Chatime

This location inside Hillcrest Mall is a combination of Chatime and Bake Code. Here you can get both Taiwanese style baked goods and drinks.
My Roasted Milk Tea with Grass Jello is quite consistent with the other Chatime I had been to.
With no line up on a weekday evening with just 1 customer aside from me, I ended up waited 5 – 10 minute for my order. I just wondering how it would have been if it is busy.

I came here for the promotion around early December. Buy one get one free! Luckily they were also offering my fav drink for free. Two for the price of one! I gave them both to my good friend but I know the consistency of the drink itself is similar to other Chatimes.
I only had to wait for two others in front of me. But it seemed to take a while and there were at least 3 – 4 staff on hand. Maybe they were still new? It was slow… probably about 10 mins. Staff was nice though but probably not nice enough to make me come back (cuz it is out of the way) and I detest waiting.
Looked around the bakery area but thought the prices were too high. I’m sure they were delicious.

This is my favourite bubble tea chain and the fact that they have bake code is even more fabulous. However their service needs major improvement ASAP.
Why do I need to wait 15 mins for bbt?
I ordered more than 20 dollars worth of baked goods and was supposed to get a five dollar voucher. The workers didn’t give it to me so I had to go back and pick it up. No apology whatsoever.
The guys do not know what their breads are get so they were asking me for the names of it so they could ring it in.
Pretty brutal service but the food is good so if you can overlook that, this place is good.

Décor: 2
Wait time: 1
Food: 3
Everyone’s been talking about this new Chatime/​Bake Code location so I decided to give it a try on a Tuesday afternoon.
The first thing that caught my eye was the expensive in store homemade bread inside a half opened window display. If someone were to walk up from behind, they would definitely «touch» the bread with their jacket or purse. The store is not big to begin with, so it made it even harder to walk because it was blocking the way. I got bumped by other customers at least 5 times just standing there.
I went to check out their other pasties/​desserts and wow they’re pricey! They had the famous Mille Crepes cake but cost a fortune. Since I was there I just grabbed one to go along with a drink.
I’m giving the wait time one star and here’s the reason why. There were only 3 people waiting for drinks including myself. After 10 – 15 mins, the couple infront of me walked up to ask about the drinks. Couple of the staff were just walking around to see if there were anything to do and chit chatting rather than making drinks. When I saw that my drink was done, I was ready to give them my receipt with the order number but guess what? They put the drink down behind the display and kept on chitchatting! I thought ok maybe it’s their own drink, but 2 mins later, they finally decided to pick up the same drink and yelled my order number! I just don’t get it… I really don’t.
The Mille Crepes cake was very chewy I wonder if it’s been sitting there for couple of days. I haven’t been feeling well ever since I ate it… no more pastries/​desserts from them. The drink was alright couldn’t complain much.
I rather spend my money at Duo even if I don’t get to collect Vicinity points.

Like any other Chatime, bubble tea is good. Service is terrible, waited 30+ minutes for bubbletea, employees don’t know what they’re doing. People behind us got their orders before us. They also gave the wrong drink to many people ahead of us. Made excuses and did not take accountability for their mistakes. Poor customer service — would rather drive a little further to go to Commerce gate for their Chatime, or go to Sharetea which has great bubble tea as well! Bake code was expensive — innovative flavours for some breads, but some you could buy at a Chinese bakery for half the price.

*****THIS HAS TO BE THE WORST LOCATION WITH BAD SERVICE AND EMPLOYEES NOT KNOWING WHAT THEY’RE DOING!!!
I would give it no star if there was an option! Take a few mins to read my story and you will certainly understand why!
I’ve always been a Chatime fan since it firstly opened and I have over 40ish + vicinity points at Chatime (that shows how much purchases I have and enjoy their drinks). But this time, it’s just disappointment on disappointment which when I emailed Chatime afterwards stating to them about the issue, I got ignore multiple of times and didn’t seem to care!
Went to visit this location on a weekday around 3ish pm, there was 2 short lines already, one purposely stating bakery and coffees only and other one I assumed it was for Chatime drinks. There were only 2 customers in front of me. I waited in line for over 15 mins until my order was taken. They ONLY accept cash now since they don’t have the machines set up yet.
I walked around the bakery, they’re breads are more on the pricey side. However, there’s different unique kinds of breads which you can’t purchase elsewhere. They set up small baskets of sample bread so you can taste which one you like before buying. We took at least 30 mins walking around the small bakery side eating bread.
Since it’s been over 30 mins and my order still wasn’t ready yet, I decided to approach the cashier and ask. She seems confused to what she is doing and where my order is. I saw the 2 customers in front of me got their order already, but I’m still waiting after at least 4 customers get their orders. The cashier looked like in panic mode as there were over 7 drinks made sitting on the counter but she just didn’t know who’s order was who’s and was TOTALLY lost. OH yea, her face turn paled and lost.
At this point she is just asking customers who stood around the counter what they ordered and just giving ready drinks to them. I saw her give a customer a drink which had a sticker with the matching number as my receipt and the customer took it, but it into her bag and told the cashier it’s the wrong size! THEN WHY DON’T YOU ASK FOR THE DRINK BACK!!! So she gave them my drink so I told her and all she did was go to the back and make me a new one. so 40 mins for a drink, not worth my time!
This new location is just really unorganized and their staff are not properly trained to work!
Not coming back again until they hire better people and improve this problem!

