"Ridiculous": Trendy cafe charges $7 for Vegemite toast
A trendy café in Newcastle, NSW, is copping criticism from all angles for charging patrons $7 for a ‘vegemite on toast’ dish where the spread isn’t even on the bread.
The toast in question is served at Core Espresso cafe. Rather than having the butter and vegemite spread directly on your toast, the chefs at Core dish this brekkie treat up on a wooden board, with a butter quenelle next to a vegemite smear.
News.com.au reports Newcastle local Huon Oliver ordered the dish on Monday morning, and quickly posted a photo on Instagram highlighting his amazement.
“Gourmet vegemite on toast. This is just ridiculous!” he captioned the photo. “Tasty but ridiculous.”
Popular Instagram account Brown Cardigan has since reposted the picture, sharing it with 348,000 followers. And more than 2,200 people have commented with some seeing the fun in the dish, but others writing in full-blown outrage.
“This is not on. This upsets me,” one person commented. “Seriously??? Hahahaha by the time it gets to your table the toast will be cold ... dry veg toast,” wrote one.
“The toast would be well cold by then, the butter wouldn’t melt. What a s**tfight,” another person said.
Core Espresso’s manager Emma Reid spoke to News.com.au, explaining the method behind the madness of serving Vegemite toast in this manner.
“Even though they’re only ordering Vegemite on toast, we want our customers to know a little bit of care is being put into the dish. It’s nice to put a nice quenelle on the plate,” she said.
Reid also saw the fun in the online outrage, and added she was happy to take any feedback onboard.
“We all got a good laugh out of it. We’re in the business of making people smile and serving good coffee and we thought the comments were hilarious,” she said.
“If the consensus is that butter needs to be on the toast as soon as it hits the table, we’re happy to change the dish.
“We’re all about pleasing our customers so we are happy to make adjustments.”
What do you think? Is $7 too much to pay for Vegemite toast?
Image credit: Instagram / Huon Oliver