San Churro South Bank — Restaurant in Brisbane City

I was very disappointed with my experience at San Churro located in South Bank. I've been to other San Churro locations like the one in chermside and surfers paradise and this one is definitely below par.

Pros: The staff members were very friendly and the food was quite decent and nicely flavoured.

Cons: My biggest pet peeve was their questionable hygiene. There were so many problems with the hygiene in this location. When I went to grab myself a cup of water almost each cup was dirty. I started questioning myself whether it was the used cup section instead of the clean cup section until I found a cup that was passable. When we started enjoying or roast potatos we found a hair amongst the delicious potatos. By then we were fed up and didn't see the need or even the purpose of reporting that hair to the staff members. When my sister got her drink, they gave her a spoon that had stains on it that looked like it had recently been used. Quite disgusting really and that made us question how clean their food was. Another thing that we were annoyed at was the lack of care and presentation in presenting the food. My sister and her partner both ordered hot chocolates. At previous locations, they had a piece of chocolate served up with the drink. When we got the hot chocolate drinks we didn't realise until later there was something missing. The drinks were also served lukewarm. When we get the drinks we expect it to be hot not lukewarm in temperature. Also the hot chocolate drinks were served with hot chocolate spilt on the napkins which really depleted it's aesthetics and presentation. We also ordered 5 roast potato dishes and although it said it was served with aioli and tomato relish, it didn't come with it. We had to ask for the tomato relish. They were lucky we were not a big fan of aioli so we didn't really care if it came with aioli or not. If you're not going to serve it with aioli or tomato relish don't put it on the menu! We also ordered risotto and mushroom balls. My God they were the most oily things I had ever seen. It came looking like someone had pried it open and played with it before serving it to us. They were saturated with oil like it wasn't drained after being taken out from the fryer.

I understand that it was a weekend and they were swamped with patrons, but if the staff members could be a bit more caring with the food and take their time and not rush the orders, I'm sure the quality would be a lot better. I'm sure a lot of people don't mind waiting a bit longer for good food. People might think oh these are just little things, but it's the little things that add up to your overall experience. We wanted this to be a nice weekend treat for ourselves but a treat turned out to be a bit of a nightmare. There shouldn't be such a big gap between different San Churro stores. They should be uniform in terms of presentation and hygiene. We really hope this improves because this store has the potential to become a...

We were looking forward to sitting down to a desert to finish a lovely night and the food at San Churros is generally very good. So after a show and dinner we chose here.

Unfortunately, whilst I realise it was a busy night, the service was appalling and the chap who I believe was the manager, named David, is as rude as they come.

The food was taking longer than usual and we followed up on the progress with a waiter who failed to come back to us. When I approached the counter to follow up again the attendant struggled to find the order. David then proceeded to tell us, ‘If we weren’t happy then we should get a refund or sit down and shut up and wait!’

The people we were with were gobsmacked by the response. It was clear they were stressed and the takeaway delivery orders were consuming them. There was a significant line from customers trying to find out what was happening with their orders. I challenged David on his attitude but it went downhill from there. I was told not to question him on how he runs his restaurant. Unfortunately if you can’t run it very well, it appears they need some advice on how to do it better. He then proceeded to tell us we’ve only been waiting for about 30min and most restaurants you can expect a 50min wait time. This was for a serve of Churros! It’s not complicated.

Anyway, all it would’ve taken is a polite attitude to say sorry for the wait and what can we do to make it better for you?

However, customer service is a challenge nowadays and unfortunately these guys have NONE! Let’s hope David isn’t the owner.

Apparently he will request the process for our refund sometime in the next 24 hours and it will take to 3 to 5 days! My suggestion is try Max Brenner up the road, you’ll have a better experience!

EDIT: this is an addition to the first review based on your reply which is outlined below:

First of all, if you want people to use your App then that process should not have a disadvantage over counter service.

Secondly, there was no abuse. If there was anything that would be considered abuse it was from your manager, and we expressed disappointment based on his attitude. If you’re going to tell customers to sit down, shut-up and wait, then expect a response that isn’t favourable. There was annoyance and frustration based on the attitude of your manager.

Furthermore, whilst dine-in and takeaway is important to your business, if you’re struggling to keep up with demand then take steps to ensure those customers who have chosen to attend your store are being serviced appropriately! Ignoring them does not assist the situation.

I note you addressed nothing in relation to your manager, David, behaviour towards customers but it may also be the case that David is the one responding. Particularly given, when I advised David that I would be sending a complaint through his response was: “Best of luck with that because I’ll be the one receiving it anyway!”

The attitude...

Straight off the bat and we were not impressed. Came in at 930pm, it was not busy as only a handful of tables occupied, and staff (four young men) were standing behind the counter talking to each other. We noticed most of the tables were dirty or plates/rubbish left uncleaned. We spotted a table in a corner only to find that when my partner touched it, there was chocolate left behind and smeared all over her palm. She went to the counter to asked for a table wipe and napkins/paper towel to clean her hand. The worker pointed to the front of the counter for napkins, but said it in a manner of uninterested to help. He also did not come and wipe the table, we had to with napkins. Additionally, my partner asked the same worker for a follow up wet wipe or hand sanitiser, he pointed outside to a portable toilet block across the road and said "you can wash your hands over there". The way he spoke and conducted himself was unprofessional and unacceptable.

We ordered through the table QR code, which worked fine. We waited approximately 20 minutes before the same staff member came out to explain that they had no strawberries left (we paid extra), or any fruit for that matter, and the compensation was to give us another chocolate sauce, which would be useless to us as we already had two in the order. He then offered mashmellows or pretzels, which we accepted the latter. He brings out our food, but our drinks came ten minutes later, which by then we had almost finished. The food was good in taste and quality, but the pretzels were a let down. We pay an extra $3.95 for strawberries to be replaced by .50c of pretzels. There was no apologies for any of the inconveniences we experienced, and overall we were left dissatisfied with the whole experience. I noticed the staff were all uninterested in working or serving customers throughout our time there and gave off the vide that they would rather be somewhere else, no passion for quality was seen. We have been here multiple times prior and never had an issue, now we will not be returning...