Riverside Cafe — Restaurant in North Island

Update- just has a response from the cafe manager- its at the end of this post.

Went here for breakfast. Food is well cooked and tasty but as always let down by sloppy customer service.

It’s a real shame that this place relies on passing tourist trade for its custom since their business etiquette has got lazy. They don’t need to work at keeping loyal customers because more just keep coming. So the old business mantra that says "its easier to keep existing customers than generate new ones” unfortunately doesn’t apply here.

So why the rant?

My partner cant eat eggs but ordered the cooked breakfast. He asked if they could leave the eggs off the plate and swap it for something else. He was told that they can leave the eggs off but would have to charge him if he wanted anything ‘extra’. The reason cited that was all the other ingredients were more expensive than an egg! Eggs are about $1 each, you can tell me that half a tomato or a slice of bacon costs more than that. Come on guys you can do better than that.

I ordered the eggs Benedict with bacon that cost an extra $1 and got one slice of bacon cut in half.

Poor value for money but I guess you pay for the view rather than good service.

Response from the manager- Hi Ben.

Thank you very much for your feedback. Much appreciated. I was most disappointed that you did not get great customer service but delighted you enjoyed the food and by the sound of.it are a regular at Riverside.

If you have come.to our cafe many times you will know that we have worked hard to improve the café, environment, decor, food and service.

We try hard to make not just Riverside Cafe but the Town Basin a better place.

I apologise if you receive sloppy service during one of your recent visits and hope you appreciate that this is not the standards that we are setting our sights on. I would invite you if you return in the future to give us an opportunity to redress our mistakes before publishing them.on social.media. We have a replace.or refund policy for genuine complaints and I am sure that had you bought this to the attention of our manager, she would have made the situation right.

We do review all feedback and take as much notice of the scores of good comments as the few times we don't meet the mark.

Once again thanks for the heads up

Kind regards

Justin anna and the team at Riverside Cafe.

Bens response to that- We addressed our complaint to the manager and she wasn't interested. so your comment "We have a replace.or refund policy for genuine complaints and I am sure that had you bought this to the attention of our manager, she would have made the situation right. " either our complaint wasn't genuine enough for you or the manager is...

Very disappointed in this place. The customer service was one of the worst i have received. The lady at the counter spoke down to me as if i was stupid. I ordered at the counter the fish (for my partner) and some chips, i then ordered myself a vegan mudcake, she asked me if i wanted cream or yogurt on the side, considering this was a vegan mudcake i asked her if the cream or yogurt was vegan too because i would say no if they wernt, to which she replied in a horrible scarcastic tone "what?! Its cream,you know...cream , normal dairy cream,and the yogurt is well yogurt,plain yogurt.....what kind of question is that?!" And screws up her face as if im an idiot,So i just said "ok neither thank you" i then proceeded with my order and she suddenly says in a very rude tone "are you vegan? I thought vegans didnt even eat meat?!" ,i then said "what?" And she suddenly scoffed loudly and very rudly and goes "ugh never mind!" I then had to explain to her that the fish etc was not for me. She was obviously not very open to people's dietry requirements and very judgmental,. My partner also said his fish wasnt very good and was very dry. I dont usually post reviews but the way i was spoken to and treated when i was being nothing but kind to her (believe me i know what customer service can be like) was not ok,she acted as if i was stupid and she was very judgmental...the last thing i need while 7 months pregnant 😩. Will...

We went to dine here for my sisters birthday and it was the worst experience. We thought it was bad getting absolutely no table service but decided to dine anyway. At the end, we paid half of the bill straight away and our friend went up afterwards to pay. The girl at the counter tried to charge our friend both her share and what we had just paid, so our friend said she would use the bathroom and go back. In that time, one of the other ladies chased my sister down and accused her of not paying in front of all the other restaurants and was following her around- bearing in mind we had already paid! At the same time their staff member was doing this, our friend (who happens to be a lawyer) was inside talking to the lady at the counter sorting her half of the bill. I have never been more disgusted in my life! Will never ever go back and don’t recommend the place to anyone! Have added a photo of the lady who followed us and swore at us...