Wave Rock Cafe, Hyden WA — Restaurant in Hyden

Housed in a funky space that has the feeling of a place time forgot, the cafe looks promising as you enter. It was lunchtime when we arrived and a single person was working. I made the mistake of thinking that the woodsmoke from the fireplace in the next room was the aroma of grilled food, so we looked at the menu and eagerly ordered a barbecue burger and a sausage roll.

We went outside to sit at tables on the deck overlooking a pond with a black swan paddling about. The tables were dusty and sticky, and the lovely view is a little difficult to see because of the screen windows. I guess this is necessary due to the awful flies in this whole Wave Rock area. A woman who I think was an employee was at another table, sitting there looking at her phone. I asked her if she knew whose the jacket was that was lying on the table where we wanted to sit. She said she didn’t know but that it had been lying there since the day before.

The food arrived in a few minutes. My high expectations were immediately dashed when I picked up the burger, even before it got to my mouth — the bun was cold and hard — and the first bite of the meat was a shocker. The overcooked ground/minced meat was about 50% onion, giving it an un-beef-like texture and a weird whang. The “barbecue” part of the burger was a squirt of commercially prepared sauce. The whole thing was a huge disappointment. The sausage roll was better, but still not great. Again, there was lots of onion as filler in the sausage meat, along with corn.

Sadly, there wasn’t even a beer to wash this down with. We settled for Coke Zero.

We came here because we were waiting to check in at the Wave Rock campground across the street, but we should have driven...

Absolutely disgraceful customer service from one particular employee. Spoke down to and barked orders at her co workers as we entered the Cafe and acted displeased that she had to write our order down while taking our order. We then sat at a table nicely set out not realising it was reserved (no sign), the same lady then yelled from the back of the counter 'Are you the coach for that table?' Once called out on her unprofessionalism, proceeded to storm off into the back slamming doors for the entire cafe to hear. About 5 minutes past and she came back out slamming freezer doors, slamming plates down while preparing our order. We then decided that we did not want the meal, could she please stop preparing it and take the money as a tip. I have never witnessed such horrible service towards tourists. The other staff were lovely and the manager smoothed everything over with great...

Bad experience!

We arrived at 9:30 AM, and the coffee machine was out of order. We were told to wait 15 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 5 minutes… again and again. One hour later, we were finally served a long black and a cappuccino—both of which tasted awful! I mentioned it to the waitress, and she offered me instant coffee instead???

We paid $11 for these disgusting coffees, and the only compensation they offered was powdered coffee… Seriously?

To make things worse, the muffins were dated March 17, even though today is the 24th, and the cookies were far from fresh.

Hopefully, you’ll have better luck...