Opinion: Why I regret joining the freakshake queue
I SHOULD have just stayed home with my usual cuppa tea.
I WANT my Saturday night back.
My friend and I had decided to try out that new crazy dessert place on King William Road. My oh my, I should have just stayed home with my usual cuppa tea, hot water bottle and a takeaway pizza.
We arrived at 50sixone at 6.30pm, faced with a line-up. There were about a dozen people waiting already and after a ‘do we, or don’t we’ debate, we joined the queue for what we thought would be an out-of-this world treat. We read the menus in the dark with our torch phones in hope that once we were seated we could order right away and not have to wait much more.
We waited in the line for 20 minutes, opting to sit outside in the cold rather than wait longer for a table indoors.
We ordered two desserts — a brioche ice cream sandwich and a waffle — and their infamous “OMG! SNAP. THAT!” milkshake: a bubblegum flavoured shake topped with lollies, rainbow sour strips, cream and two giant lollipops.
We were told that the brioche and milkshake would take about 40 minutes to prepare while the waffle would be ready sooner. We were happy to wait — we were so excited to try what this place had to offer.
We were asked if we wanted a drink while we waited, so my friend chose the pumpkin spiced latte only for the waiter to return a few minutes later to tell us that they didn’t have the ingredients for it.
He also forgot to mention that they had ran out of our chosen flavour of ice cream for the brioche — cookies and cream — so we had pick something else.
After 40 minutes, I politely asked the waiter how much longer we’d have to wait. He returned about 10 minutes later to say that they’d be “15 minutes max”.
We watched countless number of people leave the line-up which had heavily increased in size since our arrival. A good two hours later, our brioche and milkshake finally arrived. But we were missing our waffle. It was “just being put together now”, we were told, even though it was meant to be the quickest thing to prepare.
The verdict? Underwhelming. The “Stop Drop ‘n Brioche” consisted of slider buns with a scoop of ice cream in the middle, which in my mind does not take 40 minutes to prepare. The waffles were average and to be honest, I have had better at another dessert bar just two minutes down King William Road. Finally, the oh so famous milkshake. Don’t get me wrong. Their milkshakes are impressive looking and attract “oohs and ahhs” from everyone when they are set down on the table. But the so-called bubblegum flavoured milkshake tasted (almost exactly?!) like strawberry Nesquik which, by the way, you can buy at Coles for $2.96. So why are people waiting this long for a milkshake? I don’t know.
Upon paying — all up we paid $52 — $20 of that was for the milkshake — I was asked if we enjoyed everything “despite the wait” and I gave them an honest response — that unfortunately “despite the wait” it was still disappointing and not worth a two hour wait. It didn’t seem to faze the guy who easily took my $52 without thinking twice about what I had just said.
It’s not that I don’t like the idea of this place — dessert is my favourite food group — and I think there is a place for it. It’s great for date nights and celebrations ... if you have a heavy wallet. I was surprised that a group of teenagers sitting next to me could afford to buy the $20 milkshake, which they seemed to leave behind anyway. Let alone a family of four on the other side of us who ordered four milkshakes … $80 later. I really hope they weren’t as disappointed as us. Would I go back? Nah. I think I will stick to my local ice cream joint who offers me a free one after my 10th visit. We drove through Hungry Jack’s on the way home to fill our tummies and cure our disappointment for the 50sixone reasons why we won’t be going back.
Roseanna Daziani works for The Advertiser. She visited the cafe on her own time, and decided to write a piece on her experience.