The Harbour House cafe — Restaurant in North Island

"GO SOMEWHERE ELSE" (there are multiple alternative choices within less than 50 yards e.g. Grace OMalleys right next door, or the Blue Lagoon which is 30 yards away). Great view of the water from this place but (a) "gougy" (even a teaspoon of jam is 'an extra 50 cents" and Jared/the manager says "I can't give free jam to everybody"), (b) the meal was average given the price (50% of the bacon was fat and Jared/owner/the manager said 'some people like fatty bacon"), and (c) in response to feedback that the chips tasted like they'd been sitting/stale the manager just said "they're popular and made fresh". Management's focus on money over happy customer and staff (which explained the waitress saying "I'll get into trouble for giving you a teaspoon of jam" and manager's statement "I have to give staff instructions") means it's unrealistic for you to be expecting an understanding or helpful response if your food, price or taste isn't to your liking for any reason. Josh ('owner and manager') could have handled the feedback all so differently with a tablespoon of jam, fresh chips and a smile rather than a defensive costed justification. And no, there was no jam, the chips were left on the plate, and we ended up giving the grossly fatty bacon to the seagulls because no-one else wanted it. P.S. DO TAKE TIME TO READ THE MANAGER'S REPLY - (chuckle) - everything in the reply trumpets the manager's lack of understanding about 'inconvenient customer feedback' and the purpose of google reviews. The reply further endorses what was said in the initial recommendation that you 'go somewhere else'. We subsequently went to the Blue Lagoon (30 yards away) which was MUCH better - complete with a real smiling manager!...

The Harbour House Cafe has one of the best locations in Whitianga and in general is known for the quality of its food. This was not my first visit here and it was interesting to see what differences there were compared to a previous visit.

My sister ordered a Chicken Salad whilst I ordered my obligatory big breakfast. Whilst the food when it arrived was excellent, getting the food was not. Firstly, the meals did not arrive at the same time which is not good. My breakfast arrived after 15 minutes but my sister's salad took nearly 20 minutes to arrive. More galling however was we had a clear view of the kitchen and could see the salad, minus its poached egg, sitting on the preparation table for several minutes. Whilst the pleasant server did apologise for the delay as they were waiting for the poached egg to be done. This begs the question of why the egg was not prepared at the same time as the poached eggs for my breakfast? How long does it take to poach an egg?

Staff were generally very friendly and the cabinet food we bought to take away - doughnuts and raspberry crumble - were also excellent. Overall, the serving of food needs some...

visited this place a month or so ago.. main reason for putting a review is due to the lack of service & slightly rude staff member behind the counter.. she seemed annoyed to be working a public holiday (easter) & annoyed that it was busy. I asked for a toasted sandwich (such a simple request) she refused to let me have a toastie, said only what is on menu is what you can have & when I politely questioned that is it really impossible for the chef to make it - you're telling me they dont have bread, ham and cheese on the premises?! the chef is incapable of making this easy snack?!!? she responded saying i could go eat next door if i like, that its too busy here so yeh thats that... wow, that is very unprofessional , unreasonable & plain rude. also once we sat we asked for water then waited so long so had to ask another 3 times , then finally water arrived. slow and poor service.

food was decent, nothing to write home about but decent still.

I worked in hospo for 7 years plus.. the manager needs to train their staff on politeness, efficiency, and overall having decent...