Marathon Cafe Scarborough in Scarborough

So-so, milk tea is passable

I don t know if it s due to the tax exemption, but the taste of the milk tea is very weak, and it only tastes like water in my mouth.

Best milk tea in town.

Old school local hongkong style coffee shop.

Very affordable food options and the best HK milk tea

Normal HK style food, pricing was fair and the food was ok

I have no idea why, but whenever I order food there, they always get my order wrong.

Best coffee/milk tea drink ever!!!

Quite satisfactory! The price is okay!

Bad service i didnt get my food and I was hungry :(((

An early morning HK tea place....quiet ..sip on your tea and breakfast

Chicken chop spaghetti likes

Milk tea not bad but everything else pretty mid

Too much noise in the morning inside the restaurant the usual customers made it like home so much. Others are deprived of the normal enjoying the food there.

I came for their famous milk tea. It didnt disappoint. But the service did.

I like to eat buttered pig the most, but this time it was burnt and the quality was average. It tastes a bit bitter. Very disappointed

This woman had a very bad attitude. I have never seen anyone with such a bad attitude in Toronto. When we bought a lottery ticket, she was told that we couldn t fill it in this way or that, and they didn t accept credit cards. My card didnt come out. I said I could just transfer the money and the waiter told me there was no money. Im stupid.

The store clerk has a bad attitude. He wont come back.

I heard about the STRONG milk tea from a friend and truly it was great. However, when I tried the restaurants signature dish of satay beef with instant noodle, I was quite disappointed. The beef was quite tough, the noodles were overcooked, and the satay sauce lacked depth of flavor. When I was dining there, I noticed a few Uber drivers had also stopped in. They ordered multiple milk tea drinks and were purchasing scratch-off lottery tickets. The air was filled with the odor of cigarette smoke (they had smoked before sitting down) and their loud, foul language was rather disturbing. Overall, while the milk tea may have been good, the main meal I tried was quite unsatisfactory. And the atmosphere was not particularly pleasant, with the Uber drivers behaving in a disruptive manner.

I had a pleasant experience at Marathon Cafe. The milk tea and coffee are hot, fresh, and delicious.

Atmosphere is like a coffee shop. Not high end, just basic tables and seats.

I ordered a medium iced milk tea and it cost $5.90! Its way too expensive even if this is their famous HK Milk Tea. I think it only worth $4 the most.

Hong Kong Tea is probably best in town.

Best food in the nabourhood

My experience with Marathon Cafe on Midland Avenue is excellent. The owners are Harvey and Tony. The Hong Kong Tea, Coffee, Food, and All Day Breakfast are hot, fresh, and delicious. The customer service is always excellent and really impressed with the quick, polite, and patient staff that several you. Well done. My Family and Friends will be coming here to eat and drink. Thank you very much.

The staff were not welcoming. yo have to be very observant as to where the cutlery, napkins and condiments are. I hope me and my wife were just under the impression that they were having a bad day but it was just the start of it. I will still come back but I hope it will be a different crew by then. location is ok and breakfast always will start your day!

Almost 6 dollars a cup of hong kong style milk tea, the taste of tea was not strong, and not smooth enough. Feel disappointed.

always a staple for a quick HK style bite Parking: its a mess Food : 5/5 Recommended dishes

One of the best milk tea places in Scarborough. It s not diluted and has strong tea flavour! Not too sweet as well!

Traditional HK style food, recommended their cold milk tea, hot tea is a bit too strong. Also tried their satay beef instant noodle, the sauce is good but could be a little bit more spicy I guess. Overall pretty good as a HK style restaurant.

If you have a birthday, you can get Creamy Cream or Butter Pig as a gift.

Take out large Hong Kong Style Milk tea cold without ice, rich and fulfilling. Award. Winning tea recipe. I recommend.

Cafe with Lotto machine

I came by for a breakfast. It was not the most appealing place but I ve had amazing food at spots that didn t shine. I ordered the big breakfast. I asked for the eggs over medium. They never asked me. They came over easy. The sausage was a hot dog, the bacon was cold and the ham was only warm where the eggs were sitting on top of it. The cutlery was in a little windowed door box, presumably a disinfectant machine of some sorts. The table had what looked like drywall powder. The fries were ok, and at least the eggs were hot. This only got 3 starts because the staff were friendly.

