La Playa Beach and Eats — Restaurant in Gold Coast City

We went to La Playa on an April Saturday night for dinner.

The staff were extremely friendly, but I am afraid that's where the good experience finished.

Orders for drinks were taken but never delivered. After 10 minutes of looking at our drinks sitting on the bar, we went and grabbed them ourselves.

We then ordered entrees, which never came. After another 20 minutes we enquired after our order to be told that nothing had been submitted to the kitchen, we then ordered them again. We also ordered some more drinks which also never came. After another wait and another enquiry our drinks orders were submitted again.

Finally, our main meals came out in a piece meal fashion. My pasta dish was just warm, and the sauce had congealed to some degree on the top. Leading me to think that it had been sitting for some time awaiting delivery.

One of the friends who had invited us to dinner is gluten intolerant. This restaurant has several gluten free meals on the menu. Which is the reason this restaurant was chosen.

After specifically confirming when ordering that the dish would be gluten free, imagine our friend's despair to find that the food had traces of gluten requiring her to immediately leave the table.

Now obviously this wasn't a great experience.

When paying the bill we gave the manager our feedback on the poor service, less than great food and the gluten in the food.

The manager listened with patience.

But here is the kicker!

The manager advised us she could give us a 10% discount (we never asked for anything, but probably not charging for the meal with gluten would have been better). We said thank you for the gesture and that we would like to split the bill between the two couples.

The manager’s response was 'I can’t give you the discount if you split the bill'.

And there you have it, this final gesture is reason that I have taken the trouble to...

OMG. Not a good sign when your waitress spills your drink on the table before the food arrives. But, accidents do happen and I let that one go and declined the offer for a replacement. I ordered the king prawns as a starter followed by the Chicken Parma. Literally followed straight after the prawns were served! The 3 prawns were over cooked and over seasoned - let’s say a little chewy. The Parma however was next level bad. The plate was a third chips, a third Parma and a third salad. The positives. The tomatoes in the salad were fresh and nice. The negatives. The Parma was obviously precooked due to the speed it was served, was also over done, dry and had in my opinion been sitting around for some time. The tomato sauce covering it had the consistency and taste of pizza sauce and was covered in mozzarella. No ham or freshly cut tomatoes here. I had to apply force to cut through the Parma, and honestly it could have been used to patch a hole in plasterboard. I gave it a valiant effort but ended up leaving half on my plate. The chips were, you guessed it, overcooked and dry…clearly a theme. It was singularly the worst Parma I have ever been served- and that is some feat! The staff were friendly however, and the manager (owner?) seemed to be very engaged and did the round of the tables - except ours, which might have been a portent of what was to come. I appreciated that in their location they have have a high turn over of customers, but they really do need to lift their game. We ate there because of their high review rating - and that definitely was not reflected in the low standard of food we were served. With so many other choices in Surfers I would...

A few days ago, i went to the restaurant and asked them if i can reserve a table for Saturday night. They said no, they don't do reservations for Saturdays. Please do walk in. So tonight(Saturday me and my friend Went to the restaurant and ask if we can get a table . The waitress looked around. i saw a table with a reservation sign on. I asked her, "Can I sit here? Why would there be a reservation sign? "She said ok and no ideas why is there a reservation sign there. Then we sat down waited for the menu . Another older staff came( middle age with medium hair ) She told us to LEAVE the Venue. We were shocked and she said we removed the reservation sigh and sat down ourselves. We said no,your staff took the reservation sign . She said, "Why would she? "Why? Because she wants to do business and you don't want to. Other customers also witnessed this. So we left. It's okay It doesn't ruin my night but her business ( oh maybe not her business because she looks so grumpy perhaps she just want to quit or sell the business because there's not much business during the weekdays as I saw. )Tonight there's fireworks so more customers came. After 10 minutes I saw more customers leaving this restaurant...all the other restaurants were all full. They don't get much business during the normal days for reasons. There wouldn't be return customers for this ridiculous thing except some tourists . She thinks that I am Asian and my friend is British， could be tourists , but unfortunately, we are locals. I have done thousands Reviews online barely give 1 star ratings but they definitely deserve it. What a waste of the prime location but ridiculous service. Good luck...