Federal Delicatessen — Restaurant in Waitematā

I've never experienced such a terrible attitude from a restaurant manager in my life! Head shaking and eye rolling at customers is NOT ok...... My family and I went to Federal for brunch, arriving at 11:10am. We saw there was a lunch menu that started from 11:30. I asked the waitress if it was possible to order from the lunch menu, and that we would be willing to wait until 11:30 as we understood that is when lunch started. We would just order drinks for now. She said it was no problem, so provided us with the lunch menu to look at. She walked off while we looked at the menu. When we were ready to order we signalled, and another lady came over to take our order. We explained what we had discussed with the first server, that we wanted to order from the lunch menu but could wait.... She looked at me, shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Wow, OK then" she said, while continuing to shake her head with a look of disgust. I then asked if she thought the food would arrive at 11:30 or if the chef would only start cooking at 11:30, and if so, how long would it take. (As we had to leave by 11:50, if it was not going to be served by 11:40 we would just choose from the bfast menu). Again, she rolled her eyes and said "I can't tell you. But ok, I'll put your order in. She then turned around and stormed off, continuing to shake her head and make" arrghh" sounds. (note: we hadn't even finished ordering yet). I confronted her and asked if there was a problem, to which she said in a curt tone "it's fine. I told you I'll put the order in!" (cue another eye roll). I said to her that I had made a simple request, and if it was not possible we were happy to order from the breakfast menu. I never insisted she give us what we asked for, I was just asking the question. Again, she said" it's fine! "and have me another eye roll.

I asked if I could speak to the manager - it turns out SHE was the manager!

If she can't deal with basic customer questions without giving such attitude, she really should not be in the service industry. Find another job. It was shocking to see such disregard for customer service.

Its a real shame - as the rest of the staff were lovely, and the food was great. If it wasn't for this one woman with a horrible attitude, this would be a 5 star review. Sadly, she let the whole side down.

(side note, when the food did come out she forgot one order so we had to share one plate between two).

The irony of this hanging on the wall in front of us was not lost on me 😂

For mgmt: This took place on Tuesday July 19th at 11:10am.... So whoever was the manager on duty at that time will be the person. I'm...

I used to speak highly of this place, until my last visit here. I had come on a Saturday evening, probably around 5-6ish (5th July to be exact). The manager (I assume as she was wearing a white top. I think her name is Awhi???) who served us at first was nice enough. I had asked if they had any booth tables available. There weren't any available but she had told us there were "half booth'' tables available. These just seem like normal tables to me? The tables I find are very tight (not much space) and we were pretty much sitting with the other customers on the table next to us. I then asked that same lady if we can have a booth when one comes available, and she just said 'SURE' in a very unfriendly tone, and her facial was also quite blank. It seemed like we were asking for too much from her? She also grabbed our cups from our table to fill them with water, but the way she grabbed the cups, she kind of grabbed them with an attitude (sort of aggressively). I then had to ask another waitress to serve us. She was much nicer. We then were able to get a booth table. The food also is very expensive for the price you pay. $25 for a sandwich pretty much, with literally 2 slices of pickles and a tablespoon of coleslaw on the side?! The restaurant is looking a little dirty also. You can see the grease/grime on the walls where the cooking is done, so definitely in need of a clean! Also, we ordered coffees in which I find we barely ever get enough milk with our coffees (very skimpy/cheap with the milk)! I felt unwelcome based on the first waitress. She's lucky my Mum was being nice, my Mum definately would have put her in her place that night :) Based on my last visit, I will not come back to this rip off, useless customer...

As much as I wanted to love my time dining here it was soured by a few minor annoyances that added up to an awkward and uncomfortable experience.

After about 5 minutes of being seated, a member of our party called over a waiter and ordered a drink. At that point we were ready to order but the waiter had already left after the first item had been ordered, not giving anyone else a chance to order anything. At one point I had ordered some filtered coffee and sometime after I ordered was asked if anyone on our table had ordered coffee. Lastly we ordered the poutine fries with the rest of our food. All of our food came and we ate it all before the fries ended up arriving at our table, which if I was to guess would’ve been at least 20 minutes, when it did arrive it was just normal fries and we had to call the wait staff over again to correct our order. Again these are minor annoyances but it definitely didn’t help the customer service experience

I will admit these grievances are quite pedantic and I can understand that on a busy Sunday at lunch the wait staff can get quite busy and the customer service may not be what it usually is.

The food on the other hand was amazing. I couldn’t help myself and inhaled the fish hoagie without ever putting it down. The turkey on rye had a mind blowing combination of soft and crunchy texture and was filling without being heavy. The hot cocoa actually tasted like cocoa and not just warm sugar. Do yourself a favour and try some amazing deli inspired food!

Overall I would recommend the Federal Delicatessen purely based on the food - it’s just that good. The customer service leaves a lot to be desired and I hope that it was a one off...