Andaman Thai Restaurant — Restaurant in New South Wales

I have been a long time customer of Andaman's. We started when they were in Thirroul, then with Shellharbour when we moved here in 2015. The bulk of that time we have had nothing but praise & had many birthday's there, however this weekend trend has been ongoing for the last few years & seems to only be getting worse. It's making it very difficult to want to come back again. I would assume many others have made that call over similar experiences.

Sunday to Thursday everything is great. However Friday & Saturday nights are often out of control. You can wait up to an hour longer than the suggested pick up time for take-aways & in general you can wait outside for up to 30 minutes in line just to pay & collect your order.

The same applies to the sit down guests. The guests waiting outside can't come in until the guests inside have paid & leave. But they can't pay because there is a massive queue at the front counter.

This is all further complicated when there is only one person trying to manage all of those customer interactions. Each of those interactions are rather lengthy as (& I mean this will all due respect), the lady usually performing that role has really poor English.

Just this past Saturday night, there would have been 50 people waiting during the time I was waiting to pay for my take-away that would be seriously debating whether to come back. They all add up when it's happening each week.

Perhaps there is a case to install a 2nd payment terminal & hire additional staff so there is more than 1 person managing all the take away orders & sit down guests on those busy nights. Alternatively, don't take on so many take away orders, or give realistic waiting times. Telling a customer their take away will be 60-90 minutes is much safer than saying 30, then making them wait 30-60 minutes outside the front door. Which on Saturday was...

Horrible experience. The Manager who had an appearance was female, short hair on 24 December 2023 about midday completely ruined our Christmas. We arrived with our baby to the restaurant. First the waitress was amazing and took our orders and got a baby chair. Soon after the manager on the day was completely angry that we had our pram in the restaurant even though the restaurant was less than 20 % filled. Every person that came into the restaurant she was loudly asking them table for two and giving us filthy looks about the pram as if to say, we are blocking the way. She asked us that she will move the pram to the back of the store. As a goodwill gesture, we agreed even though we had baby essentials on the pram. Not long after, she came to our table again asking us in an irate tone, you not drinking wine so that she can remove the wine Glasses, which made sense. Than after a short time again, she came next to our table looking at me and my wife we complete anger. We were shocked that she was treating us this way. Anyways, we ignored it. Soon after we had placed our baby on a baby chair and moved a chair from table that was not occupied behind the baby chair. The Manager again came and moved the chair with anger and disregard, and was very disrespectful. We were again shocked that she was treating us this way and how a reputable business can be so non baby friendly. I really recommend everyone to stay away from this restaurant. The waitresses all agreed that that the manager was rude and apologised on her behalf. Not sure how a manager can be so bad hearted during Christmas. She didn't even apologise....

We were reckoned by locals to try Andaman.The restaurant was busy & if you know you are at full capacity, it would be courteous to let customers know that there is a 1hr wait from when you place your order and received your 1st entres that way people time limited for example organised babysitting can decide if they have the time to wait. But not here. They kept taking more people in, not notifying anyone that they're way behind on orders coming out. Staff even had us move from one table to another awkward spot that was very uncomfortable so they could accommodate more people to come in. We arrived at 650pm, and by 720pm, staff finally took our order(after asking twice to take our order). 40 minutes after receiving my order, we finally received 1 of 2 entres that we ordered. People who came in after us( with a group of 6) now have received all the entres. Its now 8pm and only one entre. Now I had no choice but to ask if we could leave as it was taking way too long, I paid for my drinks and left. Food might have been great, but I'll never know. At that stage, I was so annoyed at the fact that they kept taking more people in but not servicing the customers that were already in the establishment. Very, very disappointing. Thanks for ruining my date night with my amazing wife. Stay away if it looks...