GREEN'S Paihia - Thai Cuisine — Restaurant in Bay of Islands-Whangaroa Community

If I could give this place zero stars, I would. The WORST service I have ever received at any restaurant! Dishonest (they actually LIED to us — more on this later) and unconcerned. Bottom line: they just treat people wrong. I'm about to explain a whole ordeal that ruined our evening and put us into such a bad mood, we demanded a full refund. Here's what happened:

My partner and I arrived for dinner and the restaurant was full, so we sat at the bar and looked over some menus while we waited for a table to open. Must've sat there for 20 minutes as we watched numerous tables open, all while they kept us sitting there waiting, without seating us. Finally, they send us over to Table 4 by the window, which hadn't even been cleaned or bussed properly. We literally walked through piles of rubbish all over the floor (used napkins, other stuff) to get to the table, which had barely even gotten a proper wipedown. So, fine. We're hungry and we've already waited awhile, so we sit. Eventually someone comes by to take our order. By now, we were hungry and had already been waiting a long time. We ordered a couple entrees and mains, and requested that all the food be brought out together rather than waiting even longer. So, what happened next? We waited OVER AN HOUR to get our food. By this time the restaurant had emptied out, except for a few tables. I kept glancing over at the owner, who could clearly see that we'd been waiting entirely too long for our food and were starting to get annoyed. He looked over at us repeatedly like he was expecting us to complain. By this point, there was hardly anyone in the restaurant anymore. There weren't many tables left to serve and the kitchen couldn't have been overloaded.

Eventually, they got around to bringing us only a single item — one of the mains, without any rice or anything — before bringing any of the entrees we ordered. What were we supposed to do with that? Was I going to watch my partner eat? At this point, I walked up to the bar and complained politely, saying that if the rest of the food was not ready we were going to walk out, but we were happy to pay for our drinks. After all, we'd been there almost 2 hours already and only received a single item, and in the wrong order. When I spoke to the owner, he muttered something about how the kitchen was slammed due to an error with a large table and all he offered was another round of drinks. This was completely unacceptable for being neglected and forgotten about.

At the end of the night, I went to settle the bill. Of course, by now the owner was nowhere to be found (probably went into hiding). The Indian woman at the register printed our receipt with everything still on it — full price, every single item, including drinks. So I said, "Excuse me, but this is a 100% full price bill after we waited almost 2 hours for our food, the owner came up to our table, etc." She replied with, "Sorry, but a 10% discount is the best I can do" and then proceeded to LIE right to my face about how this measly discount was already included in the balance of the bill. Nowhere on this receipt was any sort of discount reflected. She straight up lied to me! Unreal!

At this point, after being neglected, ignored, and fed only excuses rather than food, I should've refused to pay altogether. Out of sheer exhaustion with the situation, I paid the bill and retained a copy of the receipt. My partner and I left annoyed, disgruntled, and overall feeling like we needed to be made whole on this somehow. You just don't treat people like this! They should've offered us a free meal or something to make it right. But, no — nothing — only some lie about how a 10% discount was already included in the bill, when I could clearly see they had charged us full price.

We were so upset by this, we went back the next day to demand a full refund. The owner grabbed some cash out of the register and threw it at us, apparently without even counting it, as it was $10 shy of the full amount. Couldn't even get that part right.

Just awful. Be warned!...

Quality and taste of food was excellent, service by Vikas was also good but rating them with 2 stars bcoz of their poor management. Amardeep, their duty manager is overly professional and lacks courtesy towards guests, especially Indians! I understand Paihia being busy tourist place in Christmas makes this restaurant very crowded but Paradise in Auckland being twice busier than Greens the whole year still manage to handle guests waiting for the table smoothly. The first night we went to their other restaurant Delhi 6 which took our order for takeaway and told us to come back in 15-20 minutes, upon returning they shocked us saying they didn't receive our order! So, we decided to go to Greens the next day which was amazing experience bcoz of Vikas one of their sensible staff who was greeting all guests with smile and advising us on the menu accurately. He was the one who invited us the next day for Chai and samosas. So, we went the next evening for the same and Amardeep who was managing the que gave us a stupid buzzer and told us that it will take 40 minutes to get us a table. Upon which my husband requested to serve Chai on the waiting table as the other waiting guests were enjoying alcohol on the bar table! He was adamant and directed us to their worthless Delhi 6 restaurant. So we took the buzzer and went on the street aiming to return before 40 minutes. Amardeep was supposed to advise the guests till what distance the buzzer has range if he is giving it to them, advising to go on the street for 15+25 minutes fixed waiting time and not the estimated time! After roaming on the street and returning in 35 minutes when the buzzer started ringing, Amardeep told us that we had missed our que as table was vacant way before our Fixed Waiting Time of 35 minutes, and that we need to restart our que simply for Chai and samosas which could be served on the bar or waiting table if he had more of brain & empathy towards his guests and less of attitude! So we waited again for 30 minutes and got table after 1 hr 10 minutes!!!! By that time we had lost the temptation for Chai, our mood and also the time as it was dinner time till then. My humble request to Green's owner to appoint someone like Vikas in the Restaurant Manager position who can manage the ques tactfully without testing the patience of guests and also replacing the ridiculous buzzer system with a more simpler & prompt system like dialling a mobile phone of guests, giving them accurate estimated waiting time like 20 minutes instead of over emphasizing it to twice of it 40 minutes and treat guests of all origin equally by not taking tolerant Indian guests for granted!!!! Don't forget "Atithi...

TLDR: Would not recommend, extremely slow service, average food, below average pricing. Friendly staff, nice location, okay atmosphere

Waited for 2 hours before receiving our main meals, a table that arrived half an hour after us got served half an hour before us. Granted, they seemed understaffed and the restaurant was extremely busy with a queue backing up to the street.

Food wise was interesting, I order the Pad Thai. The chicken was overcooked and had a beautiful rubbery texture, their spice was all over the show. 3 dishes were ordered as medium across the table (also Pad Thai), one was lovely, as expected, another was far too hot for medium and the last had such little spice that it could've been a mild. Inconsistent.

I had to raise my hand (like the good ol' school days) for the waiter to come and check on us as there wasn't enough forks for the table (these were taken with our entree for replacement, they never got that far). A member of the group had to stand and retrieve their own water jugs as this was more effective than waiting 40 minutes; I witnessed other tables across the restaurant do the same thing, aquiring their own glasses too.

A positive was that the portion size was enormous (too big in my opinion). Athough, for $24 the amount of chicken in my meal (and Tofu in the other Pad Thai dishes) was borderline extortion. Pad Thai is not an expensive dish, the noodles are one of the cheapest parts, I mostly received flavoured noodles.

However, against all odds, the staff were very friendly (when the did finally help), the atmosphere was okay (need to have more airflow with such a crowded restaurant as it felt like a sauna, and needed background music) and the location (right across the road from the...