The Cardamom Pod — Restaurant in Gold Coast City

We went to this place for a Sunday brekky. The meal was absolutely amazing, both delicious and very well-presented. Beautiful! No one can deny that. The coffee was also great. My experience with staff and service, however, was the other way around. I had heard a lot about this cafe, until I decided to drive all the way down from Brissie to GC to give it a shot. We ordered two meals: a “Summer Pod B.I.G Brekky” (was wonderful) and one of their famous “Smoothie Bowls” (never received). Received the first meal (the big brekky) in less than 10 minutes which was very nice and appreciable. After waiting for almost another 20 minutes, as we didn’t receive the bowl, we politely asked one of the staff members about it. She went to check it for us. No one came back for another 5-7 minutes. Looked for her. It appeared that the staff were talking about this in the back but no one wanted to come and describe! Then when tried to find her and see what was going on with the food, she said that they didn’t even have that order in the kitchen. Then, “silence”, then she said that she could get it started now. By that time, we had shared the the first meal and it was close to be finished! and we were really frustrated by them neglecting us. I said: “no thank you, please cancel that, as we have already waited for a long time and that the first meal has been almost finished”. When eating out I believe all the meals should arrive at the same time or in maximum 2-3 minutes difference. She only said, “ok!” and left. I was 100% sure that we ordered the bowl, we had even asked for a suggestion from the person who took the order. I have no problem with such mistakes, as anyone can make a mistake and miss/forget something. However, her silence towards another staff’s mistake wasn’t acceptable. When paying the bill, another staff asked us whether we were the ones that didn’t receive our meal completely?! we said “Yeah”. I was expecting a very short apology for their mistake. But another “silence”! she smiled and told us the amount we had to pay. Guys I was too excited about your cafe. But my experience wasn’t...

UPDATE: After my initial Review, I was extremely impressed with the response I received from Keshava. We dropped back in one afternoon with my family. We were greeted politely and taken to a table, the service was fantastic. The Buddha Bowl was a hit, and we will be back soon to get the weekend's special GF French Toast.

ORIGINAL POST: We usually have a great time at Cardamom and have always loved their food. I travel 35 minutes for their gluten-free French toast on weekends until now. This morning, we ordered our coffees and, once finished, ordered our crepe and French toast. After the four tables that came after us had all received their food, we asked one of the male waitstaff if he could check on our order. It had been 40 minutes at this point and the boy came back to us along with a lady who seemed to be the manager for the day and said what’s going on?, we explained what had happened when the waitress came over to say it was her fault, she forgot to put our order through. We were told it looked like we were finished because we were holding hands from the manager and that’s why no one checked on us. Apart from the waitress the “manager” did not apologise and i’m not sure why she even bothered to say “it looked like you were done?”and we walked out. Usually the weekday staff are great and there is a gentleman who manages. This “manager” came across as if we were the ones who were in the wrong somehow and had a rude look towards us, this caused us to be upset and not want to stay or return. I hope the owner can see this to avoid it reoccurring and loosing another customer. The manager also had our mobile as we had already waited for a table. We would have felt differently if we had an apology or her attitude was different towards the issue as we...

I am an interstate visitor, and was keen to try out the famous Cardamon Pod when I visited family recently! Food looked great, very ambient atmosphere, but disjointed customer service really frustrated me. We came in about 3:30 pm on a Thursday, and were told to take a seat and we will attend to you soon. Very few other customers were in the area, and we expected to be seen promptly. About 15 minutes later (!!) a young girl came to see us and said, sorry, the kitchen is closed from 3:30 pm. What? We knew that it was open until 4:30 pm that day. Fair enough for the exhausted chefs, but nothing was mentioned about this when we walked in. So the girl said she would talk to the chefs or manager about the situation, and we heard them talking loudly about us coming in too late, and then no-one came to talk to us. We could see them hiding up the back, busying themselves with something else. Very strange!! So we walked out. I came back to talk to the receptionist, and meanwhile saw others being served some food. I have been a vegan for 37 years, and teach whole food vegan cooking and nutrition in the community, so have experienced many vegan eateries over the years. You may have a great concept there, but I won't be recommending anyone to visit you until customer service improves. Let people know what's going on with food closure times, and be AWARE of...