long beach cafe

love this place and the whole story behind it.  they serve the bestcoffee- flight - from wellington.  the grow much of their own veg and herbs in the garden at the back of the café.  they make all the baked goods in their own bakery and they brew their own beer in the brewery they set up.  love how these youngish people employ 30 people now between their four businesses.  city quality food at the beach i reckon.  a treat to dine at.

this is the place to be in waikanae, for breakfast, lunch or dinner or even just coffee! owned by locals, run by locals, this place feels like the heart and soul of waikanae beach. all the food is great,coffeeis great, beer is great!. see this in the app

hmmmm.   we were on a road trip north over labour weekend, and popped into long beach café for brunch on the way through.   we'd initially tried to go to the front room (which is a firm favourite), but they had a hideously long wait with food, so we popped next door to long beach café.    following the experience we had at long beach café, i can see why they had a number of free tables, whereas the front room was bursting at the seams!   in all fairness, the food we ordered at long beach café was great (creamed vanilla rice, and their big breakfast with everything); thecoffeewas good, and the young waitress who served us was just lovely ... it was just the rudeness of a couple of their staff that's made sure i'll never bother going back.   as we were in a hurry (and i'd made that known when we arrived), after we'd been seated and waited for a bit, i'd popped back into the restaurant to grab a couple of menus so we could get started and at least figure out what we were going to have.   well.  how very dare me?!   i hadn't realised there were two doors to the courtyard - i'd popped in one door, while our lovely waitress had gone out the other one (i mean - the door is marked "toilets", so i hadn't realised it also doubled as a second entrance to the courtyard?!).   i asked the surly girl making the coffees if we could please have a couple of menus, and got snapped at out and was ordered to go and sit down, as a waitress was headed in our direction [*stomp* *spit* *snarl*].   excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me?!   (a)  i'm not 6 years old; (b) umm, customer service anyone?; and (c) i can see why this particular individual is assigned to thecoffeemachine and not front line service (someone get this girl some evening primrose oil, pronto).   if we hadn't been in a rush, and i hadn't needed to feed my nephew, i would have walked out immediately, on the back of that interaction.   long beach café - you do so many things so well, but when you're in a customer service industry and you have such a strong competitor right next door (where our experience that morning had been the polar opposite - the front room front counter staff immediately welcomed us with a warm smile, and advised they'd love to seat us, but that there would be a huge wait on food), just remember - i have a choice where to spend my $40 on brunch ... your food is great, and your lovely young waitress helped balance the experience out, but such bare-faced rudeness and the bad attitude was enough to make sure i won't be choosing to spend my coin with you again!

i love this place! every time i am in the waikanae area this is the place i come. greatcoffeeand great pizza! this place is relaxed though still top quality with awesome staff! see you again long beach!

love this place .. has a cool vibe and they work super hard to please.
it is great to pop in and just have acoffeeand a yummy scone or casual pizza but they also serve fabulous food from an extensive and tasty menu with a focus on local fresh produce.
staff are super friendly, well drilled and efficient.
lots of nice touches make long beach our favoured local pit stop!
keep up the good work and look forward to seeing the new renovations!

**don't go here today -boxing day - you'll be disappointed**

i have a policy of not writing negative reviews without having given my feedback to the manager in person first and at least given them a chance to respond. i'm afraid this has been one of those times where i gave my feedback quite fairly and it wasn't received well by the owner and was negatively reacted to. this is a shame as it could have gone differently.

these guys are the only establishment open in waikanae today and they don't have enough people on, or good enough infastructure, to handle the demand they're clearly under. we saw people leaving for the same reasons we weren't happy. we waited 40 minutes for thecoffeeand fluffy we ordered, and our croissant was given to another table who arrived after us, but got their order before us. the biscuit we ordered was wrong and the one that eventually arrived was not very nice. the compensation we were offered was not being charged for the food that we didn't receive and was wrong/ not nice. this isn't good enough, i'm sorry.

here are some suggestions that would make things easier for everyone, staff and customers alike:

- if there's a long wait for things likecoffeeplease tell us before we make the decision to sit down. that means we are making an informed choice. you might lose a bit of custom but at least you won't be dealing with unhappy customers and therefore reviews like this one.

- if you're going to be the only place open in town, please don't use this as an excuse for a bad dining experience, like you did today. fair enough you were busy and clearly struggling but this could be avoided by making sure you have enough staff on, as you must have predicted how busy you would be today. if you make a decision to be open, make sure you execute it really well by having who and what you need to cope properly. being the only place open is not a form of compensation to your customers.

- you could also put on a limited menu on a day like today rather than your full selection. this would make it more efficient for the chefs to pump out meals quickly. perhaps more counter food also available would have made things easier.

- have people there soley focused on getting thecoffeemade and wait staff for just delivering coffee. most people wantcoffeeand this was your biggest delay today. your wait staff were rushing around like blue-arsed flies and this could be avoided if you had specificcoffeerunners in addition to wait staff taking orders and delivering meals.

- if a customer is unhappy just acknowledge it and offer a decent compensation. that would have made a world of difference to us today.

we are really disappointed in today and your reaction to us. i feel like i was fair and not angry or rude. we've lived in waikanae since 2012 and have been regular customers of all your establishments. i'm aware it is fairly slim pickings in waikanae but there are other choices and i'll definitely be making some other choices after today. i feel sad about this but not sure what else to do.

i hope the rest of the day improves and that your staff get paid at least time and half for the difficult job they had today.

charlotte.

my favorite food andcoffeespot in waikanae.
greatcoffee(homemade marshmallow and little bikkies a definate winner!), good wine list, friendly and efficient staff... and very yummy pizza.