Amazing HK style milk tea! Just like the cup says: unforgettable smoothness!

I went here a couple of times and man this place does give you good memories growing up. Their authentic Hong Kong Milk tea is delicious which packs alot of flavour from the brewing and condense milk they use. Their pineapple buns are my favourite, I recommend checking them out with their delicious breakfast menu in the morning!

Milk tea is good. Too noisy by the seniors. See work there

Coming to this place to buy a drink is like drawing a lottery. I waited for almost 20 minutes for two drinks today. The result was terrible. It all depended on which lady made it. Can t you just get trained and then start working?

This is a staple for HK style food! They service delicious food and milk tea. The prices are a bit high though.

Definitely biased rating as Ive been coming here since childhood, lol. (Realistically, closer to 4* and old school Marathon would be 5*!) Throughout the years, it has always been a no frills place with simple but tasty HK tea house staples (ex: French toast; pineapple buns; satay beef with instant noodles; macaroni soup, etc). I remember coming after school with my dad and wed play on their arcade machines. The old owner was super nice and friendly. It was like visiting a favourite aunty. That vibe of bustling regulars is definitely gone now, but I guess the pandemic deteriorated dining in. With that said, the new lady owner is still nice but doesnt come to this location often. This one usually has an older lady whos no nonsense, lol. They do have younger workers too who speak English and are more welcoming. The milk tea is still good, but we always reminisce about the good old days where everything was just a bit better.

Hong Kong Style Milk Tea is good

This is a self serve HK cafe, where you order at the counter and grab utensils from a common area. Restaurant is very small, and insufficiently heated in the winter. They also randomly sell Funko Pops and Lottery Tickets. The food is good, but I would recommend going to another Marathon location such as Richmond Hill.

In the past couple of months, we would drive 1/2 hour there just to grab a 20-oz milk tea a few times a week. Because of their unique formula and taste of HK milk tea, we did not mind until last month the taste was not consistent after 5pm during weekdays. So I asked the owner, the older lady in an all-back pony tail, how I felt the inconsistency in their milk tea. I was able to mention how she mixed the milk tea behind the counter the previous night, and how the taste was off, including pouring only 1 pot of tea instead of 2 different pots to enhance the richness and more complexed texture of my desired milk tea taste. But she kept saying that there was nothing different and always the same formula. So I explained patiently to her in a more detailed fashion, and she even smirked in disguise how I was able to figure out her secret recipe with my taste buds only. At the end, I told her that we drove from far away and I would like to give her the last chance. Unfortunately, it was the same taste as the night before, only a cup of very bland taste of simple HK milk tea, with only one pot of hot tea in my milk tea. Sadly, she knew exactly what I was talking about in describing the complexity of her famous milk tea and how I liked my milk tea to taste like in the past. In conclusion, we have decided not to return to give them any business as they do not deserve my patronage and my contributions to their bottom lines. Now we make our milk tea at home everyday, being much more satisfied and saving lots of money plus time! A big thank-you to the owner from us, we can make better HK milk tea at home than many cafes outside, using many excellent quality ingredients in our kitchen!

I would give 1 star for good milk tea. Unfortunately, in this Scarborough location in particular, unless you come in with the cashier serving nobody, everyone else that work there who definitely would be aware of you waiting would still ignore you. There s only one person serving at a time, nobody else will even bother offer any help. There s been time where I had to wait 10 min to get my mobile order milk tea that was sitting on the counter and I was the first customer in line. If my memory serves me well, I believe the cashier and another coworker were behind the counter but I didn t know exactly what they were doing. I was just standing there looking at the milk tea that could have taken 10 seconds to transact and off I could go. No one bothered offering help. I am not sure if the people that work there are doing anything as they are completely hidden by the supplies and shelves, but you can clearly hear chattering amongst them. More so with the guys coming out from the kitchen, I d assume they are cooks? One chubby man in his late 20s / early 30s who pops in and out of the kitchen quite often and one mid-age man. Again, absolutely no one will care if a customer stands and waits for a while. I did try to tell the girl who handled takeout to help out as she showed up from behind the counter. She didn t say anything, gave me a dirty look and went back behind the counter and the wait continued. Even the customer who was in front of me nodded to me with agreement. Just to add, the services are completely different in the Richmond Hill location. People work harder and more efficiently there and they would at the very least greet you upon your arrival. Not sure why the work ethic differ so much between the two locations.

