Lone Star Papanui — Restaurant in Christchurch

To be fair, it was an unusual situation. However, we felt the service was very poor.

We were eating our shared starter at about 6:15-6:30 pm when the fire alarm went off and everyone had to leave. We waited outside for maybe 10-15 minutes before being allowed back in. We would have been back inside by 6:45.

We figured that as the kitchen staff would have had to leave the kitchen in the middle of food preparation some of the meals might have been ruined and would have to be redone. So we expected a delay before our mains arrived. Not the restaurant's fault, these things happen.

At 7:15 a waitress came to tell us they'd had a problem with the gas supply in the kitchen, as a result of the fire alarm, but that our meals would be coming out in 15 minutes. That was fine.

So far all okay but things went south after that. After about 20 minutes the food hadn't arrived so we hit the service buzzer to get an updated estimate on when it would arrive. We waited but no-one came. So after another 10 minutes (now 7:45) I went up to the front desk to ask. The lady said she would go and ask the manager. So we waited again.

After about another 10 minutes (now about 7:55) we decided to cut our losses and went up to the front desk to pay. No-one was there but after a minute or two the lady I'd spoken to turned up. She said the staff hadn't been able to get the gas supply working so the kitchen was effectively out of action. She offered to comp us the drink and shared starter we'd already had, which we accepted.

It was nice that she offered to comp us the drink and starter (about $20 worth, I guess). However, we were annoyed at having to hang around for 40 minutes on what were effectively false pretences. At 7:15 the staff knew they hadn't got the gas working yet they led us to believe our meals would be coming out shortly. And then, after that, we had to chase them for updates.

If they had been straight with us at 7:15 we would have cut our losses then and left. However, we would have left sympathetic to their situation and would have been back again in a few days.

As it stands, it feels like the staff were dishonest with us, then ignored us, which resulted in us hanging around unnecessarily for another 40 minutes, so they lost our goodwill.

It felt like the staff were hoping they could get the kitchen up and running again, so they didn't want to tell the customers the true situation in case they left. To me, not giving us the truth to allow us to make an informed decision whether to stay or leave showed a lack of respect for...

Dined at Loan Star Northlands with 9 others, food was good. Only a 3 star because after getting our drinks served the waiter leant forward with the tray and spilt beer on my 8 yo nephew, he was apologetic raced off to get a second beer that was ok, no offer of the beer on the house for his mistake, and left us to wipe the table with napkins. On seating we weren't told of all the items unavailable on the already shortened menu. The meals on the website were not available, website not updated. It wasn't until we had settled in with drinks that a different waitress told us not all items were available, that was ok we decided to change meals we had planned on getting and stayed. After ordering we then had a different waitress again approach us saying the sauces we choose for our steaks were not available either none of them. Thats fine covid and what not however, it would have been great if we had been told this when we arrived, and before we were seated that the choice was limited and not all items were available. So we could decide then and there to stay or go, we probably would have dined elsewhere knowing there was not much to choose from. We were to far in to the dining to leave and go somewhere else knowing the chefs had probably already started on our mains. My recommendation is that if there is a limited menu the restaurant should make that clear at the beginning to allow the diners a choice. We settled for what was available, certainly wasn't the experience we thought we would have after viewing the website and dining there before. We have always dined there and received incredible service unfortunately tonight was...

I’ve never left a review before, however this has really disappointed me. As soon as we walked into the lone star we could smell that something was off in the kitchen. We were seated and chatted a bit before being served. The waiters were really lovely and did a good job. However it was the meals that were disappointing. As soon as the food got delivered out the steak that my grandmother was eating smelt off, however she took a bite from it not knowing of this yet. She then realised it tasted off and sliced a piece for my mother and me to smell, it smelt like poo. It was obviously expired meat that they were serving and trying to get rid of. We sent it back and they came out with the SAME piece of steak but moved the sliced side under the salad so we couldn’t see. We once again sent it out to get a new piece, and tried asking for a new menu but they insisted that it was the onions that made it smell off. It obviously wasn’t the onions since they sent the SAME piece of steak out for the third time, hiding the sliced pieces under the salad once again and tried to play it off. We all got irritated at this point and asked for a menu to purchase another meal. The waitress that came out to check on us was really lovely and told us that both the meals were off the check. It shouldn’t have been her though, it should have been the manager that had to deal with the situation. We even pressed the manager call button and we still didn’t get to talk with them. We are really disappointed once again with how our...