Urban Espresso Lounge — Restaurant in New South Wales

Our sandwiches first took 45 minutes to arrive, but containing gluten, despite us explicitly ordering their ‘gluten free option’ as we have serious medical issues with gluten, especially our allergic 3 year old son. Fortunately we guessed by the look of the bread before anyone ate any, and thus avoided getting sick!!! The wait staff couldn’t answer whether there was gluten in our food or not, and seemed nonplussed. So we asked them to take it back to the kitchen for clarification. We then heard nothing for ages and had to go chase it ourselves which took another round or waiter / kitchen communication until - over an hour after our order was first placed - we finally got confirmation that they were now making us the dishes we had ordered. Our good tasting gf food arrived 10 minutes later (woot!) to 2 very sugar crashing young kids and 2 adults anxious to get back on our (now delayed) road trip. We understand mistakes happen, but this went too far. The slow food was only kicked off in the kitchen initially after prompting from us, having ‘slipped through the cracks’. Then, from the time we worked out the gluten problem, communication was terrible. Finally, no one offered any apology for nearly ‘poisoning’ our family. When we finally settled up, no apology or recompense gesture (ie discount, or even removal of gf ‘surcharge’) was offered, furthering the feeling that there was no care or acknowledgement of the degree of poor service. At the end I went back to check the table code for review and our initial waitress asked how everything had been. When I told her our experience she did apologise, which I appreciated, although before doing so she made it sound like they’d been doing us a favour by making gf food, even though we had only ordered items their menu listed as ‘gf option available’ and had paid the applicable surcharge. Overall very anxiety inducing...

Avoid like the plague unless you have an iron stomach and the area looks to have more than 5 visitors, seems like they can't handle more than 10 customers at one time. Was seated (table for 2 at breakfast time) and NOT forewarned about any wait but did overhear it being told to the table next to us that there was about a 20 minute wait. Ordered 2 coffees and 2 meals. Coffee took about half hour alone and when it arrived was barely lukewarm. Meals took a further 45 minutes to arrive (over 1 hour since ordering)! Eggs Benedict (or florentine as they called them) were basically hard boiled eggs and the sourdough it came on was so over toasted it barely be cut even with a steak type knife. Ate it anyway because by this time it was nearly lunch time and I was starving. When the above was mentioned when going to pay we barely even got an apology and still had to pay full price for a meal that a 5yo could have cooked better! To top it all off we were on our way back to Central coast and had to rush to find a bathroom before even making it to Macksville we felt so unwell. Getting a pie from the service station would be considered gourmet when compared to this place

Addit in response to owner response: we did not eat there on Monday, that is simply when I posted the review. This 'experience' was from Wednesday 26th Feb, the morning after the first Elton John...

Sat down and ordered. Female server was ok, gave us water etc, which is a bonus. Ordered. Place was not very busy, like to look at. Lot's of empty tables. Ordered a macchiato, which came as an expresso. Ok, was nice. Then breakfast came. Ordered hard eggs and bacon. Told server eggs to be well cooked. Like WELL COOKED. They came runny. The bacon was cold, other tables were complaining and we overheard the same issue, food is cold. I ordered the toasted sandwhich, ham, cheese and tomato. Again no filling. Must be a ham shortage? Sandwhich was cold and tasteless. The bacon I took off off my partner's plate was just cold and gluggy to the palate. I told the lady at the counter and was told, I will tell the chef. I stated other's we can overhear with the same problem. I love a good meal but i could cook a better breakfast than this in an air fryer. Never will return and latest comments support this. Oh the meals took 29 minutes with no apology or delay. Empty...