One of my favourite spots growing up and continues to be to this day for HK Milk Tea and HK Cafe Style Food. They have undeniably the best HK Milk Tea in Toronto if not Canada. Also, they make/bake their own Pineapple Buns which are easily better than any bakeries in Toronto. It is the best bang for your buck. You will not get this quality for this price anywhere else.

Nobody serve when I go in to the store, the workers are just talking each other, but the milk tea is good

I stood in the store for 5 minutes and no one paid any attention to me. Laughed

It tastes good, but the service attitude needs to be improved.

Only really come here for the milk tea. The milk tea is smooth and tea flavour is strong. A little pricey for what it is, $5 for medium sized cup. Next time ill be sure to check out the food!

You can order in Mandarin and Cantonese. Neighborhood canteen. Unfortunately, I want to drink lemon tea to clear my mouth. My sister made milk tea, but the taste is ok.

Hong Kong Style Tea is awesome. The beef noodle is my favorite.

Good milk tea but not recommend food

Hainan chicken rice is very dry and hard.

Yuanyang tastes totally different than usual. Even can tell the difference from the color of the drink. She didnt redo one for me but did some adjustment but taste like coffe with some milk and water.

best milk tea

Best HK tea,, Foods are regular

Taste OK

The toasts had no peanut butter, and the layer of scrambled eggs in the sandwich was tasteless. The cashier clerk was on the west side, and he didnt know why he ordered it, so he got 3.9 points. Just use eh, Indian fellow ghost guys.

forgot one of my orders, i wanted breakfast F + ham macaroni but never made ham macaroni for me. the debit machine doesnt work, at first i found it strange why i got declined, i never get declined. then i saw 3 other customers debit got declined too, yet they blame the customer.. ya right.. bs. not coming back.

Definitely one of the best HK MTs in the GTA imo! This time I got the combo with the satay beef noodle, egg sandwich and iced HK MT and it didnt disappoint. While the service isnt the best in town, you get your meals quickly so cant really complain. Also this place gets pretty busy in the morning, and the seats can fill up.

I left my bag in the store a month ago and thought it was lost. The shop owner is very nice and has been keeping it safe for me. The money and items inside are all well kept. The store manager also called my family and asked me to go back to the store to pick it up. The owner is really kind and great!

Well all the food that ordered for take out was not what I requested.Was soooo disappointed. First time here and it is definitely going to be the last time here.

Very good HK coffee or HK tea.

Personally I think their drinks are overpriced.

I love their milk tea. Visited 7/8 years ago and is still taste as good!

Comes for the HK milk tea, one of the best in the city still after so many years. Prices have gone through the roof so I dont purchase the 2L as often anymore. Customer service like others have said is hit and miss depending who serves you.

The milk tea is delicious, it s good with less sugar ( )

Rude owner or staff. I ordered a drink, she made the wrong drink and I told her. She whispered something under her breath and then while making the drink told me if I can t speak Chinese just to order in English. What kind of rude place is this. She had a bad attitude the whole time we were there. Never had this kind of experience at the other location in Richmond hill. This lady was definitely on medication. Learn to be more polite. I ve never had any bad experiences at restaurants I ve been to and left reviews at. This felt messed up. I asked for the money back and left. Do not go here. Much better options available anyways.

Extremely rude lady with black and white hair. My husband wanted a lemon tea and said it in Chinese and he ended up getting the wrong drink and instead of simply making a new drink she got argumentative and try to say you you said milk tea and goes to make the correct drink and turns around and with an attitude says if you don t know Chinese don t speak it I know English . We asked for our money back and left because of her disgusting behaviour. Marathon has amazing food but with servers with an attitude like that you might as well go to their other location, never had a problem with them.

