Park Ranger — Restaurant in Christchurch

I felt like soup on a cold Wintry day, and had a few errands to do at Riccarton Mall. I knew there would be nowhere in the mall that served a hearty soup, so I remembered about the cafe on Riccarton Road close to the mall (it's a very odd name for a cafe and I can never remember what it's called).

I asked if they had soup and the young girl behind the counter showed me on their mini blackboard that they had curried vegetable soup with coconut cream. It sounded devine and it was! Perfect seasoning with just enough curry spices. Thick and creamy, served in a deep enamel bowl, which kept the soup nice and hot.

As with most places that serve soup in NZ, once again, I received just one slice of GF bread and had to order extra to have with the rest of my soup. When I sat down to wait for my soup, two other lovely ladies sat beside my table.

They were cold and so was I! I looked up at the heaters above us which appeared to be off. I looked over the same young girl and asked her if the heating was on? She said "No, I'll turn it on for you". This was poor, as you would have thought during their mise en place, that they would have turned the heating on in Winter, to ensure their cafe was toasty warm and inviting, before they opened their doors for service to customers.

The place has floor to ceiling windows and a concrete floor with a cold overcast day and no sunshine. Not rocket science why it was so cold in there for patrons with no heating on.

My extra GF toast came out with no butter, which I had to go up to the counter to ask for. It was only $1 so begs to ask why then don't they just give you two pieces with your very large bowl of soup?

The ladies beside me took up my recommendation on how good the soup was and then waited and waited for their soup which never arrived. She went up to ask about and the girl said "Oh she's just heating it up". 😳 My soup came out quite quickly and it wasn't very busy in there. Two other tables of two for food. One with just coffees and lots of staff were on. Pretty poor. Soup is premade, come on! It shouldn't take 20 minutes to dish it up.

The other thing that has put me off ever going back was the awful high droney bass music. Not relaxing at all or in keeping with the cafe's whole natural/nature theme. Just bizarre. It was giving me a headache and I couldn't wait to leave.

Wouldn't recommend you sit in for anything. Would get takeaway soup, but then you could be waiting for 20...

There was a great selection of food that was more varied and different than that of other places and delicious. We booked as it's a popular place (although they have a shared table with bar stools and lots of plants in the centre of the table to give privacy that you may not have to book). The menu looked great, but I couldn't resist the cabinet food, which tasted even better than it looked. There's luscious food to suit all needs that doesn'tlook like an afterthought. We had a gf, a keto, and a vegetarian at our table, plus there were vegan offerings too. I won't hesitate to return soon and try more from the mouth-watering selection. On the whole, prices were probably average, although I must say the cabinate options were very reasonably priced, generous, and plentiful if you don't want to over eat and/or over spend. Looks like I have a new favourite. So many different and tempting dishes to...

I Went in for a quick bite to eat that was affordable and fast but open arriving i noticed the staffs behaviour was overall irritable not very patient when i was trying to find a good meal for myself because i cant have gluten or dairy and they werer not willing to make and changes to the food on the menu for me, and when I used the bathroom there was urine all over the seat and poo still the toilet not to mention the used tampons in a open rubbish can i would give this place a 4/10 because the hospitality was bad but the food was good mostly except for the eggs my friend got that were not cooked to his specific order at all and...