Gelato Mio — Restaurant in North Island

I can only assume that anyone who has given this place a good review has eitner no taste buds or works for the business itself. If I could give this place zero stars I would. It was awful. I've worked in ice cream for 4 years and when I asked questions about ingredients and processes I was told a pack of lies. None of this is organic. Artificial flavourings are visible and the standard of the gelato is supermarket quality at best.

Then they have this weird ordering system where you decide how many scoops you want and are told to buy a corresponding token from "reception" (which is not labelled and is pretty much the till where you are already standing). Once you have this token you can ask for samples..."NOT BEFORE OK!"

The problem is this token system is not clear and there is no queuing system in place so none of the customers know where to stand or what to do. The staff are obviously annoyed at having to explain this weird system so many times each day that they are outwardly hostile to customers. As they explain it they put the blame on you for not presumably reading their minds and knowing exactly what to do. Incidentally this wasn't just me. I sat watching other customers become just as confused as they were shouted at through false smiles.

So many other problems too... -No cones -Staff member didnt use gloves to serve after handling cash -Additional staff member appeared from the cat cafe next door and didn't wash hands or change uniform or even put on an apron before going behind service area -Staff cashed up in front of customers and left till drawer open and unattended -No product knowledge -Staff were very keen to get customers to leave so they could close

Also they got my order wrong.

Please visit somewhere else or (and I don't say this lightly) just go without ice cream....

Zero stars for this place!! They have the worst flavours but want you to pay for ur icecream first before tasting! Then u get 3 tastes each but we didnt like any flavours so said okay dont want any icecream and vl just get a couple of drinks instead which were $4 each so we were loosing money but allgood! Then the lady says sorry since we tasted we have to get the icecream. Said we can taste 1 more flavour. But no other flavours were appealing! So we said u keep the $10.50 we paid and we dont want anything from this store! As we were about to walk out she said let me talk to my manager and see what we can do! Finally gave us the 2 drinks. Not going back!!...

Friendly staff and the token system makes sense - they have a sign on the table that explains it and the staff explain it too. I was disappointed by the actual product though. I tried many flavours and eventually settled on green apple and blueberry but both were incredibly artificial tasting (like most of the flavours I'd tried) and one of them had weird lumps of somthing gelatinous in it. So gross I didn't even finish it. Very disappointed :( my mum got the sambuca flavour though and enjoyed it so maybe just go for the non-natural flavours and you...