Depot Cafe — Restaurant in Kempsey

Usually the cafe is okay, the coffee is burnt but drinkable and the food is substandard but you go to enjoy the view of the river. Today when I went, I ordered for my mother and I, when my aunt arrived ten minutes later to join us she was refused service (she only wanted a coffee) because it was “too busy” (this was at 10:20 AM) and so my aunt was expected to just watch us eat and drink. The poor girl on the register was expected to convey this unprofessional message on her first day while the barista refused service. So unprofessional, so sorry to the girl on the register who probably had the worst first shift of her life. Everyone was cranky, they will have lost several customers.

Edit: The response I was given was super disappointing. Sorry if it wasn’t her first shift, I am more than okay with people I training which is why I empathised with her in my review. It’s poor business to insinuate that I should have been okay with a super poor experience because of training (also, either they’ve done several shifts with you or their training and need to be given some slack, not both.) My issue was with the refusal of service (which everyone was upset about, I actually had a conversation with another woman at a different cafe after we were refused service who was also very displeased by this, several people were refused service when the rest of their party had already ordered.) Perhaps a manager should have been on to give these poor young girls some direction. Of course people have to train, that isn’t my issue. My issue is that they were seemingly thrown to the wolves and were all very stressed because of the situation they’d been put in. Your response should have been, I’m sorry for your experience, no one likes a defensive review. I don’t want you to berate your barista unless they were the manager but they were young, it just seems as though you put a bunch of inexperienced people and trainees on a busy day with no managerial support which led to this situation. Disappointing service with an even more...

We have been here before and have had a lovely experience each time...until today 15th May 2021, when we encountered the rudeness of your store manager Zoe. Customer service is not her speciality. We found her quite rude when we arrived in store at 11.55am and were quite rudely told that they were no longer offering lunch as the store shuts at 1pm and there was a 30min delay on serving lunches....mmmm I believe that makes it lunch served at 12.25pm which makes it well before 1pm? So we settled for a turkish roll from the "allowed foods after 12pm" cabinet. Lunch itself was great and the customer service of the other two staff was fantastic and to the level that customer service in a small town should be. Zoe, please do not just reach over your customer eating their lunches and grab the plate that you assume has been finished, remove it then ask have you finished?....very rude and shocking etiquette my dear. And we were not the only ones that you did this too. To the store owner of Depot Cafe, please re-think your choice of store manager. As a manager myself, your store manager is a representation of your brand as well as a role model...

Today I visited the Depot Cafe to grab lunch. Their specials board was advertising a Beef Pot Pie with fries - sounds good I thought.

I waited 10-12 mins to be handed my order. I saw the lady cook the fires and put something into the microwave oven not realizing it was mine.

I returned to my office open my only to see soggy fries, a plastic container with what looked more like a beef stew and some sort of crispy pastry.

The beef stew was tasty although obviously was frozen and reheated in the microwave.

I paid $16.95, I won’t go back again, it was not a pot pie. Check...