Lemon tea half sugar less ice is perfect

The Hong Kong style milk tea was really good.

Wonderful place for a quick bite and to hang out with friends. The tea they serve here is really good. The place is not very Big but it s very cute and cosy. The price range is very decent . Situation at Village Mall . Happy Eating!

Friendly and fast service. Delicious HK style tea.

Excellent Hong Kong-style milk tea served here. Dont anticipate top-notch service; its more of a budget-friendly, quick-grab spot. Keep your expectations realistic.

Really thick milk taste. Good once in a while, when in the area. I would say there s better milk teas for cheaper but the location is fantastic.

Big breakfast served on a small plate .. eggs on top of ham, sausages. Fries on top of eggs .. poor presentation

Hong Kong style milk tea is okay. Foods are inconsistent.

Great milk tea. Didn t get any food but wanted to. The delay was nearly 30 minutes. Good job to the staff who informed us before ordering. Will come back to try again. Not really a place you want to sit down at.

It s a very busy shop, with everyone scratching lottery tickets and drinking milk tea.

First time visiting Toronto and my cousin recommended their HK style milk tea. I bought a bottle for our drive back down to the US. It was so yummy. I wish this cafe was also in the US! It was also very affordable. I m craving the milk tea as I type this review!!

Same as eight years ago, delicious and affordable

This was the place we used to go whenever we craved HK style milk tea. However that s not the case anymore. We paid full premium price ($7.50 cash only) for two small sized milk tea with cheap plain paper cups (the ones the fast food provided complementary with meals). It used to be a large cup with good quality paper cup printed with Marathon logo. We tried to give small business support but really this is how you take care of your loyal customers?! Yes it makes sense raising your price, but hey, don t go cheap on the quality of your services or products, it doesn t align to what consumers are paying for!!! We are very disappointed and will go somewhere else for our future milk tea cravings.

Heard about this place from a friend and it did not disappoint. Looks like a hole-in-the-wall (I think this added to their charm) and their HK Milk Tea is AMAZING. I instantly wished my cup was bigger. I gave my sister a sip and she wanted more. The Pineapple bun with butter was good - Im excited to try it in a sandwich. I will definitely be back.

The service is so bad and the people are so rude

the service isso bad and thelady is very rude, never want to come again.

Im a regular customer. The milk tea is really delicious. I dont feel good about it every time I come here. Whats outrageous is that when I place an order with that old woman, the waiter doesnt even bother me. You really didn t say a word... Why don t you tell me whether you accepted the order or not? Didn t you hear me clearly... I originally thought that this kind of store didn t offer services, but you filled the entire cup with milk tea and couldn t even wipe it. Apply it? ? My car got stained all over it... Im really speechless.

Food and tea is pretty good. But the service I had there (at least 4 times recently) was very disappointing, esp. the guy there.

The young male staff didnt know what combo I was talking about when I read the number to him from the menu and proceeded to give me bad attitude and cut eye, like the world did him wrong. Cmon if you want returning customers atleast pretend to be nice. He gave me the sandwich with two fingers holding it and more cut eye. Im not coming back.

5 stars for the HK milk tea, -1 Stars for the food, service and sanitary.

If i can get this 0 star, i will. The service is terrible. They put my order wrong and insisted that they are right. Seriously?? I dont even have any appetite to capture what i order at that time. They literally didnt take any order right if you order it in english.

Their satay beef pineapple bun is my go to! A little sweet crispiness plus satay tender beef is a great combo. Really enjoyed their hot HK milk tea, has a strong tea flavour which is perfect for my taste. Brunch or breakfast is so convenient.

Made purchase of 100$ and female at counter try to charge 0.25 cents on debit. There was no warning of any minimum purchase required. The service was awful and tea was average. Are you so greedy to charge 0.25 cents on transaction and lose a customer. Tracy if that s even your real name you use to answer these reviews. Update the manager answers this review tells me the 0.25 cent fee is set to every debit purchase. When I saw with own eyes employee entering 0.25. Not true/dishonest. If you go make sure you verify your debit purchases both employee and manager are dishonest.

