Hog's Breath Cafe Springfield — Restaurant in Ipswich City

I dined at hog's breath cafe on Friday 1st September with my husband for a personal celebration as we usually do because we love a good steak.

We arrived at 6:20pm and were seated. 20 minutes went by and no one came over to check if we were ready to order drinks or food, so my husband had to go to the bar to order drinks.

At 6:45pm, a lady came over to take our food order, we placed our order for food and had to check on our drinks at the same time as they had not arrived yet. We were then given our drinks 5 minutes later.

At 7:15pm, I had to get up and ask someone at the computer if they could check on our entree (garlic bread) as we had ordered 30 minutes ago. Another 15 minutes later, we finally received our garlic bread.

Just before this, my husband was fed up and had gone to speak to the manager who didn't seem too apologetic but told him she would get us a drink on her while we waited some more. When the drinks were delivered, we were then told she had spoken to the kitchen to start our mains.

We finally received our main meals at 7:35pm. Within 2 minutes of receiving our meals, we were asked if the meals were all good, we answered that they had just arrived. At the same time, we asked if we could please get the dessert order through because we did not want to wait any longer. Our dessert then arrived at 7:55pm.

Shortly after, we finished dessert and went to the counter. The manager asked how the meals were once they finally arrived which we answered the food was good, but the service was not. She proceeded to tell us that "as long as the meals were good, that's all that matters" and proceeded to show us our bill of $98.95 which we disappointingly paid and walked out.

I've never had a bad experience at any hog's breath until tonight. The saddest part is I've always had an experience where the service is sometimes too good that you must ask the waiter/waitress to come back in a few minutes because you're still looking at the menu but that was not the case tonight. Mind you it wasn't absolutely busting with people and there was more than enough staff on to manage the number of customers in the restaurant.

There were a few tables of people who arrived after us and seemed to get served quite quickly that they received their meals before us.

I will not recommend hog's breath Springfield and don't see...

Started off great, welcomed in, shown to our table no issues. Then it started, 2 requests at table water from 2 different waiters, eventually came. Time to order, waiter was fairly prompt on this which was good. Ordered two kids meals. 1 kids cheeseburger and 1 crumbed calamari. Nachos are a favourite of mine and when the description says dare to try for one, or share it (along those lines) well, ill dare to go alone, assuming it was quite a challenge for 1 to eat. I'm a solid 6"3 bloke and couldn't back down thinking it would be enough to share aswell should anyone else want to pick at it. To accompany that, we also ordered 1 whole Hogg burger and 1 crispy chicken ceaser wrap. Wait time on the food wasn't too bad. Kids meals came out first. Kids cheeseburger - exactly what it says, a patty and a slice of cheese... no sauce, butter on bun - nothing. Of course my young fella tucked in and said it was ok however i could see him looking for some form of moisture to help it down. Very dry. Accompanied by the all famous curly fries which lacked in flavour. Next was the calamari - 5 "crumbed" rings and curly fries... again, extremely bland and no seasoning on either what so ever. I tried a piece of ring and all I could taste was oil. There is positives, the crispy chicken ceaser wrap looked and tasted very nice, the curly fries, these things need a special herb and spice to lift them up, they brought it down. The whole Hogg burger, this did not disappoint, equivalent to the Aussie "the lot burger", well it had the lot. Delicious! The real let down came in the nachos. A small bowl came out and I looked puzzled. How was this a "dare to try alone" dish, the 5 calamari rings and fries looked like a supersize meal compared to this pitiful nacho dish. The flavour was nice however that was it. There needs to be an adjustment to the menu, false advertising at its finest. Everything was finished that was ordered, not hard as there wasn't much on each plate. For the prices charged, I'd expect more bang for my buck. To top it all off, I went to pay and not one person asked how everything was, probably for the best at this stage. I reluctantly reached for my card and paid the price. I'm sorry, however this experience has lost me...

Turned up at 4:50pm, restaurant was basically empty, seated at our table no worries at all, and then we were just totally forgotten about. We seriously waited so long to place an order that my wife and I were starting to think about what else was in the area we could eat instead, and contemplating walking out without ever ordering. Watching the person who seated us seat other people and then take their orders 5mins later while we haven’t even placed drink orders yet. Just absolutely absurd.

After staring down and waving at staff just to get someone’s attention for what felt like an age we did finally place an order for two prime ribs and some cocktails, and will admit, the food came quite fast, was hot and fresh, and tasted pretty decent. The prime rib was definitely not worth the near $50 price tag it came with. But that’s where the good stops. The staff’s common sense to sit a couple in the birthday party area right before huge groups are about to turn up was just great. Read the room guys. We gave up on conversation not long after because it was just so loud and the staff couldn’t care less about the kids running around and just being generally obnoxious. We know its a family friendly restaurant, but seriously, do you actually think its a good idea to seat a couple in the literal birthday party area when you know you have parties on that very evening?

We wanted dessert, but do you think someone came back to clear the table and ask? It’s almost as if they knew they had some big parties / groups and they didn’t really care if we were even attended to, let alone making sure they did hospitality basics like asking how the food is and if we want drink refills. We didn’t even get a bill we just took note of the table number and walked to the front counter, paid, and left. No one asked if we had a good experience or how everything was. Seriously, your staff don’t care at all for the job they have.

Absolutely shocking hospitality, customer service was literally non existent, holy crap go back to the drawing board and just do better. Don’t expect to ever see me back in there again. 35 years of Hog’s Breath and I don’t see it making it to 36 if this is...