Te Aro Brewing Company — Restaurant in North Island

Booked a table for 6 at 3.15pm to celebrate my son’s birthday (Anzac Day). It took a while to find our designated spot as there were no staff on the floor and dirty tables everywhere. The line to order had a wait time of roughly 10-20mins so we decided to order/pay through our table’s QR code instead. What happened next was the worst level of customer service I’d ever experienced. Staff weren’t clearly communicating to customers (one minute all customers are being told that food will no longer be served after we had already paid but then instead of easily refunding us, we were assured by a staff member that our table’s orders were being prioritised due to us booking in advance, this staff member then left the premises not long after). The one waitress on the floor lacked any type of professionalism by rolling her eyes, talking back to us and visibly avoiding our table when we just wanted to know what was going on with our orders. Staff were loudly arguing in the kitchen while other customers were also walking into the kitchen themselves to grab the food they had been waiting for. We noticed the bartender was overwhelmed and clearly needed help only to end up on the receiving end of everyone’s complaints. By the end of it we had waited 1 hour for our drinks and 1.5 to almost 2 hours for our food which was brought out by the chef himself. I’m thankful we were offered a refund but if I had known this was going to be my son’s birthday experience we would’ve happily taken the refund in the beginning to avoid such hassle. Overall, food was average, communication lacked in all areas and ya boy on the bar...

Went for a family celebration was a little out of the way but felt the need to indulge in a fresh hazy craft beer, food was good Amazing burger best ever - staff were kind and prompt, i have a small whine about 3 beers on the list not being available, went with one i didn't like , turned around and saw a large can selection with the 3 that weren't available, asked if i could have one they said i could only drink it at home, didn't understand the logic as i would have paid can the item price, apparently it was license related, want to know why i couldn't pour an aluminum can of the beer i wanted into a glass when the kegs were empty to be told it goes against a license - i was paying!! i would have disposed of the can in the recycling, business happy customer happy, left feeling let down and confused, other than that food was lovely and remaining beer of what was average as i like hazy beers hence the reason we went there. if i was in the position of the staff member i would pour the can into the glass and simply charge can price why the issue when a keg is aluminum also just a lot bigger.. i wont be returning, unless i get a logical explanation explaining why a brewery cant let me drink a beer from an aluminium 330ml vessel (or poured into a glass) when there 3x 50 liter aluminium vessels are empty, is this a policy that undermines customer service or a liquor license rule, please explian and i will be happy to return.

thanks for the...

Overall it was a pretty average experience. Service was pretty disappointing from the get go. Constantly having to wave down a waitress to order more drinks/food. The wait for the food was also super long and there was no apology/recognition for it. The food we had was pretty average as well especially for what you paid.. the only dish that yummy was the chicken wings and cauliflower starters (we ordered a variety of things from the menu too).

When we received one of our prawns dish we asked for sauce, the waitress/manager?? then tried to state that the teaspoon smear of sauce was for the entire bowl of prawns... (she literally just needed to get us more sauce???)

Then when we went up to the counter to pay.. the waitress requested us to go to the other till/waitress to the seen.. once we got there.. the other waitress then told us to go back to the other till??? Which we then had to state to both girls who was going to serve us to pay for our meals. - again no apology or recognition for this.

not ONCE during our WHOLE dining experience were we asked how our meals were or if we needed anything else (like drinks). If anything it felt like our table was an inconvenience despite the place being pretty empty AND despite us booking a table prior.

Just an overall bad experience. We visit brewtown regularly, it’s a shame this place did not live up to the hype as the other bars here.

One star for the yummy chicken wings and...