The quality of food and beverage has worsened over the years. Their online menu doesnt have their afternoon tea menu, which is super annoying. The service is definitely horrible, so accompanied with below average food, Marathon is no longer worthwhile returning to.

The Hk milk tea is really good, the food items are OK. Visited before, but forgot to upload here or leave a review . Had a take out this time with a pineapple bun with butter and milk tea . Always good. Fb:Mandy IG: torontogroupbuy IG & YouTube: Mandilicous Tiktok & Fb: Missmandilicous for food & lifestyle posts in GTA

Good for Hk style milk tea

An institution that has been around forever! From construxction workers, seniors, to young teens, everyone in Scarborough goes here for simple HK comfort food and their award-winning HK milk teas. The service is nice and there is plenty of parking. K also love that they sell rare funko pop figurines too!!

The food is good (especially the milk tea and pineapple buns) however, the workers are beyond rude. They don t look at you when speaking to you (they barely communicate with you at all) and they simply don t respect their customers.

My go to spot when I crave some kind of comfort food! Got their braised beef vermicelli and satay beef noodles. Of course you cant forget to get their HK style milk tea!

I do think their HK milk tea is one of the best in Markham and the food is good however their staff/service are extremely rude. I prefer to order in English despite knowing mandarin. This establishment is one of the rare occasions where Ive had the staff trash talk me in front of my face in Mandarin when I can understand them completely. I can deal with slow service however rude and disrespectful staff are intolerable and thus I will never come back to this location.

years ago when they won the award for best milk tea, it was really good, after they expanded it went down hill, I thought I gave it another chance since I was in the area, when I got there the server was taking an order on the phone, no big deal, they went on for a few minutes, so during this time there was a man standing beside the lady who was on the phone, who instead of taking our order, to do something else, this went on to another five minutes, I thought it was getting ridiculous and left I dont know if they improve on their quality of their milk tea, but their customer service is definitely lacking

It used to enjoy their milk tea and buy tea leaf here. But our milk tea was not filtered well today and a lot of tea leaf at the bottom of the cup. And the egg and beef sandwich tasted really bad.

Had great experiences in the past. Its been at least a couple of years since. Id returned to a disappointing experience. Pineapple bun and toast were so-so. HK coffee was alright.

Best lemon tea

Staff is extremely rude

Great place for milk tea hot or cold and lemon tea hot or cold. The food offerings are also quite good I can never resist getting some Curry Beef balls and the satay beef. My wife loves the pineapple bun highly recommend.

Although it is an old restaurant with simple tables and chairs, I like its milk tea and company sandwiches.

The Starbucks of HK Milk Tea! LOL! Havent been here in ages I was craving for Iced Cold HK Milk Tea. They have a free French Toast or Condense milk toast on your birthday (ID needed on your birthday). What sweet deal! LMAO! I wish they brought back those coloured mini flags at Scarboro Village Mall ... so nostalgic!

If the guy is making your drink turn around, he is the worst at making drinks consistently makes it bad everyone else is fine. Please train him for the sake of your business. He also catches an attitude when you tell him to remake it but like he is the only employee that cant seem to make the drinks properly.

The best hk milk tea ever! This restaurant is tiny but has so many classic hk dishes from pineapple buns to Satay beef noodle soup to rice rolls. Very simple yet authentic. Pineapple bun with butter is a must try! And satay instant noodle is next level Follow me for more food adventures on Instagram at @maggielicious.to

Snack shop, not many choices

Good but a bit on the pricey side

Great milk tea. Great Hong Kong cafe style food. Parking lot is a bit cramped though.

Great HK TEA, but food and service is below average.

Pretty expensive now... $6 for a cold milk tea. It used to taste better.

love the milk tea

Food was good but the service was next level in a bad way. The male staff was so rude and had so much attitude. It s like killing him to makes him to come to work. He ruined my whole experience for dining in at your restaurant. Definitely not visiting to this location again.

