Kickin'Inn Crows Nest — Restaurant in Sydney

I would rather not assign any stars, but Google doesn't allow me to do that. Yesterday, on April 12, 2024, I received extremely disrespectful service from a woman named Shayana at the front desk. I doubt she's being truthful about her name or something else. She told me that this is her name. At around 6:45 PM, we would like to place an order but they can no longer serve rice. She has enough rice for just 4 people, but I require 7 servings for my family. She explained that since you arrived without a reservation, you should understand that all the restaurants require bookings. She educated me about this! You can only enjoy rice in our kitchen if you make a reservation for the day! We can't cook the rice any longer because you haven't booked with us! I told her that I visited Petersham and Parramatta Kickiin, and I had no issues at all; the staff treated customers with friendliness and kindness. She mentioned that she also works there and needs to make a reservation, while giving me a look as if I can't afford it. She exhibits racism towards Asians, even though she is Asian also. She gazes at my husband and me as if we are begging for charity! Why is this woman so incredibly rude? I don't know if your boss is aware or not! Why does the boss allow this lady to work here? She causes so much trouble and is extremely rude! She treats white people very well, but when it comes to us Asians, she looks at us as if we are begging for charity and serves us like we're dogs in need of food. She refuses to serve us because we haven't made a reservation! We can also tally the number of customers, and it's not too many to count on your fingers! Every customer in the restaurant can witness our fight! She deceived us by claiming the restaurant was too busy! It's impossible for the restaurant to cook the rice when you still have over 2 hours of operation left. She did not suggest any alternatives or find a solution when she mentioned that she cannot serve rice for more than 4 people. She cannot deceive customers as we desire charity! After she argued with me and my husband, we decided to go to Zetland Kickiin because my family had just arrived from overseas and wanted to eat. Her service was very unhelpful and disrespectful! While we speak, she speaks too! What the heck! We request to speak with her boss, but she continues to speak as if everything she says is true. We feel unhappy with her treatment of us, so we want to reach out to her boss, but she declines to make the call. After finishing everything, we head directly to the Zetland Kickiin for dinner! I experienced such a warm and friendly welcome there, even without a reservation! I explained everything that occurred at the Crows Nest branch, and they were shocked because she really can't deceive customers like that! They feel really bad and upset about the incident that happened to us. We are extremely pleased with the service at Zetland, while Crows Nest treats us in a...

Genuinely you're lucky that the food is so good because after a great experience in the past at the Petersham restaurant, this level of service was quite frankly appalling. There was no table for us ready on arrival and two staff having a chat whilst 2 large tables required cleaning, so we were seated upstairs - no big deal. The rest of our group arrived maybe 5min later and staff were confused as to if we'd asked to sit upstairs out of choice despite having JUST seated us. Reservation was for 7:30pm, we had a staff member come to take at least a drinks order within about 15min but she was "not allowed" (assume not 18/no rsa) and would send someone up. No one came. Not a soul came to check on us for a good 20min so we flagged the guy running food who said he'd send someone our way. Our order was finally taken at approx 8.05pm or so and at no point were we provided with any cutlery, bowls, crackers or napkins/wet wipes as we had been at other branches. We received our food at about 8:30pm and it's worth noting the restaurant was far from packed, being that they close at 9pm. We had to ask MULTIPLE times again for crackers (for mud crab that was otherwise not possible to eat), napkins and so on. Staff cleaned up around us but we were otherwise ignored until exit where they all acted like absolutely nothing was wrong with how the evening went.

It genuinely pains me to say all this as we all have visited other branches of Kickin Inn before and were so excited to come back, but in all my years of both working in and visiting hospitality venues, this was some of the weakest service my friends and I have ever received. Please up your standards and train staff better as the food is truly fantastic and it's such a let down for...

After always wanting to try seafood bags and crabs, we decided to pay a visit at Kickin'Inn at Crows Nest.

We walked in on a Saturday afternoon without a reservation and still got seated promptly.

After being seated they were quick to explain the menu, the varieties of seafood and the sauces. The waitress even gave us a solid recommendation in regards to what to order and what sauce matched the best with our seafood.

They had 7 sauces available, I believe? And in regards to all those options you can decide the spiciness level.

After ordering the food came out within 20m of ordering, at that time the restaurant was filling up as well.

Our seafood bag contained: Blue swimmer crabs, mussels, prawns, potatoes and eggs. We chose the famous Kick'Inn sauce with a mild spiciness level and found it to be perfect.

All seafood was cooked perfectly and the flavours were punchin'. As a side we ordered a garden salad, which was a nice compliment to the flavour of the sauce. (Many people ordered fries with it as well, we didn't)

Service wise: the ladies had everything under control and were quick to serve and seat customers. The only thing they were "a little slow" on was clearing the tables. Yet with the amount of seafood waste, that is quite understandable.

Both waitresses were really kind, had their tables under control and made sure that everything was okay throughout the seating as well.

We absolutely loved this experience, Kick'Inn Crows Nest really made my first seafood bag a great experience.

At the end of your seating they give you an A3 sized QR code to scan and rate your experience.

We would definitely come back again!

(Bill was a...