Piccolo's on William — Restaurant in Bathurst

A country calamity

Whilst in town visiting family we decided to head to our usual cafe, only to find it was closed for the holidays. So onto Google Maps, we found Piccolo and made our choice based on their serving of Pablo & Rusty coffee.

This review, comes from a good place. I see some replies to poor reviews from this establishment are a little defensive.. so please know that this is aimed to be constructive criticism. My parents ran a cafe, I know what it’s like.. and how quickly a business can fail.

My story begins..

Upon entering the cafe we did as instructed and “waited to be seated”, but there wasn’t anyone around to seat us. I could see two casually dressed people behind the counter, and assumed they were staff.. but they were too busy fussing with something to attend to customers. Eventually the barista handed us menus and told us to sit anywhere we wanted.

We found a table, and sat down. However it was quickly decided that we needed a new table as the one we had was damaged and dangerous. Any drinks put on it would have fallen onto our lap (burnt by coffee on the groin wouldn’t be fun).

A staff member appeared and while watching me move the clearly broken table commented “that’s the broken table”. I found it amusing that the staff not only knew it was broken, but put it out anyway. It wasn’t a little wobbly, it was dangerous. I also found it amusing that there was no offer to help me make up a table to be seated at.

One thing that I found a little worrisome was how dirty the tables were. Not just ours. It’s been a while since these have had the Ajax treatment.

Anyway… on with the story.

After sitting with frayed menus for about 15 minutes an employee came out, we grabbed her attention. She disappeared again without taking our order, but thankfully reappeared again so we could ask again to order.

Now.. the food.

We had mixed reviews from the meals. The general feedback was the basic dishes could use a side. The portions were not very big.

My meal was very dry, and the poached eggs were much overdone. It would also have been nice to have options for different breads, but again basic stuff. Menu was ok.

Coffee was ok, if we ever saw a staff member again after the food was delivered (and cutlery unceremoniously dumped on the previously mentioned dirty and sticky table) I would have ordered another one.

All in all, it was very average and we won’t be returning again. I hate to see a business falter, and offer this review in the hope it helps the owners be more attentive to the experience on offer.

One final thought, when we left the waitress at the cash register asked how our meals were. I didn’t have the heart to tell this over worked, in experienced teenager what a disappointment it was. If the restaurant was short staffed then perhaps they shouldn’t have had so many seats available. Scale back to what you can support (ie Indoor tables only, take away only or stack away some tables).

A number of people left disappointed today. I could hear the complaints about poor service from the people behind us. I could hear the table next to us complain about the...

4 years ago I wrote a review of how great this place was, sadly it seems to have slipped a long ,long way from where it was. I visited again today,26 November 2022.The coffee I had was good and the sandwich was plesant but the pricing was ridiculous. I was asked if I wanted chips with my meal, presuming that my meal came with chips and some people don't want them I said yes and my daughter said the same. I didn't realise that the chips were an extra charge because the waitress did not inform me of that ,plus unbeknown to myself (it was on the menu so I should have checked) there was a weekend surcharge!!!!! This made my tiny coffee coffee literally the equivalent price of a pot of gold. The menus were tatty and hard to pick up once laid flat on the extremely sticky table. I treat my famiy rarely and felt that $85 for three sandwiches, two doll sized coffees and a coke was over (way over) and above what the whole experience was worth. My father has just been over to visit from another country and I recommended this place. All I can say is ,thank the lord they didn't eat here as I would have been embarressed for recommending it. This place used to be busy and beautiful now it's more like a truck stop Cafe with Mitchellin star prices . I eat in many differnet places and not all are great but this is the first time I've felt the need to write a review of poor performance.

Ps, that reply,below, feom yourselves, is from three years ago on my original post...

Disappointing experience – stale pastry and poor customer service response

We visited Piccolo’s for a quick coffee and bite. Unfortunately, my mums croissant was noticeably stale and hard, making it unpleasant and difficult to eat. She only had a bite and also asked for my opinion before we decided it wasn’t edible. When she kindly let staff know and asked for a refund, she was met with hostility and defensiveness from the barista and another staff member. We were told the croissants were delivered on Friday (this was Sunday), and the barista, who mentioned being an ex-pastry chef ( theres a reason its ex 😭) insisted it was fresh. While that may be true from a storage perspective, a two-day-old croissant that is dry and hard doesn’t meet most customers’ expectations of freshness, especially at a premium price. Instead of acknowledging the feedback or offering a goodwill replacement or refund, staff doubled down, saying they had tasted it and found it fine. Their tone came across as dismissive, slightly arrogant, and more focused on keeping a $10 sale than ensuring a positive customer experience. This could have been easily resolved with an apology and refund or replacement. Instead, it left us feeling uncomfortable and unwelcome. Overall, a single bad pastry isn’t the issue – the poor response to a polite...