Mission Bay Cafe — Restaurant in Ōrākei

Today I came to the Mission Bay Cafe for brunch with my friends. It was very busy so we assumed it would be a great place to eat and we were willing to wait for good food. Initially we were greeted warmly by a waitress who went out of her way to help us get a table which was great. We ordered pretty quickly and the waitress (different one to who greeted us) double checked the order and everything with us before leaving. I ordered the potato and parmesan hash cake with bacon and asked to go easy on the hollandaise sauce. We waited about 30 minutes before plates of food were bought to us but my order was not with bacon, it was with salmon and there was a LOT of hollandaise sauce on it. However they had gone easy on the hollandaise sauce on my friend’s eggs Benedict. We told her that that was not what we ordered and she immediately left rather awkwardly without saying sorry or asking us what was wrong with the order. My friend went up to the counter after her to clarify the order. Our table was close to the counter and I heard her clarify our orders just as we had ordered them the first time. We waited another 15/20 minutes for our food while watching other orders come out left right and centre. Clearly our order was not prioritised at all even though they had made a mistake. We were patient and did not want to interrupt the staff as we have all worked in hospitality and understand that having difficult customers is not nice. When our order came out, the exact same mistake had been made - my hash cake was with salmon instead of bacon. When I said it was wrong, the waitress admitted that she screwed up the order, said sorry, but it didn’t seem like she really cared at all. I was disappointed and very hungry and without waiting for a reply she just put the plate down in front of me and said I could “have 50% off” and walked away. No genuine care displayed nor any attempt to fix the repeated mistake. This made me quite upset as I had waited nearly an hour for my food, I wasn’t receiving what I wanted, I was hungry, I was getting terrible service, I was still expected to pay AND I don’t even like salmon. I didn’t eat any of it and returned the plate of food to the front desk where three workers were. They didn’t seem to care at all that I was returning it after I said that I didn’t like salmon and made me feel like I was weird for returning it. My friends ate their food and I went somewhere else. We were all so shocked by the poor level of service! I have never felt the need to write a bad review on any food service place. Before writing this review I quickly had a look at previous ones. Although I see you have great reviews, I also see many terrible reviews about the customer service. These reviews range from very recently to over a year ago and longer. I see that the responses from the owner are the same but it doesn’t look like anything has actually been addressed or changed? I will not be returning...

My friend and I attempted to have some brunch after running by the beach. However the whole experience is quite disappointing.

There were only two waitresses on the floor and one barista behind the counter - apparently not enough staff at 10am on a Sunday morning. Staff were friendly, but definitely not well-trained, moving slowly on the floor and had no idea what was their priority. We tried to be patient as we notice it was bit understaffed, but we were just being ignored so many times. It took more than 10 mins for placing the order and took nearly 40 mins for meals to arrive. Coffee is not top notch but drinkable.

My friend ordered salmon hash cake ($28.5) - salmon tasted too too salty, like being cured for too many days and never tasted and quality controlled by the chef. Sauce and hash cake itself was fine. I ordered Vietnemese chicken salad ($23.5) - the only flavour I can tasted was sweet, really sweet, no evident fish sauce flavour (which supposed to be a contribution if you call a dish vietnamese flavour), so the whole dish is not balanced and had no depth at all. You can definitely find many food-court vietnemese dishes way better that it with nearly half price.

We understand normally people should not expect much from a cafe next to the beach, but this is just way too bad and you just can’t see any evidence that any part of the operation is being taken cared of to ensure a good customer experience. Just my thought of today, maybe it is not...

Massive decline in quality :(

Used to go to Mission Bay Cafe with my family all the time a couple years ago! Specifically for their desserts. The crème brûlée has always been a family favourite.

Came today for old times sake and were shocked at the decline in quality and customer service. The crème brûlée we were served was EXTREMELY overcooked. It was literally scrambled. Absolutely inedible and came completely cold. Nothing like what we remembered. We told the gentleman serving us that it was overcooked and once we were told that the overcooked crème brûlée was ‘how they do it,’ my dad said, “You can take it back then.” The server got upset thinking my dad was telling him to eat the food or something? It was all a misunderstanding. We just did not want the crème brûlée as we could not eat it whatsoever (and trust me, we really tried to give it a chance). The staff member then came back later to tell us that we need to treat him with respect, and left in a huff without giving us a chance to apologise for the misunderstanding. We ended up leaving all of our other things unfinished as we were just so put off, and the staff member tried to bring it up with us again when my dad went to pay. We were not charged for the crème brûlée so thank you for that. Just so disappointing 💔💔 We only had things off the dessert menu, so I can only HOPE the other available...