Manaia Seafood Boil — Restaurant in Maungakiekie-Tāmaki

One star for one of the most disrespectful experiences I’ve ever had!!!!!

The staff here are completely untrained, have no idea how to communicate, and provide some of the worst service I’ve encountered.

We called ahead to book a table and specifically asked if we could bring our small dogs to the outdoor dining area. The staff member on the phone said yes. But when we arrived, the receptionist refused to let us in because of the dogs! After explaining that we had already confirmed with their staff, she went inside to check and eventually allowed us in—but the way she handled it was so unprofessional.

Throughout the entire meal, she looked extremely anxious and afraid of our dogs (who were just calmly sitting there, completely uninterested in her). She was so uncomfortable that she couldn’t even approach our table properly. Fine, we understood—some people are scared of dogs—so we took the cutlery from her ourselves and even served our own food. By the way, our dogs are both small, under 10kg.

Everything was fine, more customers arrived, and some even stopped to pet our dogs. No issues at all—until that same staff member came over again, stood right in front of our table, and just stared at our dogs. Unsurprisingly, this made one of them bark a few times (literally no more than 30 seconds), and we stopped them immediately. Then, out of nowhere, another staff member stormed up and yelled at us, saying, “THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!”

Excuse me? Our last chance? No, this should be your last chance at getting any business from us.

Honestly, this place is beyond rude. What’s even more bizarre is that, in a country like New Zealand—where dog-friendly dining is the norm—this restaurant acts like dogs are some kind of crime. If you’re that anti-dog, don’t tell customers they can bring them!

TRAIN YOUR STAFF. We don’t pay to be treated like this. And I’ll be warning everyone I know to stay far away from this place.

⚠️Attached is a photo taken this morning at a truly dog-friendly café in Devonport. Dogs, just like humans, can sense when they’re not respected. This morning, my dogs were completely at ease—peaceful and relaxed in a welcoming...

TLDR - Overall food flavours were good (the chicken wings were really good), but don’t really recommend sitting down to eat after 7pm unless you want the wait staff’s attitudes as snacks / desserts.

Me and my friend came here for dinner just over 7pm the other night thinking there would be enough time to sit down and eat since their operating hours on both Google Maps and their website mentioned they close at 8pm. We asked to dine in while we ordered at the counter and the staff (seemingly a chef) was fine with it, but when our order arrived after 5-10min- it was in a takeaway bag. I asked the waitress to check as I had clearly asked to dine in, she went in for a second and came back with a sulky attitude and that we have 15min to finish our food. I asked do you close at 7:30pm? She said something along the lines of yes but you need to finish before then. I replied so we might as well leave then? She said yes as she walked away with a sulky attitude. So we left cause I don’t think anyone can enjoy the food when the host just wants them to leave. As someone who had worked in hospitality for 3 years before, I understand the frustration when there were customers coming in close to your closing time - however, that is still no excuse to lash out at the customers and make them leave like this. If you don’t want people to sit in to eat anymore after 7.30, perhaps you should change it to takeaway only after 7.30, or change the open hours from...

EDIT: I have been monitoring the reviews since my bad experience and have noticed many other similar complaints. This place is a literal scam! They are extremely unapologetic and do not work to resolve issues! DO NOT GO THERE! I believe they must pay people to go there and boast about their store on socials! DONT BE FOOLED! The food is vile

After weeks of anticipation we stopped at Manaia seafood and ordered the $96 Large platter. The food was prepared in 5 minutes. The crab was awful extremely dry and tasted putrid. It was almost as though it was prepared 5 days before hand. Tried pulling the crab meet out but it was putrid it was hard to do. You’d need Wakakotahi’s jack hammer to even get started with it. The prawns/mussels and crab for a matter of fact were cold! The ‘tub sauce’ you have was not good at all and if it was an attempt to hide the quality of food I’d suggest using a half decent sauce. The food looked better than it tasted, this was extremely poor and felt like we were scammed. And what’s up with the corn? What did you do cut one piece of corn in 1/4 and keep the ends for yourself? The egg and presentation was the only good things. Overall bad job guys if you are charging people an exuberant amount of money it’s got to be done right. Won’t be back and definitely will not recommend. Maybe lower your prices to match the...