Howick Village Cafe — Restaurant in Howick

The food and coffee are quite nice at this cafe, however my dining experience here today was much to be desired. The staff were rude to me, the service was terribly slow and I would be hesitant to return again. I was dining with a group of friends and it took the wait staff at least 10-15 minutes to come and take our order. The drinks did not come out at the same time, nor did the food. We were dining with kids and my 3 year old had to sit and wait over 30 minutes for a smoothie, watching the rest of the table eat and drink. I chased the staff up 3 times only to be told it's coming. When eventually it did come, half an hour later, it was time to leave. I asked for a takeaway cup, only to be told by the rude cashier, I should order my drink in a takeaway cup next time! I was not impressed.

Update August 2020: Following the above experience I received an apology from the manager about the service I received. She assured me this is not their standard which I believe as I have been there and enjoyed my time since her apology. Their food and coffee are great and I will continue to return as it's a good location, nice food and a comfortable atmosphere. It's a shame I did experience bad service initially but my return post their apology has been...

Great menu and friendly wait staff. Unfortunately, the food doesn’t quite live up to expectation given the menu descriptions or the photos on their Facebook page. I had the salmon poke bowl and my partner had the potato hash cakes. The salmon in the poke bowl was fine but the rest of the dish was a disappointment. The rice was wet and gluggy with just a small amount of some unidentifiable brown sauce on it that didn’t impart any flavour at all. Aside from that, there were no other sauces or seasoning in the dish leaving it a bowl of raw chopped vegetables, plain rice with an acceptable piece of salmon for $24 dollars. The pretty presentation did not make up for the poor execution of this dish. I recommend strongly heading to the poke bowl outlet in Newmarket to learn how a poke bowl should be done. My partners hash cakes were similarly disappointing with the size of meal more that of a kids meal, dry cakes, over cooked eggs and again nothing in the way of sauces to finish off the flavour and give some moisture to the meal. Both dishes were dry and flavourless. overall a disappointment and...

I wanted to give a higher rating purely for the food quality, but the experiences I had with 1 of the waitstaff have left me no choice but to leave 1 star. (Note: I'm not a karen) I always feel being treated rudely by this lady staff, (the one wears glasses with a black frame). Call me sensitive all you want but if you're a person of color you know how it feels when people treat you differently (the tone of voice, facial expression, etc). If you want to see for yourself, go there and observe how she classes and treats people differently, you'll be amazed. The irony is we actually speak the same language and probably came from the same part of the world to NZ. So yes I'm being discriminated by my own kind. If this lady is the owner, then I'll take my business elsewhere, you have the right to serve your preferred white customers. But to the management, if she is an employee, then you should thank me as I've just given you a very valuable comment on improving your business and I look forward to come back if things are going...