Waterside Bistro - waterfront cafe — Restaurant in Sydney

Certainly a busy cafe. Booked a table for 2 on a Sunday at 12:45. Table was ready on our arrival. I was surprised though that the plastic blinds were down on the outside deck blocking a beautiful view on a glorious sunny 21 deg day and no wind at all. Really no apparent excuse for them being down... all the tables on the outer board walk were happily taken with customers basking in the sun, so not sure why the blinds were down.

Decided to order "like a human" as they say rather than the app. Service was nicely fast, we ordered 2 single seafood platters @ $35 each.

Initial visual experience when delivered was that it was pretty much dumped on the plate with no forethought to presentation. I wish I took a photo! Tho there is one in the reviews from another guest. I understand busyness and the kitchen needing to get orders out (having worked the restaurant industry for 20 years with very busy service times) however no wow factor in the presentation nor from what I saw on surrounding tables. I saw the kitchen and the restrictions however its easy enough to have the right equipment to present food as it is to simply put on a plate.

At $35 for the platter it was not good value... the service was ok for a busy cafe. However empty plates left in front of us for over 40 min and still there when we left... they need to have a designated staff member to bus tables.. I'm willing to give my expertise as I've managed properties in Canada, Fiji, Australia and more.. Lots of places rely on the views and what they call the experience to justify prices without offering the calibre of food and service to match.

This is a money making machine sadly without the ability to bring changes to better their...

My wife and I went for lunch at “The waterside Bistro” at Bobbin Head. To say it was the worst dining experience we have ever had is being polite. It took over 1 hour to receive our food and was also following 20 minutes of complaining to the staff that it had not arrived. We watched while 4 table of diners, who arrived after us, were serviced their food. The excuse was that the docket to the kitchen kept getting lost due to a computer issues. Why us? I suggested to the young staff member that when the system failed you go manual, write it down and give it to the kitchen to action. She seemed perplexed by this suggestion. I finally went up to the window where I could see through to the kitchen and was about to ask for a pen and paper, write the order myself and deliver it to the kitchen personally when I was told the order was coming out. We were offered, and accepted, a full refund of our meals and drinks. The staff kept apologising for the delay but it was obvious they were not actioning our order as the system had not delivered it, even after 3 requests from us. To us this shows up a serious flaw in their system which the young staff seemed clueless to fix. Also, once the food arrived it was nice however overpriced for what we got. If you wish to dine at this bistro, allow plenty of time and be prepared to fight...

Very disappointed with our experience here today. A complete disaster in terms of table management. We queued to be seated, were offered a table that was full of dirty plates and asked to wait five minutes for the table to be cleaned. We waited at least 10 minutes only to see another waitress put a reserved sign on our table for another person for 1:45 (we arrived at 1:10). Our original waitress then told us she no longer had any tables available as she didn't realise that table had been booked. There was no attempt made to rearrange tables or offer any kind of solution. I understand that juggling numbers with govt restrictions is very challenging for hospitality establishments, but I feel that this situation could have been handled much more professionally.

While we were waiting, we also saw other customers jump the queue in front of the people behind us and get offered a table, meaning the people behind us missed out on a table. It is clear management needs to implement a better system of allocating tables, seating customers and communicating with staff...