Toroa cafe — Restaurant in South Island

Greetings

It's taken some time but I'm finally settling down to send this long, overdue, message of concern.

My wife & I had the pleasure of visiting the Royal Albatross Centre earlier this year (around February). It's a beautiful place and we had a great time.

However, our dining experience was awful! We, along w/ other patrons, were not given Any kind of "Royal" treatment.

We believe the staff there was complicit in allowing the cook of the Toroa Cafe to be most rude. I don't remember her name, but the cafe is inside of the Centre.

The cafe was not prepared for the tour groups that descended on the establishment. How & why, I don't know. But after placing our order, we were being patient in receiving our food. It was taking Forever and it wasn't just us. The cook staff seemed in disarray, mostly the head cook. There were other staff members helping to take orders and ring us up and things like that, but it wasn't making the food come out any quicker. I finally decided to request a refund because our tour group was moving on. That's when the foolishness began.

A lady in the same predicament requested a refund ahead of me and received it. I then decided, as mentioned before, to do the same. When I, respectfully, asked the young lady at the register for the same treatment, she asked the cook, on the status of the food. It wasn't going to appear any faster so it seemed. The cook was trying to keep herself together but looked like this was her "1st rodeo". By this time, I didn't even want the food. Give us our $$ back so we can be on our way. The cook became loud & belligerent and announced that there's no way we're getting our $$ back. We're gonna wait and, basically, we're gonna deal w/ it. I admit, I became a little heated because I couldn't understand where this was coming from. Understanding we were not in the U.S., I figured 'bad service, no service, $$ back'. She was slamming her hand on the prep table, taking the time to yell @ me. Letting me know, in so many words, that whatever food and whenever it comes out that will be the end result. There's more to the incident but one should get the idea.

Our tour guide was apologetic and understanding. The group was waiting on us now to continue the tour of the Centre. The food Finally come out. My wife & I debated even eating it. At this point, why would we. I was concerned about the quality of the preparation and whether it would even taste good.

This could never be a 'long story short'. It did have to be told, finally, so others can see what you might get if you Cross that Cook in the Toroa Cafe.

The manager of the Centre came to apologize to us, which was nice, but our experience was already dulled.

( I didn't mention earlier that staff members of the Centre separated themselves from having anything to do w/ the cafe. But they do work together. The staff outside of the cafe was helping as mentioned earlier ).

Thank you for your...

Our family planned a trip to the Royal Albatross Centre for some sightseeing and lunch (as we heard there was a café at the isolated location). Please note this occurred on the 2nd of January 2023. Let’s review how our café experience went… Let’s start with the positives: It was good to see that they spoke English and how we got a place to sit very quickly. Also… uh … that’s about it. I guess the seats supported our bodies and the tables didn’t collapse? But now the negatives… After placing our order and we took our seats, there was a view of seagull poop on the windows, a bad start but our hopes remained high. Then our first drinks arrived where the waitress smacked our drinks down exclaiming “thank you!” as she hastily walked away. Interesting. Our fish and chips arrived a while later. I would have enjoyed it if there were any fish with the batter that they gave (the fish was paper thin). But, the chips were nice. As for the rolls, they would’ve tasted nice if there were any cheese in it too. This was strange as it was advertised as ‘cheese rolls.’ This was when I realised this experience was going to be poor. As for some of our drinks, after 30 minutes had passed we became confused as we noticed tables who had ordered after us were receiving their drinks before us so we asked politely to ensure our drinks were still on the way. “SHUT UP” I quote the manager yelling aggressively at us. She exclaimed to stop asking her questions and told us that the restaurant was very busy, therefore there MUST be a long wait for our drinks. She said to look around to see how packed it was! I in fact did take a look around and noticed there were 5 tables free? I’m not sure how half the restaurant being empty means very full and busy? Interesting once again. Soon it had been 45 minutes, so we mustered up the courage to actually ask where our last coffee was; it turns out they forgot it and they didn’t even have the order! Finally, our coffee arrived after nearly an hour-long wait and it came BURNT. Yuck. Furthermore, one of our milkshakes was the wrong flavour but due to the aggressive nature of the manager, we were too scared to ask the other kind waitresses. Due to the isolated nature of the venue, you are only left with these two café options! Talk about a duopoly… Would recommend eating before heading to the Royal Albatross Centre (that experience was good)... To conclude this review, let’s end it on a final positive: The clock was working! There was a big clock on the wall of the dining area which is good to tell the time as we have an Albatross tour starting soooooon…. SH#$!...

unbelieveable AWFUL food in this cafe: $24 for a plate of fish & chip plus "salad" .except chip is normal (yes ，normal size & flavor which you can buy it from take away in $3) . the fish is extremely thin which makes you shocked ，disappointed and loose appetite at the first sight. you can't help wondering they sliced a normal size into half ? I lived in NZ a couple of years it's definitely my first time to see the fish's thickness like a paper ，A4 or B5 ，any paper you can imagine how thin the fish is . how they did it ? "amazing professional" cook they must have ! the salad include normal carrot slice and sprouts BUT the rest are completely abnormal . the nightmare is , the soggy tomato slice was frozen and they keep tomato into FROZEN ，do they have common basic knowledge ? huge thanks for the chilly，nippy frozen tomato successesfully test one of my malor sensitivity and remind me I should go to see dentist. the spinach just travel through time machine from last year ? why the spinach is yellow as everybody know its colour should be green. are you serious we customer paid and ate them not for chlorophyll but lutein？？？anyway the waiter buddy is handsome and his hair is green but not our spinach. the mince in another plate we ordered is COLD and we have to ask them to put into microwave again. from a foreigner's perspect， I started to worry for the international tourist. Toroa Cafe ,you know ? you looks like a window which tourists see NZ through you in Otago peninsula. food sometimes means a comfort in people's traveling. please REFLECT yourself what did you do. unless you correct or improve I won't come back. currently REMIND others be aware of this...