long beach cafe

went here last night for a birthday celebration and was amazed by thegoodservice and food.
our table had the steak, pork belly and different pizzas - wow - it was great.
my compliments to the chef, staff and owners!!!

i've been to longbeach many times, it's a great spot for lunch in waikanae - i am quite the regular over the summer months. i love the seafood pizza here; they are generous with the toppings, the salmon is fresh, and the prawns are big and juicy - de-lish! their twice-cooked chips are also amazing. i have ventured out a couple of times and once i ordered their seafood chowder, which was also delicious. the food is verygoodhere and they make a mean llb! i love sitting in the sun in the patio area. the staff here are always very busy but they are friendly and attentive. this is a very popular café and i highly recommend it if you are in the area.

it wasn’t very busy but they still managed to make us wait at least a whole hour to be served. not to bring us what we ordered, but to place our orders. food was actually verygoodonce it finally arrived. and the location was lovely. however the staff weren’t the friendliest.

nice pleasant corner cafe adjacent to the beach (but no direct view of the beach). great food well prepared and presented.goodfriendly helpful service. eggs benedict would be a great addition to the brunch menu but that said the eggs i had were excellent. highly recommended we will be back

we popped in here for afternoon drinks and possibly food. we found the place to be unnecessarily pretentious, and the service really stuffy. the wine selection was excellent and the menu did look great but we didn't hang around after one round as it was really pompous feeling. the place is very clean, very well laid out and the staff look tidy and are professional but the air of this place made me feel like they were toogoodfor us. it's just the vibe of it. i'd never go again purely for this reason.

yummy pizza really enjoyed it. litrle garlic loaf was yum, well cooked and just the right amount of garlic. lemon lime and bitters had agoodamount of bitters. overallgoodenjoyable night.

went here with a large group - 6 adults and 6 children ranging in age from 1 - 15. we were there early on a saturday night (6pm) the food wasgoodbut was slow in coming. we were however seated in the "bar" area so while it was relatively quite when we arrived we soon had people standing around our table drinking and the noise made conversation impossible. i left with a headache (and i have 3 pre schoolers so am used to plenty of noise). next time i will definitely request to sit in the eating area and refuse to be seated in the bar

have been to this restaurant 3 times in past 2 years.

the variety on the menu is ok, but a bit biased towards pizza's which is disappointing.

overall however this restaurant is reasonable value (apart from the pizzas) and the food is verygoodquality.

staff while we were there were also very good.
would give it 4 stars for brunch or lunch, maybe a bit less for other times of the day.

called in for a meal new year's day ...staff very friendly and helpful but meals were disappointing. pork belly was the size of a domino with a small amount of salad. the steak was also very small and thin with next to nothing with it under the heading large plates? well the plate was large but it just didn't have much on it...you could see most of the plate!..for the over $30 price in a non table clothed establishment they don't deserve a review!
pizzas weregoodalong with the chowder.....
i think a review of the menu and presentation giving value for money is over due. sorry but very disappointed with an over priced meal.

excellent thin crust pizzas and great (hot!) chili sauce to accompany. verygoodselection of beers and wines together withgoodcoffee. friendly staff and relaxed beach atmosphere. seating outside as well as inside. a real mix of customers. plenty of parking nearby. in essence everything a casual restaurant/bar over the road from the beach should be.

love this place .. has a cool vibe and they work super hard to please.
it is great to pop in and just have a coffee and 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 thegoodwork 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, orgoodenough 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 the coffee and 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'tgoodenough, 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 like coffee please 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 the coffee made and wait staff for just delivering coffee. most people want coffee and this was your biggest delay today. your wait staff were rushing around like blue-arsed flies and this could be avoided if you had specific coffee runners 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.

the best.. great customer service, lovely food and excellent coffee... definitly be back
nice location. was packed whn we turned up but was agoodturn over... will suggest this place to others..... prob the best waiters ive dealt with...

my favorite food and coffee spot in waikanae.
great coffee (homemade marshmallow and little bikkies a definate winner!),goodwine list, friendly and efficient staff... and very yummy pizza.

went with others this evening. paid $45 for a very average bottle of wine. i could have brought a much better one from countdown for $15.

i ordered the steak meal. $30 for a bit of steak (which was quitegoodhowever), some over salty chips with a bit of garlic butter and salty sauce was quite crap. when asked about my meal i said it was overly salty and others at our table also said their meals were very salty.

the fish'n'chips that others ordered were just that (plain old fish'n'chips) and for the price a ripoff in my opinion.

dessert was average and not worth the $14 it cost.

we will not be dining here again and would recommend others to steer clear.