Red Door Cafe — Restaurant in Sydney

We had the most awful and traumatizing experience here today at lunch. I am also a cafe owner and food writer, so I hate to speak negatively about ANY small business, but the treatment my family received at Red Door today was so unbelievably appalling & disgusting that I need to share it, because I believe diners need to know about how poorly the owner treats their customers.

My elderly parents took me, my husband and my 7-month-old baby here to celebrate my birthday. The food was okay—not worth writing about—but the real issue here was when my parents got up to pay for our meal. They were told by the owner, a blonde lady, that the ATM machine was down and that they needed to walk down the street to withdraw cash. My parents (who are in their 70s) were obviously a bit reluctant and slightly upset because they are old and it was extremely cold and windy outside. Of course, they still did it and went out to go withdraw cash down the road (both of them together because my dad has Parkinsons and needs mum's assistance).

That was when the problems started. The owner stopped them rather rudely and said “only one of you can leave, because you haven’t paid the bill.” (As if these two seniors were about to skip the bill!). She was also completely unapologetic about the fact that the ATM machine was down. We understood that that was NOT her fault (I am a cafe owner myself and I know that these things happen) but it was the cruel way she went about it. Rather than just saying “I understand it’s frustrating, and I’m sorry you have to go out into the cold” (which is what I would have said to my customers) she said (to my 73-year old mum!!!) “It’s not my problem. I'm the one who is inconvenienced here. This is the bank's problem. You need to go out and get cash to pay for your meal."

The words "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" (even just as a courtesy) never left her mouth. She was just so rude and awful to us.

Then it somehow got worse! When my poor dad gets up to leave by himself (I'm at the table holding my fussy 7-month-old so my hands were full) I come up to her, holding my baby, to try to suggest that they should have warned customers in advance that they needed to have cash because the ATM machine was down, and told her she was being unnecessarily rude to my family. For whatever reason, this blonde woman completely lost it and went into a blind fit of rage. She started screaming that I was being rude and that she didn't have to take it (I'm literally holding my 7-month-old baby!). My dad comes in, pays the bill and is very shaken, and says "I think we won't ever come here again," and then she literally screams at us: "Good. I don't want you! Get out of my restaurant!"

If you can imagine a blonde lady screaming at two seniors, a woman and her 7-month-old baby who JUST paid for a meal at her restaurant....

Not to mention just agreed to go out and get cash in the freezing cold! My Dad has Parkinsons for crying out loud. It was just so surreal. I'm still shocked and shaking at what happened, I feel like it was a verbal assault. We are so traumatized, my mum started crying as soon as we left.

It wasn't even the fact that the ATM machine was down! We didn't even care about that. We were so upset at the way she treated her customers, and I was simply trying to explain. Just the nastiest dining experience I've ever had. Customers deserve to know the person who owns this restaurant. I am so deeply disappointed, hurt and traumatized and would never recommend this...

Went here after reading a recommendation from a few years ago from a gf person who raved about the gf bread from a local bakery and their mushroom on toast dish.... which we had every intention of ordering after rave reviews - unfortunately there was no mushroom on toast dish on the menu and their gf bread I noted was made "in-house" not from a local bakery whom I presumed may have been previously Cockatoo Bakery or something like that. The same review said you could even buy the bread but I didn't see any for sale either so my conclusion is that they do not have that gf bread any more. Not knowing this I asked for french toast/strawberries with gf bread and added bacon and my husband had eggs, avo, etc with gf bread. I have to say sadly the bread was really dry and not very nice, especially considering it was soaked in egg, and fried to make french toast and covered in maple syrup so this was really surprising that it could still be so dry after all that but it was a bit difficult to get down it was so dry to be honest. There were also only a few sliced strawberry pieces on the toast - maybe max 2 strawberries which werent large and I thought a bit stingey. The service was lovely though and I was appreciative of the fact that they made a gf version of a dish that wasn't gf on the menu for me as well. My husband also mentioned that he didn't like his bread at all but the rest was Ok. So my only negative mention would be that the gf bread is not good and perhaps they should return to the local bakery gf bread that they were previously using if it had such rave reviews. Unfortunately due to the gf bread the food lost a star. The coffee however was perfect and delicious, we both had second cups. I will return for sure as the atmosphere is lovely, we sat outside in the sunshine in a shady spot on a hot day and it was really a lovely little spot, indoors was nice too but on such a lovely day outside in the shade was the only place to be. The coffee was great, we just wouldn't order anything again that consisted of the gf bread I'm afraid and hopefully if they read this they will look into better gf bread as there is so much out there now available its such a shame and I hate doing negative reviews. We will definitely return for a coffee next time we frequent Leura its a great little...

THE WORST CAFE IN THE WORLD

I had breakfast at The Red Door last Sunday. Unfortunately my experience here consisted of extremely poor food service, very rude condescending staff, and general a lack of culinary ability.

Our waitress made a half attempt at cleaning our table for us, however it was still filthy and disgusting with food stains all over the table cloth and crumbs all over the place. She did not make any attempt to return and finish the job (despite the cafe being barely half full) and after 10 minutes waiting we had to call her over to clean the rest of the mess. She then wiped a few more crumbs off and said "sorry we are out of clean tablecloths so this is all we can do" We had to fold the table cloth over ourselves to make it seem somewhat clean. Once our meals arrived, my friend meal was incorrect, and my meal had a DISGUSTING BALL OF HAIR in with the mushrooms. Another waitress arrived and made the excuse of "oh no that's just a herb or something" and she went back to the kitchen with the meal, returning with the even worse excuse of "oh it's actually just some kind of fibre from the mushroom". As I have worked in restaurants with my family my whole life, I know what herbs or "mushroom fibres" look like. This was 100% HAIR in my food. Even worse is that this tight ball of matted hair perfectly matched the filthy dreadlocked hair of one of the kitchen staff behind the counter. My replacement meal I chose a simple plate of toast, avocado and tomato. They had the audacity to charge me $20 for this, no apologies at all. After all of this terrible experience, I realised I had left my sunglasses in the Cafe and after asking a waitress if she had seen them, she laughed "sorry honey! Haven't seen them"

I will not be returning to this joke of a Cafe ever again, and will be recommending that my friends find a meal somewhere else in Leura for sure. I had hoped for a nice breaksfast but it turned into a nightmare. This is the worst cafe I have ever been...