Sunny's Margate Beach — Restaurant in Greater Brisbane

Beware before you book! We are local residents and have tried Sunny’s a handful of times and have found management to be arrogant and staff unhelpful.

This time a family member decided to travel to us to celebrate Fathers Day and made an online booking for the rooftop terrace. Our group was 15+ people and we paid the $200 deposit to secure the spot.

No sooner have we arrived for our midday booking than the manager arrives to tell us this is an 18+ venue and we need to leave because we have kids with us.

The kids ages 4, 9, 15 and 17 are supervised by 8 adults including the parents and grandparents to celebrate Fathers Day. Yes Fathers Day where you kindof expect there will be kids right?!

So the Manager proceeds to tell us kids are allowed downstairs but they’re fully booked so can’t accomodate our group due to the the size. Basically take your kids home, you can’t stay on the terrace and there’s no space in the restaurant. It’s 12.05pm on Father’s Day.

She then launches into the online form and the final tick box that says it’s an 18+ venue. My sister in law who made the booking is embarrassed thinking maybe she’s messed up and everyone in our group is upset. My husband says fine he’s leaving and he’s taking our kids home so the adults and grandparents can stay. Yes still Father’s Day but he’s not feeling it. I say I’ll go and all the time the Manager is watching the chaos she has created unfold with zero sympathy for our family. So we point out the other 2 children at tables on the rooftop terrace. We explain that no-one from management called as a courtesy to firm-up hey, it’s Fathers Day do you have kids joining you? Eventually the manager concedes we can stay as the other parents at other tables are now overhearing and also in a state joining in saying they’re not leaving. So that’s 3 families that are upset.

Now I’ve had time to read the fine print for the online booking form and children are allowed at the venue provided they are supervised by a guardian which ours were.

I’m stumped how you can present the terrace as the ideal venue for baby showers and family gatherings if you don’t want children to be in attendance. All the babyshowers I’ve been to there are kids everywhere that’s the demographic of family gatherings, most families have kids so give the full picture.

You don’t want kids you need to advertise as an adults only venue. That’s fine but be honest with your marketing.

All of the angst my family went through yesterday could have been avoided by management reading their own T&Cs added in the photos and also a bit of customer service and common sense would go a long way. Fathers Day, Mothers Day, Babyshowers which you promote on your site there will be kids!!

Big bookings make a courtesy call to check and better still instead of relying on an asterisk in your fine print make this really prominent in your marketing before you collect $200 from your clients and then ruin their day when you try kick them out as they arrive.

My husband is a patient and kind man but really 5 mins more of everyone arguing he would have taken my kids and left and ruined the day for our entire family. It was totally unnecessary and should never have happened.

Sunny’s you have the location, you have a family-orientated community that wants to love and support local business. Try harder because the peninsula is no longer a retirement village it’s younger families and yes we have kids!! They are not ordering drinks at the bar they’re sitting enjoying lunch with their parents as they would at the Belvedere, the Ox, Redcliffe tavern - these venues also have bars and policies that children under 18 need to be supervised by a guardian.

C’mon do better cause seriously yesterday left a really really bad taste...

Worst dining experience on the peninsula!! Would literally spend my money anywhere else but here. Average food and rude staff. We went here on Monday the 1st of February for mum's birthday, she was looking forward to it so much and raved about the place as she dined there 3 weeks earlier. When we got to Sunny's we queued at the bar to only be told by the manager that " you're in the wrong spot, go stand over there." So we waited by the front door she came over and said "I'll seat you at your table and tell you how it works." She hastily led us to the table and just dropped the menus on the table and walked away. So we figured we would order drinks and entrees at the bar. Ordered drinks for 4 people and the bar staff managed to pour beer into a schooner and not a pint as ordered. I went back to the bar to rectify the problem. The entrees were so underwhelming, we ordered six of them and they very all average, a special mention to the Buffullo wings; the chicken was old and had been cooked earlier that day and tasted like it had been refried and the sizes of the wings was a joke, there was no meat on them just hot sauce. We ordered mains and it took a about 40minutes for the mains to come out. When the mains were delivered I asked why it took so long and the waitress said "we have a VIP event on so we have been very busy and had to priorities meals." There was some sort of "Australia's Amazing Race" event on and the only other patrons dining there were 3 families including us.. if you think that's busy I don't know how this restaurant copes during weekends when I assume it would actually be busy. Anyway the Beer Battered fish and pan fried fish both came out at room temperature, probably sat on the pass for too long, the fries were actually cold. We told the waitress and she replaced them for more cold fries. Food was extremely average and so overpriced for what we got. They also bought out mum's birthday cake without clearing the table, that was just appalling, didn't even say anything just shoved it in front of her. The manager didn't seem to care at all, I can relate to other reviews that mentioned that they felt like a bother being there and staff lacked basic customer service. At one point of the night the manager was clearing the table behind us and was asking the young girl at the table if she wanted a job cause they are desperate for staff.. who does that?! The manager and her staff may have not realized that their words and actions just cost future business at Sunny's. We are locals and work on the peninsula. I work in hospitality and trust me people talk and word of mouth is just as, if not more powerful than posting a...

I wanted to share a few thoughts about today's lunch experience. I had reserved a table for five inside the restaurant, but upon arrival, there was some confusion regarding our booking. Eventually, the young lady who greeted us resolved the issue. However, it was a bit frustrating and unprofessional to have to wait. Initially, she offered us a table outside, but I declined, considering how windy and cold it was outdoors. I had specifically booked an indoor table for that reason. Regarding our food orders, my oldest adult daughter complained that the chicken in her chicken Caesar salad was very dry, and there wasn't enough red sauce on my chicken parmigiana. Other than that, everything else was fine. This was our first family outing as a group of five in your café restaurant. Unfortunately, the overall experience is not one that would make me want to dine here again. Additionally, my youngest adult daughter received the wrong order. She had ordered the prawn sliders but was served prawn tacos instead. The waitress even tried to convince her that these were the new sliders, which my daughter found amusing. However, she insisted on getting what she had originally ordered, so the waitress took back the incorrect order. Later, my daughter realized that she might not have ordered enough food given the small portions, so she accepted both the prawn tacos and the prawn sliders. When the waitress returned with the prawn tacos, she apologized and admitted it was a kitchen error. It was frustrating that she initially provided an incorrect explanation. Considering the greeting, the dry chicken, the lack of red sauce, the mix-up in orders, and the strange explanation for the incorrect order, we doubt that we will return to dine here in the future. We dine out 2 or 3 times a week and have a good sense of what's acceptable. While I could have overlooked one or two issues, the combination of these problems, including being moved from our original inside table just as we were about to order, was a bit too much...