Harbour Street Collective Cafe — Restaurant in South Island

We went to harbour street collective cafe because of the indoor playground and the food looked nice in the case.

We paid for the kids to play in the playground but were not told they needed socks. A staff member pointed this out later. As it was a warm day they were in sandals. You can purchase socks but luckily had some spare ones in the car. The kids liked the play area and it is hard to find good indoor play areas these days

We waited over half an hour for food to come. Our order was bumbled 3 times. They over sold some food and they were clearing a back log of orders. They had sold us something they couldn't give us. I went up to reorder and had to re-queue in a long line to order. I reordered something off the menu and the staff member said they would cover the difference if there was any. Another server said she didn't have the authority to do that. So I needed to choose something else. So re-queued again to reorder. The kitchen was closed as the chef was gone and a lot of the good case food gone by this stage (1pm). When the rest of the food came, the pies were burnt or soggy and one of them was the wrong flavour. Our cake also never arrived. I re-queued again to sort that. They did comp that since it was left off the order.

I really wanted to like the place but I spent most of our time there sorting out our bumbled order so couldn't really enjoy the experience. It also got really hot in the play area even though it wasn't that hot of a day. It was much cooler in the front part of the cafe. I didn't use the facilities but hubby said they...

i like the aesthetic/decor, it's clear and trendy but i think it was a little too cluttered, some of the tables looked hard to get to with random stuff in the way. many of the tables had dirty dishes on them and/or looked unwashed, including the one we sat down at, and it took a while for this to be noticed and fixed by the staff. the pesto in the "pesto pasta" was barely visible, didn't order it but saw in the cabinet. also noticed a slice about 1.5in^2 that was being sold for $5.50. just an observation. clearly understaffed :/ i ordered the coconut lime cake, which was hugely disappointing, there was no main flavour, it just tasted like a completely plain cake with a hint of lime and a bunch of desiccated coconut. i feel like if you're only using desiccated, that doesn't make it a coconut cake. there are so many parts of the fruit to utilise, and the part they chose to use has almost no flavour. a shame. the rhubarb apple muffin had 1 piece of rhubarb in it. also, wouldn't be surprised if it used the same batter as the cake previously mentioned. the avocado toast was laden with toppings but had absolutely no butter. why? the cherry on top: they serve their iced drinks in plastic cups that didn't appear to be recycled. we didn't even get takeaway drinks, they just gave them to us like that. ??????? i see their vision in terms of vibe and food, but not enough care is being taken to get to where they wanna be. put less energy in the appearance and focus more on the products you're...

I went for lunch with my parents today. We were impressed by the selection of tasty-looking food in the cabinets but decided to order off the menu. Dad and I had the Harbour Street Handful (full breakfast) and Mum went for eggs benedict with salmon.

We regretted our choice when our meals took a long time to come out, despite the place being fairly quiet. When it did come, it wasn't worth the wait.

Of the six poached eggs we had between us, only two had the slightest trace of runny yolk. The rest were completely solid, and none of them were any more than lukewarm. My sausage was undercooked to the point of still being pink in the middle. All of us were given toast which, if we were being generous, would be called "lightly-cooked" (but could easily have been mistaken for stale bread). Mum was particularly disappointed with the unexciting floury white bread given that the menu had indicated that the eggs bene came with their house-baked honey and seed bread.

One redeeming feature: Dad's coffee was very good. Otherwise we would have to say that this was one of the worst café lunches we've had in...