The Vines Village — Attraction in South Island

This place is great on days when there's not too much going on but they seem to have some gaps in staffing on days with heavy traffic. While there's enough seating to hold a decent volume of people, they don't have enough staff to cook and run food and beverages. They're also quite disorganized with their approach which is creating workflow issues, for example, I received my meal eight minutes before my husband's was delivered. His eggs were overcooked, likely from sitting under a heating element while waiting for someone to run them out. Our drinks arrived 45 minutes after we ordered and we'd already finished our meals. While the coffee girl apologized, it really wasn't her fault since the volume she was working through really needed to be split between a couple of folks.

Outside of the need to review best practices to impove efficiency (which will improve food quality), the food was average. Even though the eggs were cooked through, the other elements of the eggs Benedict were good especially the amount of bacon (considering you pay extra for it). The waffle looks amazing but is terrible. The compote tastes like the air freshener used in portable loos which ultimately makes it inedible. The waffle is heavy and painful sweet then topped with ice cream which tastes like fake candy banana. Breakfast waffles should be light, airy, and only slightly sweet.

The chicken ranch slider is good but tastes nothing like ranch. The sauce reminds me of tartar and one bun for two large chicken patties wasn't enough. The coleslaw was very nice and earned my taste buds forgiveness for not being as advertised.

The lemon cheesecake in the cabinet was also very nice. Light and not overly sweet.

We've come here a few times and I think it's a much better place to visit outside of heavy traffic days. If they were able to improve their efficiency and staff at appropriate levels, it would be a...

My wife and I went here because she had been a few times before and really enjoyed it. She ordered Fish and Chips, I ordered Ceaser Salad. It was busy on the day, so it took nearly 45min for our lunch to come out - which was understandable. There was leftover plates on other tables so it was a bit of a mess. But watching the birds eating the leftovers was entertaining anyway. When lunch finally arrived I would have eaten anything that was put in front of me. Sadly my salad was possibly the worst Ceaser Salad I have ever eaten. The poached Egg was just the yoke, most of the rest of the egg was gone. The iceberg lettuce was poorly ripped - no love shown to it at all. Some chunks were still in the original layers. The bacon and chicken had no love shown either. So basically it was a poor result all around. I ate it anyway and didn’t complain because I was enjoying lunch with my wife. But then she said she couldn’t eat the fish. It was crumbed like fish fingers. It was over cooked and dried out. Basically it was rubbery. She sent hers back and they gave a refund. So that was my sad experience - we had high hopes that never came true. The staff were very friendly and the...

We dined at the cafe. We had high hopes after being recommended to go here when we were unable to walk in to Wairau Valley Wines. I ordered the caeser salad and my husband the Benedict on rosti. The caeser salad was very underwhelming. Probably the worst I've ever had. The bacon chunks looked like they'd been poured out of a bag onto the lifeless iceberg lettuce with a squirt of catering dressing on top. Egg on top looked worse than the ones I do at home. Rosti was OK, but potato was certainly undercooked in the middle. Ordered a coffee on the way out and unfortunately we couldn't be it as it was burnt. This place really has so much potential as a cafe and restaurant, but sadly I would not recommend it. Blenheim must have many better options. Wine tasting at Whitestone was...