Merricks General Store

Merricks General Store
3458-3460 Frankston-Flinders Road, Merricks, VIC
Genovese Coffee


After hearing so much about the place, I made 9 people do a little detour on our road trip to Squeaky Beach just to see if MGS (as they call it but sounds more like my primary school) really had the best coffee in Victoria. Imagine my delight when we entered the spacious place (so different from the breaky spots in the city) full of timber tables & rustic charm to discover they used my all time favourite coffee - the one I've been raving on about to all my friends who never actually got to try it (or probably did, but didn’t realise).

We managed to get seats straight away which was surprising, but I guess we got there early. Wasn't too impressed how they were so rigid & didn't let us combine the 2 tables though - something about leaving space for the waiters but it was so spacious we wouldn’t have blocked anyone anyway.

They don't serve coffee in mugs 'cos apparently Italians don't do that… so Lisa the coffee addict was disappointed. She didn't fancy the idea of drinking from a bowl (at $7) either. My mocha was excellent as expected, but nothing a good barrister with quality chocolate & Genovese coffee couldn't do somewhere nearer Melbourne. Bud (who usually doesn’t drink coffee) was happy with his mocha, Am wasn't with her Chai Latte which was far too ginger-y. However, the place redeemed itself in Am's books with the food.
My Merricks Breakfast ($17) had slightly overdone poached eggs (but I didn't mind) on sourdough with bacon, juicy tasty mushrooms infused with thyme, roma tomatoes, sausages which were only ok to me ('cos I only like cheese kranskys) but my friends liked them. There were specials on the board too, like the Norwegian Eggs (Eggs Benedict with salmon instead of ham) & the Asparagus special. I was impressed with the hollandaise which had just the right amount of sour & creamy-ness & the well toasted crisp baguette.
The sweet option was French toast which was tasted as good as it looked. However, the real maple syrup was a sugar overdose as it was sweet enough with the ($12) vanilla sugar on top already.
The menu catered to kids too, with the usual cereal served with a mini milk bottle. The children on the table next to us had baby cinos & were provided paper and crayons to keep them entertained!