Coffee Culture Merivale — Restaurant in Christchurch

Unfriendly staff mostly, manager is the most aggressively unhelpful person I've met in a long time. I discovered that the lights in the loo turn themselves off after a few minutes with no way to turn them back on from inside the loo. No light switch, no sensor, nothing. Good thing my phone has a torch. Mentioned this to the manager once i managed to escape (light tuned on again as I left the loo) and he said it turns off after maybe 10 minutes. I asked what if I was a small child who would be freaking out, he belligerently said 10 minutes is a long time. I replied that shouldn't matter but he wasn't listening. I said what if I had claustrophobia, again the answer was that 10 minutes is a long time. He said the sensor for the lights is in the hallway OUTSIDE the loos. I thought that was daft and he said, whilst walking away, that he'd look into it in a voice that indicated he most definitely won't. Then, outside as we were eating, a waitress stood over us. We looked at her questioningly and she eventually said in a disgruntled voice "oh, you're still eating" and wandered off. Of course we're still eating, that's what all the food on our forks in our mouths generally suggests! Overall, useless...

The day we were there, they only had 2 staff members serving and a 20+ minute wait for a coffee...one guy making coffee and the other staff member doing EVERYTHING else. I noted several potential clients walk away due to the 20 minute wait. The poor girl serving was obviously stressed but doing a great job....until she dropped a plate and burst into tears. My partner jumped into action and helped her clear some tables and into the kitchen to help load the dishwasher. She was happy to help BUT...where was management??? Two "kids" running a busy Sunday afternoon cafe. Pretty poor on managements behalf I feel. HUGE ups to the two staff members who had to battle on regardless....you guys did all you could and did it well! Five stars to you two! Management, wake up to your responsibilities or your business will suffer. We will not be back...

short staffing made for lacking experience, however fantastic food and coffee.

came on ANZAC day for takeaways so i was expecting it to be busy. however, there was no warning of what the wait time would be and staff were very curt when greeting customers for orders but otherwise polite. tables were stacked with plates to the point that customers were having to bring them up to counters in order to have a clear spot to sit.

wait time was upwards of 20 minutes. the coffee i had was fantastic and so was the bagel.

i wouldn't recommend coming here on a busy day if management is going to let staff down by rostering on the minimum. it's understandable that the staff were struggling under such conditions as there were only 3, maybe 4 different staff members that...