At the Willow Tree Cafe — Restaurant in Gold Coast City

We love the Willow Tree Cafe and frequent it usually on the weekends, for either a toastie or a takeaway coffee as our local. The new owner has made some fantastic changes and the service staff are always amazing. Sad to say we visited during the week and sat inside for the first time. As usual the service from the team was amazing, but our experience was really soured by the chef. Being an open kitchen, we could hear every interaction he had with the staff, and the comments he made about another lady who ordered behind us. He was berating the team, bordering on abusive for the entire time we were there, for things that really didn't matter - completely blowing it out of proportion. The poor young team looked absolutely defeated and I don't blame them, I'll hazard a guess that they dread every time he's on shift. He's rude, aggressive and seemingly throwing his weight around - I overheard him threaten a young team members job because he failed to assemble a BLT in the way he wanted him to, and was basically screaming in his face that this is the way it has been since he started in Feb of 2022. He is awful and the worst part of the business by a landslide. I'm not sure if he acts this way when the owner is onsite, but I would highly recommend reconsidering having him on the team. It's a real shame as otherwise it's a beautiful cafe with great food, coffee and service. We won't be coming back though as long as that...

I frequent this cafe regularly but this particular morning changed my mind forever. As normal, I rode my bike to have breakfast at the Willow Tree. Put my order in which cost me a $20 note made my way to the table I normally sit at outside. A few minutes passed when I was informed I would have to move inside up the back where there was a single table ( I was told they had bookings and was not enough tables), if I recall there was maybe 4 people in the cafe at the time. Anyway, I didn't feel comfortable in sitting wedged in the back of the store & there was only 2 people sitting outside at one table. I'm sure I would have finished my breakfast & left before the place filled up. I couldn't do take away as I was riding., I chose to cancel where I was told that my coffee was already made in a take away cup. With no offer of a refund because they had made the coffee & apparently started making the food. I left feeling very disappointed & hungry. live & learn. It will be a long time...

Delivery Order was wrong, no vegetarian options so had to select ham and then wrote no meat in the special instructions, hard eggs (didn’t realise hard eggs are runny?), and was missing half of the extra items ordered. Manager blamed the delivery driver not giving the second box but if that was true, why were half of the extras in the main box? Disappointing service and while the manager was nice on the phone, he offered no solutions. If you suffer from food allergies, I wouldn’t recommend this place due to the risk for cross contamination and straight contamination since they can’t follow basic requests.

Have ordered at the cafe before and they are fine (slow food delivery, nice staff, mostly good covid safe process - need to clean the menus after every table has ordered though). Very stingy with the hollandaise, even if you order and...