The Phoenix — Restaurant in Bay of Plenty

We were looking forward to a nice meal out here last Saturday night but were highly disappointed with our experience.

I dropped my mum off at 5.45 (while I looked for a park) for a happy hour drink, and when I got to the table I asked if she had ordered drinks yet- she said no one had been over. She is on crutches and can't move to the bar. By the time a waiter arrived I asked if we could still order a happy hour drink and he said sorry it's just gone 6pm and the system closes off orders. I explained the situation but he was adamant they couldn't do anything - seriously?? I have worked in hospo for 5yrs and know how it works.

We ordered the chicken schnitzel and pork belly, both very disappointing - the squares of crackling were too hard to eat and obviously not from the same cut of pork. The chicken was dry (felt like it was chucked into a deep frier from the freezer) and accompanied with a small blob of thick 'mushroom sauce' which wasn't what you expect from a creamy mushroom sauce. With the price of going out for dinner these days, you expect delicious food.

When I went to pay at the counter I politely mentioned the drink situation again (I would've been happy with even just a few dollars off the bill) but again she said they couldn't do anything. A simple gesture would've been all it took to make a happy customer out of me. Now I wouldn't go back and I have told my friends about my experience. Very disappointing after years of going to this place and having good experiences. Seems like the restaurant has changed hands in the past year or so and it's gone downhill since.

If you're going to go out for dinner, I would recommend going...

For our family reuinion, we decided to reserve seats here since it looked quite good on google and waited for our reservation time with bated breath. When we walked in, there were a small handful of people creating a welcoming atmosphere; we ordered some drinks that arrived promptly lifting our hopes of our fantastic family reunion out in the city. This dream was unceremoniously crushed when we ordered food for 6 and waited for over an hour while watching all the other customers -- including ones coming in after us-- come and go. The restaurant becomes empty, there is only the sound of dishwashing echoing throughout the barren establishment, we still find ourselves waiting. We call over a server whom asks: "is everything ok?" we answer "no" and they turn and walk away, presumably assuming that we meant we didn't need anything. When we finally flagged down another waiter and enquired about our food, he said "another 5 minutes". Only once he returned to the kitchen did we hear movement in the kitchen and the smell of steak wafting. When our food finally arrived, a whopping half an hour later. We discovered that all the food was bland, my iced latte had just become water and portion sizes were abysmal especially for the pricing -- namely the calamari at a dear $21 contained only a handful of pieces, each extremely oily and bland. The pizza needed to be slathered in aoili to be palatable. The fish was rock soild and bland, and finally the peppercorn sauce with the steak was incredibly watered down. The only palatable aspect was the curly fries. We are so disappointed and will definitely leave a dark mark in our memories for our first family...

The food was amazing (vegan lasagne and snickers dessert) but I don't know why the service was so bad. The booking name was wrong (but I guess that happens, even though they checked twice on how to spell) so it took a minutes to find our table, got to table they got reserved time wrong, which they also confirmed when we phoned to do booking. Waited 30 minutes, decided to go get some menus to look at since no one came to our table, waited another ten minutes, nobody came, so went to go order some drinks at the bar, the bar staff member was busy with a cocktail so waited a bit, but then they got talking to a waiter who was doing an order. I must have looked visibly annoyed at this time, so I had someone come ask me if I had been served, came to our table ordered drinks and food right away. Then we finished main, we waited another 25 minutes for someone to ask if we wanted anything else (the main was so good we thought we wanted to try dessert) nobody came, I went to ask if we can order dessert, someone came to take our order, and although the portion size was a bit on the small side for the price of dessert it tasted nice. It was a Saturday night so I know it gets busy, but to be ignored for the whole dinner put a major dampener on the date night my wife and...