long beach cafe

always a treat dinning atlongbeach. never a complaint. food alway fresh and hot and tasty. as always had pizza and chips, which did not disappoint!

took alongtime to receive drinks, longer to have anyone take our order and even longer to receive our food which arrived cold. other silly annoying thing was none of our toast came buttered so it was dry and bland. just feels like yet another beachy hipster place trying too hard.

3 of us popped in for lunch today, our waitress was a little rude (she even told off another waiter right next to us in the middle of the cafe) and we waited alongtime for drinks and food even though they weren't that busy. i wouldn't recommend anyone order a chai latte as it just tasted like warm milk. the only redeeming factor was the food was nice, not sure any of us would return here though.

dinner stop after alongdrive homeward bound to wellington.

the place was humming so we ended up sitting out in the garden which was lovely.  the kids explored the kitchen garden while we waited for food.

pizza's were all devoured and were declared delicious.

hmmmm.   we were on a road trip north over labour weekend, and popped intolongbeach 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 hideouslylongwait with food, so we popped next door tolongbeach café.    following the experience we had atlongbeach 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 atlongbeach café was great (creamed vanilla rice, and their big breakfast with everything); the coffee was 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 the coffee machine 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.  longbeach 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. great coffee and great pizza! this place is relaxed though still top quality with awesome staff! see you againlongbeach!

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 makelongbeach our favoured local pit stop!
keep up the good work and look forward to seeing the new renovations!

a new chef @longbeach has created a real buzz - the menu is fab - i'd recommend the pork belly, it was melt in the mouth. the prawn entrees juicy and punchy with chilli and garlic. this is my new happy place!

my wife and i went tolongbeach last friday night. it was busy and we hadn't booked but managed to get a table.
the new chef has really done a great job revamping the main menu. the food was fantastic.
entre of seafood on skewers in a piece of driftwood - perfectly done. i had the angus eye fillet that was also perfect and my wife had butterfish that was superb. we've dined a lot in wellington and i have to say this was right up there with the best. congratulations.

went tolongbeach for lunch today with a friend. service was appalling, ordered a cheese scone, a pie and a saugage roll. after 10 minutes my cheese scone arrived, i had to ask 5 minutes later when the pie and sausage roll were coming, got told that i should have said i wanted them at the same time, sorry, if not specified by me, the customer, the food was to come at the same time. after that, was not asked how the food was, was talked about behind the counter with stares, and was not spoken to after that. will never go back and will not be recommending this place to other friends

best service i have had in a verylongtime. our waitress emily was very knowledgeable about the menu, made suggestions and recommendations so we took her advice.
we were all only there for desert, but the food was fantastic. emily asked us for our thoughts once we had finished the meals and when we gave her some feedback for one small improvement she took it straight to the chef. she was energetic, had great people skills and a delight to have as our waitress.
yet another fantastic experience at thelongbeach!

**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 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't good enough, i'm sorry.

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

- if there's alongwait 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.

it has been awhile since we purchased a pizza fromlongbeach but this sunday we decided to have a treat. i don't know what could have happened but it was the most tasteless pizzas we have ever had. we will be back hoping that it was just one bad night as they were so good before. hope the chef on the night reads this!

my wife and i consider longbeach the best, and only restaurant on the kapiti coast worth going to. the food is fantastic, and always of the same high level of quality even when the place is bursting at the seams. the wait staff are attentive and enthusiastic to help if they can. the drinks list is extensive and the staff have a great knowledge and are happy to make recommendations. if your on the kapiti coast,longbeach is definitely the place to go!

this is the second time that we have eaten here but the first time under the new ownership. my husband and i arrived and we were greeted by friendly staff and asked where we would like to sit. we had good friendly service. we both ordered the steak his medium and mine medium rare with vegetables.our wine turned up which was very pleasant which we enjoyed before our meals turned up. when they did we were very impressed the presentation was just impeccable, hubby even loved the vegetables and commented on how tasty they were which must be good as he is not overly keen as he is mainly a meat man! both our steaks were cooked to perfection which is quite rare as i do not seem to have much luck with medion rare, either it is too rare of over cooked for my liking but this was melt in your mouth steak and tasty vegetables. our only complaint was that we were too full to fit in a desert, so will have to save until our next visit which we will take the children to try the yummy looking pizza's!! overall an excellent visit with one of the best steak meals that we have eaten in a verylongtime and very friendly staff. we will definitely be back!