Peach’s Hot Chicken — Restaurant in Maungakiekie-Tāmaki

We decided to try Peach's Hot Chicken as it commonly came up in conversation with Electric Chicken as the best places in Auckland for Fried Chicken. While both places serve completely different styles of fried chicken, making it difficult to decide who does the better fried chicken, it is clear that one of these two have shocking customer service.

We arrived at 7:00 and were seated at 7:30. We had some questions regarding the menu and the answers we received were quite bizarre. We asked what side was best to order, and the waitress answered: "none of them". She explained how the fries were store bought, the mac and cheese was "not as good as other places" as it is not baked and the pimento provides no real flavour, and that most people hate the hashbrown bake. She described the hashbrown bake as being really greasy and rolled her eyes in disgust when saying: "a small group of people just love it for some reason". I've never heard a waiter/waitress talk down about menu items to customers in such a way. Since the only side she mentioned that some people actually do like is the hashbrown bake, we reluctantly decided to get that, along with a big dark, baller burger, and the chicken and waffles.

I've never had to wait 40 minutes for fried chicken. Not at home, not at Sensational, not at Electric Chicken, Winner Winnerーanywhere. We were seated outside under the shade, but it was sweltering hot and the sun seemed to be shining directly at us from the horizon rather than above the shade. We were just downing water like anything. We ordered all our food either hot or holy cluck. I must admit, the burger was pretty decent. The big dark was okay, but the skin was coming off the chicken quite easily. The chicken and waffles were half and half. The first waffle with chicken on it was perfect, but the second waffle was very soggy and the chicken on it was dry. The maple sauce combination was not that great of a condiment with it, but not the worst thing in the world. The food itself seemed somewhat promising for a second try.

We noticed the tables on both the inside and the outside were becoming empty. As the sun was really beating us, we asked one of the waiters if it was possible we could be moved inside. He yelled us: "I just assigned those tables to people, so actually, you can't sit there", in a weirdly sassy way. Those tables remained empty for the remainder of our dining experience. Perhaps this waiter just didn't like questions. As we were sweating from the heat of the sun and the food, we asked him if we could have two bottles of water. He turned around and said: "no you can't have two bottles of water" in a very rude manner. We asked why and he again scolded us by explaining how there wouldn't be enough water for other tables. Bear in mind the restaurant was half empty at this point, this is room temperature tap water, and the rules on Auckland's water usage have eased up since the 14th of December 2020.

We were glad that we had paid straight after ordering, as it allowed us to leave immediately after thatーI guess he didn't want us there anyways as we were drinking up all of his water and we were taking up a table that he had probably already assigned to someone else by that time. We left quietly as we didn't want to cause a scene, and frankly, we don't think the staff would care due to how busy the place is along with their dejected attitude. Despite the odd descriptions of the food by the waitress and the appalling hashbrown bake, we were optimistic about giving this place a second chance until that tipping point. I really wanted to like this place, but I can't justify being treated badly just so I can eat fried chicken, especially since there are other options where you don't have to experience rudeness. I take pride in knowing people that were eager to try Peach's Hot Chicken have decided not to after I had told them about my experience, because at the end of the day, no one wants to go to a place where the staff won't vouch for the food or...

We put an online order through in the morning of the day to pick up at 3pm, for 2 orders of Big Dark with varying spice levels (medium, hot). I got a braised greens side, and my friend for shoestring fries.

Pickup was delayed about ~20 mins, but they gave us a Peanut Mousse Pie to make up for the wait time. Last time I dined in, we had people push in front of us when we were waiting for a table, and when we finally got a table we waited ~40mins for food after ordering (and they were out of dark meat).

The braised greens were SO SALTY by itself.... I totally recommend you eat it with rice as the flavour is then more balanced out and not as overly salted and much more enjoyable. This is what I ended up doing with the leftovers lol. Shoestring fries were crispy and not greasy. Came with ketchup.

For the chicken itself.... Hot was about my max level of tolerance. One piece is enough, I had the medium for the second piece and boy did it enter the burning pain stage halfway through the second piece. The skin was relatively crispy but no crunch; the inside didn't have much flavour, wasn't juicy - just moist. Because the skin was so intensely spiced it works well with the unflavoured flesh. It wasn't too greasy which was great. I have to agree with some reviewers that the chicken is only flavourful the more spicier it is. I liked the pickles though. Just a heads up, 1 hot chicken piece is enough to give my tummy the burning sensation after eating it (so 1 piece a day is my limit).

For me, I can see why people like this chicken but it doesn't make it onto my list of awesome fried chooky. I don't really get the hype. I'm happy that Peaches has found their niche but for me personally, I wouldn't choose to eat here again for fried chooky if I could choose.

What I would come back for, is the peanut mousse pie. That was a satisfying dessert. Rich but not too rich, peanut candied nice and crunchy, and balanced flavour profile for the...

The food was good, but the service was not. Waiting for the food wasn't a problem as the venue relatively busy when we arrived but dying down so a wait could be expected, but when the food arrived my fries were missing. I was quickly reassured they would be on their way but they never came. The chicken arrived around 8:15 while the restaurant was starting to get quieter so I wasn't too fussed and expected my fries soon enough. Time passed and after continually reminding the waitstaff of my missing fries they never came. Even at the "final call" before closing the kitchen I again reminded the waitstaff and never got my food.

At this point, it was only my party of 5 and a larger party of around 10 left in the restaurant. We had ordered deserts and the larger party got theirs first, no big deal they were there before us. They ate and left and 10 minutes later I still didn't have my dessert. After asking the waitstaff what was taking so long they went to check and found that my apple pie was waiting up on the counter to be served. By this time the pie was closer to room temperature than hot and the ice cream was softened and half melted.

The cherry on top of the cold apple pie was my friend asking for water twice before having it given to him, at this point we were the only customers in the restaurant.

The only saving grace is that we managed to get some money off because of my other friend's employee discount, but I'd rather have the food that I ordered given to me within a reasonable time frame, or even at all than save a...