Elephant Grounds (Sheung Wan) — Restaurant in Hong Kong Island

I’ve been coming to this location every weekend for the last 1.5 months and today received rather disappointing attitude from staff. I wanted to sit outside and then changed my mind after that and decided to sit inside. Right upon changing my mind, I did inform a staff who was standing at the counter who just processed my payment this. The place must have been loud and crowded so the lady probably didn’t hear me and I didn’t realize that.

Went ahead took a seat indoor, waited a bit no coffee arrived so I asked a random staff and she understood the situation.

Later on, another staff came and spoke to me in a rather hostile way about the fact that I didn’t inform anyone regarding the shift in my decision.

I told her that I did inform someone at the counter and she asked “who?” in a rather hostile way as if I know the name of staff here or recognize their face when all staff wear masks and the same black uniforms. I said “someone who was standing at the counter”, and then the lady left abruptly with her last words something along the line of “next time tell someone” and she was gone.

Id appreciate it if I wasn’t met with such hostility over getting a coffee on a Saturday morning and would have been happy to work out a solution...

So we came for breakfast around 10:30 am on 14/2. Ordered a pancake and banana toast with black coffee. When eating the last stack of pancakes, I bit into something so hard that I decided to spit my mouthful out.

I found a piece of glass, about 1cm long, in my food.

I was so shocked that all I cared about was if I was injured and if there were any other pieces in my mouth. I called the staff, showed her the glass, and gave it to her. Didn't take any photos of it.

Immediately, I went to the washroom to rinse my mouth and check if I saw any blood, indicating any injury. After that, I sought medical advice on the urgency of this incident.

The staff returned to me, saying that the piece of glass came from the pancake and that she would revert to the head chef. She offered to waive the bill. We exchanged contact information, and the staff said I could get back to her about anything related to this incident.

The staff was sincere and acted promptly on my complaint. However, the fact that a sizeable piece of glass is found in the food is unimaginable. I'm not a frequent customer of Elephant Grounds, but I recently dined there with a young kid. It was very dangerous, and now that I have experienced the safety hazard, I will not...

It has a nice vibe, plenty of seats and outdoor space for people with Pets, even water for dogs. Food in general is quite good, and portions are big. But the service in general has been quite bad, one lady is okay, while the other, wearing a mask, always has a poker face. While placing an order, they don't ask you if you want your drinks to be served now, with food or later. Some people drink coffee after eating, but by the time the food and coffee arrive 20 minutes later, the coffee is already cold. That's kinda personal preference, but brand manager should do a proper training, I worked in F&B in hong kong and trained my staff to ask that, trained them to say good morning or afternoon for the guests, offer a tap water or any drinks right from the beginning, refill water if needed without asking, make sure you got my order and repeat it, just say please and thank you. Though I come here regularly regardless of that, all of the above-mentioned things could be improved. I always leave a tip in HK in places like Elephant Grounds on top of the service charge, which goes mostly only to owners in HK, but in this venue, I just don't want to do that, because there is minimal service. Feels like they got staff from...