Sugar at Chelsea Bay — Restaurant in Kaipātiki

I went to this cafe last weekend, and I have to say I was pretty shocked.

I had only heard good things about this cafe from other people, the scenery is without a doubt beautiful, and it's great there's a little playground for kids to play on and walks etc. But the service completely ruined the experience for me.

We arrived, you can't make a booking on Sundays, and were told it'll be a 30 minute way. No problem, happy to wait for a good dining experience, went for a lovely walk, the waitress called us within 10 minutes to tell us we had a table.

That's when it went downhill. We sat down, the seats were like the plastically leather that were pretty grubby and sticky and the glasses has stuff inside them and weren't properly clean and then I started waiting. We tried to get the attention of multiple waitresses just to order a coffee to start. We finally got the attention of someone and managed to order a coffee, I checked my phone from the time they had called me, 45 minutes it took for someone to ask if we would like something to drink, and that is with asking people passing by if we could order. I then went out to make a phone call, and heard the people at the table outside, calling out, saying, it's been like 35 minutes can we please order. So clearly we weren't alone.

I should add, I don't think this was the waitresses fault, they were just trying to keep up and clearly flustered as it looked like they were understaffed, something was wrong with management.

We gave our food order at the same time we ordered coffee, and about 20-25 minutes later the food arrived, we asked if our drinks were still coming and the waitresses response was "there are other people ahead of you in the queue for this" and she left. We finished our food and then had to wait another 5-10 minutes after asking twice more, and our drinks finally came out.

At this point I checked my phone and it was about 1 hour and 20 minutes from sitting down to getting a coffee.

Unfortunately this place has possible the worst service I have ever seen, I asked a friend of mine who had gone the week before and he said it was the same the week he had gone, so it doesn't sound like this is a one off thing. I am pretty gutted because I was excited to have a nice local, but I definitely won't be trying it again.

Only reason I didn't give a 1 star was because the food was actually very good. So if you are happy to be treated rudely by staff, and wait a hell of a long time for half decent food, then this place is...

Myself and an elderly friend just went to get a coffee and a cake because I have been telling her about this amazing Cafe for awhile now Unfortunately it was a unpleasant visit due to poor customer service skills After standing for a number of minutes by the sign that says please wait we were admitted we went to our table where there was a menu for the main meals but nothing from the cabinet we went up to have a look at what Was available to order where we were both spoken to extremely rudely by a male staff member that told us to get back to our table and the cake menu is there I explained there was no cake menu on the table he explained we couldn’t look in the cabinet and everything had to be done by the table then he tells another server to bring us the cake menu which he already claimed to us was on the table A lovely lady came to take our order and the three different cakes which we asked for off the menu we were told had run out of the cabinet and there was no more left well we would’ve known This if we could’ve Seen the cabinet to start off with After running through with the server what Cakes were actually available and wasting more of her time and our time we finally got our drinks to take away along with the 1 cake I get you might be short-staffed but manners don’t cost We had also been sitting at the table for a considerable amount of time before we went up to the cabinet as no one had come by the other thing that was interesting that we observed whilst waiting for our coffee we watched others go up to the cabinet and have a look why were we singled out?? so my question is a huge part of cooking is food presentation which is usually displayed in a cabinet if people are not allowed to look in the cabinet you should have a clear sign up saying this and up-to-date table menus on what is being served otherwise to save your staff time let people look in the...

Today October 22nd we went to Sugar cafe me and my two girl friends and had an unfortunate experience that I feel compelled to share. While we were excited to enjoy our time there, we were asked to leave due to our children being loud. Basically we were sitting for about 30 minutes having coffee with our 3 kids and they are just like any others having fun and getting excited and playing around and we were the only people sitting inside the cafe as everyone else were seated outside, i went to get a cake from the cabinet and the guy who turned out to be the manager was like your kids are too loud and people are getting annoyed you should wrap up quickly and leave, i was stunned and i didn’t comment i said to get us the cake and will leave shortly, then about 5 minutes later he came and brought the cake and he repeated the same thing and said you should leave the space asap !! Upon paying out i got really frustrated specially after the fact of kicking us twice within the timeframe of 5 minutes and while we are waiting for food when i questioned it he said because we DIDN’T TAKE ANY ACTION! And was way too Rude not even an apology or a kind word !when i asked about his name he refused to say it and was like just pay and leave !!!!

I understand that cafés strive to maintain a certain atmosphere, and I appreciate the challenges that come with managing a busy environment. However, as parents, we also appreciate family-friendly spaces where children can feel welcome.

Instead of asking us to leave, it would have been more helpful to suggest a more suitable area or provide options for families like asking us politely to be seated in the grass area . We would love to see a more inclusive approach for families with young children in the future.

Thank you for considering...