The Grounds Keeper Cafe — Restaurant in Sydney

The cafe is in an absolutely stunning location. The meals were ok, they had potential, but fell down on execution.

I tried the super breakfast. It was basically like a salad, drenched in liquid with poached eggs placed on top. The produce was fresh and looked great but in the end, after cutting the eggs open, I was left with a bowl full of liquid egg and salad dressing.

That said, if it wasn't covered in dressing/oil/whatever it was, it would have been a lovely dish. My friends had bacon and egg rolls and really enjoyed them.

A bit about the organisation...

Lovely woman greeted and sat our group. Didn't take long to take our orders, even though it was busy. When we were almost finished our meals and our drinks hadn't arrived, my friend went to chase them up. We were told they were on their way. No problem. It's busy, we get it. Had to ask again. And then they finally came out in the sequence of: coffee, five minute wait, ask another waiter, one Coke, another waiter, second Coke.

I don't really get it. You had plenty of staff rostered on. It shouldn't take two waitstaff to organise a couple of Cokes and one coffee. I get that you need to serve take-away coffee customers too, but at what cost? I don't mind waiting. We weren't in a hurry. But surely your customers who are dining in are important too?

Paying was another adventure. After we paid to eat in, I was directed outside to queue up with the take-away customers purchasing coffees and ice creams. Bit weird.

Sort out the organisational issues and this cafe would...

My sister went here once and told us the food is nice so we decided to try it out. By the end of the day she had to apologise to us for bringing us there.

When we got there, the place was busy. We were told we had to wait 10-15 minutes for a table, and we said okay. This turned out to be a 45 mins wait. When we were told the table was ready, we were brought to a table with dirty dishes on it, and a staff member had to rush to clean it and we had to wait again.

Five minutes after being seated, we were asked to move to another table because the table we were sitting at was to be given to another group. Why did we get that table in the first place then instead of the second table?

After ordering, the food did not come out even after 30mins of wait. We asked a staff member about it and was told it would take another 10 minutes, which ended up being 20 minutes.

Fifteen minutes into our meal, the one who asked us to move tables came up to us and said there is a booking at 12pm so we had to get out in 15 mins. Note that most of us still have about half of our food on the plate. We would have appreciated it more if they had told us beforehand, instead of just kicking us out like that.

We got there around 10am and got out at 12pm, and only had 25 minutes to eat. It was a memorable experience, but for all the...

We came here for breakfast after looking for somewhere to eat and reading the reviews. Unfortunately when we walked in, no one greeted us even though there was only 2 other seated tables and we had no idea whether to get our own menus, if it was table service or ordering at the counter etc. We ended up getting menus from the front and sat at a table. After I while they gave us some water and I noticed a waitstaff taking an order at the table so we waited, but no one came to take ours so we went up the front. Later I realized the table that ordered might have been the owner, as the staff got a talking to later on. My coffee arrived in a cup even though I asked for a take away cup, but nonetheless the coffee was really good. We had bacon and egg rolls which were also quite good. The kids pancakes priced at $11.50 weren’t that great as they didn’t have that much flavour and were a little too thick, they would be better a bit flatter and fluffy. Overall the cafe has a great position with a park right out the front but they need to work on their customer service, greeting customers and letting them know what happens, e.g. take a seat, we will come and take your order etc. It would go a long way to improving the experience...