What a pathetic excuse for a restaurant! The place is absolutely a shadow of its former self and the only thing I can think is that it’s because the owners couldn’t care less. A few years ago it was a thriving establishment with good food at affordable prices and good service to boot, but the truth is that it has become a dump.
The service is remarkably bad, so bad in fact that the previous time I was there we had to wait close to 30 minutes before our drinks came and we waited close to two hours before we left because we hadn’t received our food yet. It was so bad that you’d think I’m making this up. When we finally got up to leave, the waitress, Emerentia I believe her name is, rather rudely said that they are busy cleaning the kitchen and that’s why it was taking so long. No one ever apologised, nor did they tell us about the situation when we sat down.
Not only is their garden in the restaurant littered with bottle caps, straw papers and other trash, the furniture is uncomfortable, old, wonky and frankly, kitsch. The tables do not even have table cloths and good luck trying to find a clean pillow to sit on.
We had breakfast there recently, not because I wanted to but because my mother turned 70 today and she wanted to go- she thought it would be a real treat. So our experience was a little better, because we (luckily) got food this time but the service was once again very, very bad. They had one very young waitress there, a girl who I presume just finished high school. She was the only one on duty and had to serve all the tables, being unexperienced and seemingly untrained, she failed rather remarkably. When I told the waitress that it’s my mother’s birthday she didn’t even bother with a proper congratulations. Perhaps I’m wrong, the Emerentia woman was there, however she just sat close to the kitchen texting on her cell phone, not bothering with anyone.
We were never greeted at the door, in fact, we felt as if they looked right through us (the paying customers mind you). The service was, of course, slow and when we asked for an extra teacup for the table, which is by no means a difficult instruction, we got a cup of coffee. Who the waitress through the coffee was for and why, I really can’t tell you.
Let’s talk about the menu for a second. There is absolutely nothing on that menu that a vegetarian such as myself can have for breakfast. Accept maybe for a muffin, if you’re lucky enough that they actually have some in stock. When we asked for fruit juice they were out and “waiting for a delivery” and alas, no muffins. I’m not sure if they think all vegetarians eat eggs or if they think that we eat salad the entire day. Either way, the startling lack of any dishes for us is confirmation of their absolute ignorance.
So I sat there, in the restaurant, unable to eat anything that doesn’t make my stomach turn. “I won’t be having anything” I told the waitress, “because there is nothing on this menu for me to eat, I’m a vegetarian.” And believe it or not, instead of offering me something, anything, to eat, without trying to compromise or assisting in any way, she replied “oh, okay, sorry to hear that”, took the order of the rest of the table and walked off. Not once did the owner or any of the other staff even glance at my direction or come over to see why I was just sitting there, like an idiot not eating anything. I mean, isn’t that what you do if you own a restaurant? You serve people food and when they don’t eat anything, you enquire why. There were like six other customers there at the time so don’t even bother telling me that you were too busy to notice.
Let’s talk about the owners for a second. I would like to know, what kind of person and owner of an establishment pitches up to work in flip flops, rugby shorts and a t-shirt with hair messily tied in a ponytail? Don’t even get me started on the uniformless, wear-what-you-will outfits of the staff.
The smoking area is also, right next to the non-smoking section with nothing that divides the air between the two, so you get to enjoy really bad service and second hand smoke and then pay for the experience. All while you wonder if your car is safe because you know that they have broken into two cars in the last few months since there is no safe parking and no security guard on duty.
Never ever again and if this review can save even one person from this disaster, I’d be satisfied.