I was so excited months ago when I found out that they would be opening a Chatime/​Bake Code in Hillcrest Mall (between TD and The Bay); perfect, right beside my house and I’d never have to go to the one at Commerce Gate as the parking lot is chaotic and smells like Korean bbq.
For the grand opening special they had buy one get one free (for a week) but the free drink was specified to be a regular sized grass jelly roasted milk tea, mango green tea… or one other option. how disappointing.
I’m not sure whether the screens rotate the menu but for the entire ~10mins I was standing there waiting for my drink. I did not see the complete menu pop up. If I was not familiar with the menu I would not have known what was available to me; they need a complete menu posted somewhere.
As for the Bake Code part of the shop, there is a large display case beside the cashier where you can see the bread being made. there is a cake section with some delicious looking pastries (not too expensive either… not sure about how they taste though). there is a large selection of bread loaves and individual pieces. though none of the bread is covered and with all the traffic from the mall passing by. I’d be considered about the cleanliness as I imagine people breathing all over the bread and dust being everywhere. kind of gross.
Overall, I was disappointed as I had imagined the store front to be bigger with some kind of seating area to hang out. the store has no seats and closest would be over at the food court. My two drinks took quite some time to make as I guess there is only one person making drinks (compared to other Chatime stores).
PS. They currently take cash only. but the vincity rewards is working.

Update (12/​20/​2015):
They accept credit/​debit now.
There was a lot of confusion today as they only had the Bake Code express checkout line open. Even with a shorter line, it still took 15 minutes from lining up to receiving a drink. Removing another star from my rating.
Original (12/​13/​2015):
I’ve been waiting for Chatime and Bake Code to open up at Hillcrest for some time now. Chatime and Bake Code are so intense, put them together it just makes sense. The store is somewhat small, but there is a large window at the front where you can see the bread being made. They also provided samples of their delicious fruit-​infused bread. The bread selection is quite extensive given the limited amount of space in the store. If you are only ordering for bake code, there is an express checkout line available.
We came to try the drinks as well. Again, given the small size of the store, the drink menu that’s displayed on the screens isn’t exhaustive. This means that you need to know what you want to order ahead of time. I only saw a small menu listed as well as their top 10 drinks. I ordered the grass jelly roasted milk tea (#2 on the list) and the honey dew milk tea. Both were really good. I really enjoyed the grass jelly. It was very soft, unlike the type you’d get in some of those grass jelly drinks.
The lineup was pretty crazy. Hopefully that was just an artifact of being their grand opening weekend.

NEW CHATIME AND BAKECODE ALL IN ONE? I’m there!
Sooooo hillcrest has definitely gotten a facelift since I saw it last, and I was glad the chatime was right at the entrance of the mall, near hudson’s bay (which looks stunning by the way). This chatime is fairly large, probably because there’s a bake code too. There’s half of the store, which is asian bakery style– you go around, grab your shit and pay for it. Most of the bread there is worth it. you won’t find a similar taste anywhere else. I definitely had to go for the fresh mentaiko bread (tastes like sushi/​flying fish roe on a baguette, I swear!) ever since trying it at the Unilocal elite chatime event. Freshly baked, it’s absolutely delicious and well worth the $ 5. The other breads and buns are also so fresh, warm and yummy! Soooo good and satisfying.
The drinks are consistent with any other chatime drinks but their grand opening BOGO deal has pre-​determined ‘free’ drinks (so you can’t just pick any drink). They are also extremely packed, so people in the back making the bubble tea are forced to come to the front to take orders, which they’re obviously unfamiliar with. The wait was quite a while, but for bake code, it was damn worth it!
There’s also this huge glass window thing where you can see the guy making your bread. Nice! I’d definitely come back if I was in the area.

Soft open Yah!
Just opened today and Bake Code has only has select breads and buns out for purchase.
Desserts and the Mentaiko baguette isn’t out yet; but they said they will be adding them on as time progresses through their open.
Staff is friendly and the store front is clean. Love the fact that here is a big window to watch them make and bake the bread. There is a back kitchen, but at least you get to watch them do part of the process out in the store front.
There is a bit of a wait time to get your drink and order. But overall it isn’t too long or crazy.
No seating available right now, so stroller on to the food court if you want to seat while sipping your drink.
They are located near the TD/​HBC entrance.