Midlands Fable Eatery — Restaurant in uMgeni Local Municipality

Fable has a lovely setting but…

Sadly, our experience there today was marred by surly service from a sour waitron who was clearly having an off-day.

Besides the ‘attitude’ we received, not once did she venture to check on our table.

Furthermore, the lunch menu is limited for those seeking lighter lunch options such as an open or toasted sandwich.

Only one of the latter is offered as a lunch option. Consequently, since the restaurant was quiet, I politely enquired if I could order a toasted item from their breakfast options containing ingredients that can reasonably be considered “all-day fare”.

This request was very firmly turned down with a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ approach.

I understand that’s Fable’s policy, but on a day and time (2pm) when the restaurant had just a smattering of customers, I feel they could’ve been more accommodating, especially since we explained to the manager on duty that we were there to celebrate a birthday.

Alternatively, if applying discretion isn’t an option for Fable, perhaps the owner should consider offering more ‘light lunch’ options so that customers aren’t forced to look elsewhere on the menu.

Unfortunately, standing inflexibly on principle was more important to Fable than making an obliging exception and showing real hospitality.

Had Fable shown greater discretion under the circumstances, not only would they have made us happy return customers, but they would’ve got higher spend from us.

Post-script: Since placing this review on May 29, 2024, there's been no response from the owner as at August 13, 2025. Looking further down at earlier reviews, it appears the owner responds only to 'positive' reviews. In my respectful view, with no malice intended towards the owner, that's unfortunate - 'negative' reviews are just as important to a business as 'glowing' reviews, because it helps restaurant owners identify areas for improvement, even if they believe negative experiences of their restaurant are the exception, rather than the norm.

Update: On Monday, August 25, 2025, the owner of Fable finally responded, nearly 15 months after posting my original review.

Unfortunately, it seems he disabled the response function, so I'm forced to respond to his response here. Classy!

I can understand why the owner prefers not to put his name to a response that's packed with condescending micro-aggressions.

Like this patronising gem: "We did not respond at the time as we weren’t entirely sure what you were hoping for from us."

Really? I'll let the public decide if that's an appropriate response to a complaint, which, for the record, I only escalated publicly on account of the rude and obnoxious treatment we got on the day.

It's not my custom to leave negative reviews on Google about eateries, preferring instead to raise issues (should they arise) quietly with the owner or manager-on-duty.

Had our complaint been handled better on the day, it wouldn't have reached the level of a Google review.

We aren't serial moaners, and will generally rather walk away and not return than make a 'scene'—not that we would ever do so.

However, your staff's obnoxious response was so egregious, I made an exception in this instance, as a warning to others.

I've since heard of similar complaints from other patrons, who've vowed never to return, so we appear not to be alone.

Finally, your suggestion that we only had ourselves to blame for the rudeness of our server is rejected.

This is classic self-serving misdirection and deflection.

We treated your server with the utmost respect and courtesy, even though it wasn't reciprocated.

However, if you haven't trained your staff to handle a complaint in a professional, respectful manner—that's on you, not on us.

We have deep empathy for servers, and the hard work, long hours and often unseen, thankless tasks they...

Shocking service, rude staff! Before we arrived, we called in to ask if there was availability for lunch and we were rudely advised that they do not take reservations. We explained that we planned on driving over an hour from Durban to clme for lunch so would appreciate if they could please advise of there was at least availability before making the long trip. We were told that we wwere not guaranteed a table. We decided to take the long trip for lunch. We arrived at 11.30 for lunch only to be told that breakfast closed at 11.30 and lunch only starts at 12.00 so we were not permitted to place a lunch order. When we called in, the rude person did not tell us about this ridiculous rule! I asked if we could please order a toasted cheese and tomato for our daughter as she was starving but were denied the order. The waitress stated that we could only order pizza for all to share. What a joke! We ended up having a coffee and left immediately. A simple toasted sandwich was too much for the kitchen to do. after driving so far and this is the hospitality we walked into. We will NEVER be back ever again. Staff need to be unskilled to properly work in the service industry and rules like "you can't order lunch" are quite...

Excellent all round but they loose one ⭐ for poor service. We brought a bottle of wine from (the unrelated) Fable Mountain but they refused to let us pay corkage or call the owner to ask permission. This ruined our special occasion so they loose two ⭐ for poor service.

They have a nice selection of good wines. The wines they sell average around R300 in price with the top wine at R640. Our bottle was more expensive so we didn't buy any of theirs (in protest of their bad service)!

They have some wild and interesting find, some nice cocktails and nice craft beers!

They also have a lot of interesting nooks and crannies for special seating areas inside and outside. As well as mini kids tables. Faboulous!!!

The service only got 2 stars because I could not pay corkage and the waitress started removing plates from my table before my guests were finished eating (which is very rude in my culture)!!!

Two of my guests ordered the cheapest meal on the menu (I suspect on purpose in protest since they had brought the special bottle of wine) (Later they said they would never recommend the place nor come back which I felt was too harsh, as I am certain most people would really like...