The Parkhouse Whenuapai Cafe & Eatery — Restaurant in Upper Harbour

Note to all customers, their smootheis are “SYRUP AND WATER!”. So if you think you are odering your kids a healthy smoothie for $8.50..it’s just water and sugar. You can also clearly see how they treat any customer who questions the quality of their food and drinks..defensive. And aggresive to them in store and in google reviews. If it’s not the manager, it will be the barissta telling you off..even though she was never part of the conversation. They will threaten you in a google review. Appauling treatment of customers. First lesson in business, “Customer is always right!” And don’t you ever threaten any customer again, in person, or through google reviews. Just because your cafe is located next to a ‘playground’ and you feel your business comes ‘easy’…is never an excuse to treat customers this way!!

If I could, I would give ZERO stars. The Barissta girl is the most unprofessional and rude person I have ever met in my whole life. When I am speaking to a cafe’s manager, you are in no position to tell me “DON’T TELL HIM HOW TO RUN THE BUSINESS!!!” Not only that, she continued to give me weird looks and flicked me off with her hand. This seems like such a popular cafe, but their customers are not even aware of what they are eating and drinking. Greasy food, and God knows what is in their drinks. They just told me, “that’s how they do things and that their customers are happy.”

• UPDATE: This is my response to the feedback I have received from the ‘Parkhouse’ reply to my Google review.

Actually according to food and beverages and NZ law you're not describing the menu items correctly. So let's see what's the law saying about this.

Secondly, you're the one who raised their voice first and made a scene. I went to the car shaking where my four years old daughter and my husband never saw me like this before. So my husband couldn't stand seeing me like this and went inside to talk to the manager where he may have raised his voice. It's not nice to do so but to be fair and clear you're the one who first started yelling and making hand gestures at me.

Whichever way you're trying to spin the story, the fact remains that you're breeching NZ law the way you're displaying the name of your menu items. Instead of you being sorry about it, you are still defending a...

Gosh, I really want to like this place but they make it difficult. Today was our third time eating here and it was once again a poor experience. Placed our order but unfortunately the meals for the adults never arrived. When I asked one of the staff to follow up, she walked away and started making smoothies instead. I followed up with another person who said she'd check what was happening - again, she never came back to the table. When my partner asked a third person she said we were second in line (after a walk-in who had literally arrived 45 mins after us and had placed a huge order - no prioritisation). I understand hospitality is tough right now but I suspect this place just doesn't know how to run a cafe as each time we've visited we've had to follow up orders several times. We left without eating today which was a shame and embarrassing when I'd booked in advance for a meal for Father's Day.

I'm adding an edit for clarity. You were not serving in order today - if that was the case, we would have received our meals at the same time as our children 20 mins prior and before every other party who arrived after us. I had to request cutlery. I then had to get up to get napkins. No one offered water so I got up again - there were only plastic kids cups as your waitress said the glasses were all being used. If meals are going to take more than 45 mins to arrive (or you've accidentally forgotten which is an understandable mistake) then simply tell people - it would have saved me getting up so frequently and I could have taken my...

We were excited to check out the new restaurant in town, having seen it being built and driving past it for ages.. So on a cold winter night we went along. The building was just as well done inside, although being a wide open space, apart from a short blast of hot air entering the door it was pretty cold, we should have dressed warmer! The big "wood fired pizza oven" projected no heat at all(odd for a wood fire of this size?) - but then we learned its actually a gas fired pizza oven, in which they burn wood to flavor the pizza??? The waiter was attentive and good humored, but be careful what you order! On this chilly winter night there was no indication that the very interesting sounding "chicken and winter grains" on the dinner menu was actually essentially a cold dish. When we asked if the dish was intended to be cold, they told us that the rice is cold but the chicken should be hot... but did not offer to replace my cold chicken. From that moment the service took a noticeable dive.. Despite the cold experience, my partners meal was very nice, so we were keen to sample more of the menu including the deserts. After finishing our mains it was clear they were now avoiding our table, so we gave up and headed out to pay. The guy operating the till couldn't even spare use the time from his phone call, instead ringing up our purchase in silence... Shame... definitely...