Peperboom Restaurant — Restaurant in George

My review from 5 years ago read "Pleasant atmosphere, friendly service and nice view from the deck." Unfortunately it needs to be edited and the 4 star rating stripped to 1 star seeing that it needs at least 1 star rating.

We've been regular visitors and had a breakfast, or lunch at least every 2nd month since then. Service and food varied from being ok to mediocre over the period. We also found strange open and closing times so we normally phoned ahead and checked if open and what time they close. But we enjoyed each visit rain or shine, wind or no wind.

Then on the 2nd of January 2023 we decided to take friends to one of our favorite restaurants in the area and o-boy was that a mistake! Being the 2nd of January around 11:30 and a public holiday we expected it to be very busy which it was not based on the number of open tables. We got a table right away however the waitress did say that the kitchen was taking a bit of strain and we would be in for a long wait. We accepted the wait and ordered couple of cappuccinos, some wine, and a milkshake.

The wine arrived quickly, the cappuccinos about 15 mins later very cold. We asked that it just be steamed however the waitress seemed completely overwhelmed and walked away to the kitchen without our drinks to reheat. We then got up and took it to the kitchen to be reheated finding the waitress very confused trying to get hot milk for our drink. Well no problem we were still glad we got a table and could enjoy the company of our friends. Oh and the milkshake arrived about 15 minutes after the cold cappuccinos.

In the meantime the other patrons started to finish up and left so the restaurant started becoming less busy.

The waitress then took our meal order again warning that it will take some time to prepare and we accepted since we were expecting it to be busy. Well after about another 30 minutes the waitress returned and said that the kitchen is too busy and they will not be making the food we ordered.

Peperboom Restaurant lost a regular customer due to poor service, a stressed and confused waitress, and a kitchen that...

Honestly, Mia is your saving grace and the only reason I am bothering to leave a review at all. If it weren't for the excellent service Mia gave us, this would be an entirely different review.

On entering the restaurant, we were seated by a waiter (not Mia), he handed us two menus for a table of 8. I asked for more. He brought more. I then asked if there were a kids menu (I had two kids af my table), he said yes... so I asked could we get kids menus? He went off to get them. We then placed our drink order, for only half our drinks to arrive. We asked for the same beer several times, and the waiter just kept forgetting to bring it to our table. When trying to order our meals, everything we attempted to order was out of stock - including the pizzas. Usually, this doesn't bother me, but it would be better if the waiter told us ahead of time, when we first sat down, what wasn't available so we could save ourselves the time. When asking the waiter what seasonal veg was available, the waiter went on to explain WHAT seasonal veg was and not what seasonal veg we could expect to be served. At the table next to us, guests were smoking (when there's clearly a no smoking sign), after making a comment, they stormed out of the restaurant after complaining to the manager about us. Again, we had kids at the table, and chose a non smoking area. It was at this point that I went to speak to the manager, expressing my disappointment- we were given kiddies meals, without cutlery and half the order wasn't placed correctly. Thankfully, the manager acted quickly, and assigned Mia our table. Mia is a super star and saved the night. She was attentive, good spirited despite working long hours, great towards my kids and ensured we were all happy. When the food did come, we were all very happy, and the service after Mia took over was a complete 180. This was an excellent way to handle complaints, and ensured...

If we can rate this place a NO star at all for service...we would. We've ordered our meals for 4 Adults. Only AFTER the waitress brought our drinks(About 15 minutes after we've ordered) , she informed us that actually we couldn't order the meals that we did order and that we will have to wait about 2 hours before they can serve us any of the meals we've ordered, as they only serve certain dishes at the time we've ordered. They could only serve us a very dry and 'card-board' like Focaccia, which we've waited 45 minutes for. Even the manager had the audacity to come and ask if we are all having a good time and if we are happy with everything...even while she knew we weren't happy at all. SERIOUSLY!!!! Some professionalism would've been appreciated. They could at least TELL their customers that they can not order certain food items on their menu WHEN they take the order...instead of taking the order and come and tell us 15 minutes later (AFTER they served our drinks...which we would obviously have to pay for now) that they actually can't serve any of our meals which we've ordered. Totally unacceptable and this place will NEVER EVER see us again. We DO NOT recommend any potential customer to even...