was shortly to be joined by 2 other wait staff.

We ordered our food and we ordered pretty simplistically with a big breakfast, vegetarian breakfast, bacon and eggs and livers and bacon being had.

The food arrived and it was fairly straight forward with no good stand outs although there were several issues. The livers were delicious, the sauce rich and bubble and squeak was very nice however the livers were overcooked. The main problem with food was the bacon was a very cheap product but not as bad as the sausage which was a basic frozen sausage made worse by the fact it was deep fried to death and cut open to make the process even quicker.



Overall there are some management issues regarding staffing but their staff on duty were good to cope with the pressure, we had heard lots of good things about mint but the food was average at best and on this basis we wouldn’t return for dinner.

Very busy Takapuna cafe - coffee was spot on but thought the service at Mint could have been better (as in quicker). Mint Takapuna is a great spot to people watch though - very entertaining scenes indeed!

After seeing a show at the Bruce Mason Centre, we popped into Mint for a sweet treat & coffees.
I had the Passionfruit creme brulee & the others had the Dark Doris plum & apple crumble! So so so good! Perfect end to a good night out in Takapuna.

MINT is consistently good with excellent food and good service. Outside seating also.

Was very disappointed with the service - not only was the attitude really bad but capability was lacking. Will not return - too much competiton in the strip

Had a very nice lunch and coffee here. Good service.

This is our local cafe, we go most Saturdays - unfortunately Mint is not open on a Sunday. It's a warm and welcoming place to visit - the owners of Mint and their staff are really friendly and babies are very welcome (and can be guaranteed to be made a fuss of!). Our baby is always made welcome and the piece of brioche and jam we order for her always comes out immediately (an important piece of info for parents!) so we can relax and enjoy our coffees while we wait for our food to arrive. The coffee is Millers, and is always excellent. One of the best things about Mint is they don't have an endless variety of part-timers working there - the staff are always the same and consequently coffee can be relied on to be great every time. The food menu is small but everything on it is gorgeous and always really fresh. I recommend the marinated chicken pide, and my partner can't go past their perfect scrambled eggs, bacon and toasted pide. There is a small selection of cabinet food which is always excellent.

This is definitely the place to go if you get annoyed with large, loud and unfriendly cafe 'factories' (you know what I mean...) Try it once and you'll definitely want to repeat the experience!

Good coffee and super friendly service at Mint Takapuna Café & Restaurant, but with Pandoro practically next door it's a shame the bread they use for breakfast meals is really average. Great eggs though!