Astro Cafe — Restaurant in South Island

Astro Cafe​ is located in the best place in the lake tekapo. It is located on the Mount John summit.

It is $8 price to pay to drive in ( info from information Centre).

My family and I were hiking up from the bottom and walking up to the top of summit. To visit astro Cafe is great cherries on top. What a great incentive to our tween to go for a hike with us.

The location is fabulous, the view is killing for. We ordered one flatwhite but got two (charged two) probably misunderstood. That was OK. We drank Both. We also ordered hot chocolate, and ice matcha with oat milk

Coffee was good, hot chocolate was OK but iced MAtch latte I think need a bit of improvement. It wasn't tasty as I was hoping for. Carrot cake and valvet cake were great but a bit dry but we did like them though but $14 a slice was abit over kill.

Totally we paid almost $70 for 4 drinks and 2 slice of cake. A bit expensive.

E.g. Pie sold at $15 and other food are very expensive. As seen as pictures.

Cute decoration, and some souvenirs sale.

When we arrived there were so busy. We had to fight over tables. Table wasn't cleane due to staff was so busy. Dirty Dishes on the floor, probably moved by customers from tables. I cannot blame staff. Only two that I saw was on.

Staff was very friendly. They were lovely. They did the best they can to serve busy Cafe.

One thing we would love to see in the future. Don't use so much of takeaway cups, paper plates. We feel it is not environmentally friendly. We (NZ) are proud of being green.

One product you could sell. Certificate for sale for tourists that they are...

Firstly, the views are amazing! Absolutely beautiful. The Cafe itself is perhaps the most expensive average cafe in the world. I don’t mind being charged $8 per car to enter the property, because I presume the money goes towards the university funding. What I do mind is being charged practically double the price for any food or beverage because of a unique location. That despite feeling like you are a million miles away from anywhere…you actually aren’t. So that negates the excuse to charge so much for food, beverages and ice creams. We went intending on having lunch but quickly decided no based on the price for very basic cafe food. We did share a cake, but $14 for a small slice of carrot cake?! All the bottled cold drinks are double the price! $9 thanks for the small bottle or sparkling water?! No thanks. $1 surcharge if you want a takeaway cup. $2 extra if you require a milk alternative. Yes, all venues charge extra I know, but it is usually .50c - $1 max. Opportunistic greed is not appreciated for a standard cafe menu.

Then we were given a buzzer for our order. It didn’t buzz, it just flashed a light which we obviously missed. We had a worker come to our table, flip the buzzer/flasher and told us your order is waiting. And it was…about 4 meters from where she walked past and she couldn’t even be bothered to bring it to us. It wasn’t busy. And there were several staff standing around.

Hot tip: Take your own food and a flask of your favorite drink and sit out and enjoy the view! That way you won’t be hideously over charged or underwhelmed by the...

The place is absolutely stunning with a gorgeous view of the lake, the mountains and the surrounding right from a hill top vantage point ……. but ….. beware of a couple of things before visiting this cafe. This place is one of the so called tourist traps which you don’t realise until you have been there. To get to this place you have to pay $8 entry fee per car unless you want to hike a steep incline. Once you have paid for the vehicle entry fee and driven up to the top expect more disappointment. The food is overpriced and average (average $8-12 for finger size cakes and $18-22 for paninis and sandwiches which are super tiny). Tea and coffees are overpriced as well while charging $1 extra if you ask for take away cups! Moreover for coffee orders expect a wait of 30 minutes plus. You’d have thought if you are already paying a premium price, you might get your drinks promptly - not here unfortunately. One thing I must say that these guys are at least honest about this and tells you upfront about the long wait time for coffees. But by that time you have already paid up the entry fee and driven up to the top and parked your car and walked up to the cafe. So, if you really want to spare yourselves from all of this, just avoid this place. There are a lot of view points scattered around the area which will give you better photo opportunities...