GiG - Green is Good — Restaurant in Mafra

I am posting to as an addition to my brothers post who also left a 1 star review for this place and received a very inaccurate response from the owner. The post was about how he showed up at 10am in the rain on a Thursday to an empty cafe and was told that dogs were not allowed inside because they had an open kitchen and dogs were unhygienic and couldn’t be in a place where there was food. The owner of the cafe posted to reply that they are in fact dog friendly, would never say dogs are unhygienic (they absolutely did say that), but that a Portuguese law passed in 2018 outlaws dogs indoors. The thing is… I looked up this law. Decree no. 15/2018 is an amendment to decree 10/2015, and it does the exact opposite of what the owner said. It explicitly gives restaurant owners the choice of allowing dogs indoors. So in fact the law the owner refers to which “prevents” her from allowing dogs inside is actually the law that permits it. And the proposal that all pet friendly restaurants are breaking the law and suggestion that I respect the laws of the country I am in, when in fact the law supports me, is… frustrating to say the least. The owner may argue that their “open kitchen” prohibits dogs indoors, but the decree is intentionally vague to allow the owner to decide, and I’ve brought my dog into many restaurants with open kitchens in Portugal. The reality is this owner needs to update their thinking and allow dogs indoors. If they do, we will gladly come by, try the food, and update the reviews...

The ambience is nice, the staff is welcoming and hard-working and keep everything at float..very busy (at least on the Sunday we went there), our food was swiftly prepared.....you better make a reservation (you can do it on their website) .... The food was nice, we had the "Brunch for two".....it was good and every item was well cooked and nicely presented but it came in this very cumbersome gigantic tray that is not practical at all because it leaves you with no space left on the table, i was quite uncomfortable during my meal, it was as if another person was sitting at my side because of the space occupied by that Herculean hunk of metal on the table......also not that much variety on this menu......the portions were not that generous either but they suffice, I guess.....the fresh juices were interesting. Overall it was a nice experience, nice place to go with friends and/or family.....but I think the whole thing is a bit overrated and overpriced, the ratio between price and food is, IMO, not very well balanced (at least for Portuguese standards), I think what happens in places like this is you end up paying...

Worst experience I've had in a month spent in Portugal - where customer service has otherwise been excellent. The staff in this place are so incredibly rude, unwelcoming and inattentive that I would never go back.

There's no food of high enough quality that could justify this standard of customer service. We were a group of 4 adults ordering a bulk of food with one person who needed to use their laptop for 5 minutes (literally, on her lap) and multiple staff members repeatedly admonished her for this. When we politely queried the rationale for the no-laptop policy, we were dismissed with rude hand gestures by one waitress and later barked at by another. We were also patronised when we placed our food orders and snapped at when we asked for something extra following the main order.

The tables surrounding us were also waiting a very long time for service with no attention being paid or awareness of the frustration felt by customers. Very poor attitude that undoes what is probably good work being done behind the scenes/in...