I love all their food, wish to have breakfast everyday in there

Probably best hk milk tea in Toronto

One of the best HK style Milk Tea around. But food and services are just average....

The food was a bit disappointing

Probably the best HK style black milk tea in the GTA (and beyond).

Incredible HK milk tea place. For me, it sets the standard for HK milk tea and has the bar very high. You can even buy large jugs of it to take home!

Love the milk tea and food

If you want to drink a cup of thick and smooth Hong Kong-style milk tea and eat a piece of pineapple juice, I will think of Ma Lixiong Coffee Shop. It is currently offering a special discount of $7:30.

Its much worse than before. The only thing that hasnt changed is that the service attitude has always been so bad. The previous pineapple buns were still hot and the skin was crispy. I ordered pineapple buns and milk tea in the morning. The buns were cold and the service attitude was poor. It tastes terrible. The skin is not crispy either. It s not yet time to order conbo in the morning. A package of milk tea is about $10. If it s delicious, then that s fine, but a poor service attitude + poor food quality is a big problem.

The hygiene is worrying Satay beef is awful. Putting satay paste right on the beef is not authentic at all The milk tea is good tho The pineapple bun is a so-so one.

Smooth strong milktea. Very good. Got it cold. Need to try hot with no sugar next time.

I met someone on the Internet who recommended me, so I drove 25 minutes to this restaurant and tried it out. I had a signature set meal, satay beef doll noodles with egg yolk + frozen milk tea! The milk tea was okay but there were some toppings. The beef satay noodle was not so watery. It was more watery than the bowl. It was obvious that the beef satay was frozen and then eaten in the microwave. The satay was a bit saltier, but I couldn t help it because I was so hungry that I couldn t even remember the photo And the price wasn t even $13.9, so I ate the beef and had the other egg as I didn t want to waste it. I didnt even put a piece of paper on the plate before putting the eggs on it. I put the sandwich under it while drying it. The bread was very unpalatable. Finished~~~No next time

Most outstanding was their HK milk tea but their other food is okay. It gets busy so obviously service will be not as quick as you would expect but they are good at keeping up. Perhaps they should look into servicing their dine in area to encourage more patrons to dine in otherwise, take out may be a better option

I tried Ma Lixiongs hot milk tea at a Hong Kong gathering on Saturday and found it very tea-like, so I went to Ma Lixiongs restaurant on Sunday. The decoration of the restaurant is very simple, and you can place orders at the counter and pay yourself, similar to the fast food restaurant model. I ordered the Pineapple Oil Afternoon Tea Set ($6.90), and my husband ordered the Steak and Double Eggs All-Day Breakfast ($9.0). Both meals included hot milk tea. Of course, the first thing is to try a cup of hot milk tea. It is also served in a paper cup when dining in, and it has added sugar. I personally think it is a bit sweet, so I might ask for less sugar next time. The milk tea has the aroma of tea leaves, the tea body is thick and smooth, and it s delicious! The pineapple oil comes on a paper bag, but Ive seen others put it on a plate. Of course its much better to use a plate. Because it was in a paper bag, most of the butter had melted when I ate it, so I couldnt taste the texture of frozen butter, but it was still quite delicious. My husbands steak was delivered by the waiter. It was prepared immediately upon ordering and it tasted good. Crispy hot double eggs on toast with burnt edges. The food is good, I ll try it in Richmond Hill next time

Hong Kong Style Milk Tea is really good and the food too. The price is reasonable.

Ever since that one guy stopped working here, the quality has been so consistent and the drinks are incredible. Keep it up, please!

Super good HK style milk tea....

Best pineapple buns! If you re craving Hong Kong Style Tea, they make it good here too.

DO NOT TRUST the 20%/10% discount online. Its cheaper to order in the store. Also forget to give bread (2020) Went there twice more. The attitude was so bad. No service and unwilling to communicate with guests. They also gave less things (2021)

ordered their medium yin yang tea. I was a little shocked that it .is now $4.75.

Very rich flavor tea!

Clean and quiet place. Good taste Hong Kong style milk tea. A little bit expensive.

Good milk tea. Enjoyed their Pineapple bun.