Kafe Oranje — Restaurant in Wellington

This morning we enjoyed breakfast at Kafe Oranje. Hubby and I don't eat out often as we are usually disappointed, both growing up in hospitality environments where attention to customer service was paramount. (For context, we are both in our 40's!) Husband ate the full breakfast and I had the breakfast burrito without bacon as I am a vegetarian. Today we are giving Kafe Oranje three stars for the following reasons:

The food - nicely presented, home-made elements and tasty The coffee - nicely presented and good flavour also The outdoor seating area options - a covered conservatory and the front footpath in the sun The venue is dog-friendly, providing tie-up points and water bowls

We are withholding two further stars for the following reasons:

The server at the front counter did not make eye contact or greet us when we arrived. It costs nothing to welcome a customer The server did not ask if we were here for coffee, dining in or taking away. This would have triggered them to offer us a menu and glean more information from us. The menu did not offer a vegetarian breakfast. In this day and age - c'mon, we're onto vegan breakfasts now let alone vegetarian! - this is a little difficult to fathom. It was suggested (by a senior person, not the server who seemed to be brand-new) that we could take the eggs on toast option and add extras to build up a breakfast. At $5 per extra item, this would soon have mounted into being a very expensive vegetarian breakfast! This is why I opted for the breakfast burrito without the bacon (which was lovely.) The servers solely delivered food. They did not glance at the table to see if anything was needed, nor ask us if we might like some other condiments (e.g. tomato sauce). Twice we had to go in search of sugar for our coffee, and then salt & pepper for our meals. Fortunately we had our cutlery and napkins but it is doubtful our servers would not have noticed if we didn't.

It appears to us that there are young serving staff here who have not been instructed in the basics of standard hospitality service. Sadly this is all too common nowadays.

We hope management will take learning from this review instead of seeing it as criticism; we enjoyed our meals and drinks. Except for these minor but important aspects, it would have been perfect. Attentive service, and the basic greeting of customers is so simple to teach and learn, therefore it costs practically nothing, and it makes the overall experience so much better.

Wishing the Kafe Oranje team...

Mushy toast, poor service and staff with a bad attitude quashed any enjoyment that could have been had at Kafe Oranje today. Having to wait to be served while the one person behind the counter scooped ice-creams for other customers was the first problem, this could have been passable but there was no eye contact, no apology or an I’ll be with you soon, etc. which was not a good start. Then once I eventually got my mushrooms and spinach on toast, the thick slice of toasted artisan bread was soggy to the point it was almost falling apart, more like mush than toast. And when I went to ask for another piece of toast the same woman behind the counter told me that’s how it’s meant to be. She didn’t ask to look at it, no apology, no nothing and she wouldn’t listen to me when I said it didn’t taste good. Needless to say I didn’t eat the toast and when the waitress came to collect our plates I told her it had not tasted good. She simply said yes and laughed, took the plate and walked off. Unfortunately the staff I interacted with didn’t seem happy or comfortable providing good customer service and I certainly won’t be going back or recommending it to...

The staff are friendly and lovely however there is definitely possibility for the food to improve.

Eggs benedict was a nice, average treat, better if the bacon wasn’t overcooked. I myself got the open chicken & brie sandwich which I would’ve preferred to have had a bit more bread as it was hidden and quite soggy with oil so felt heavy on the stomach. Wouldn’t recommend the corn fritters as they are stodgy and dry, we were quite baffled as to how you’d execute it so badly.. sorry I hate to be rude. The cajun chicken salad was a good balance of flavour and vegetables but the chicken was unfortunately dry which brought the whole dish down a little.

Overall we enjoyed our experience but wouldn’t particularly come back for the food, perhaps the cabinet food is the...