Shingle Inn City Hall

Went to Shingle Inn for a trip down memory lane. The decor certainly brought back lots of memories unfortunately I left very unsatisfied. My husband ordered gluten free sandwiches and was informed maybe half an hour after the order was placed that they had run out of GF bread. He ordered cake instead which came out promptly. I had ordered waffles which were described in the menu as Shingle Inns famous waffles made fresh to order. After waiting an hour, I was informed the waffles were still frozen and they were unsure how long they would be. Clearly not fresh" as described. I cancelled the order. The staff apologised and were kind enough to only charge for the coffees and not charge for the cake my husband ate but to be honest it just wasn't good enough."

Once upon a time, The Shingle Inn was a visit to yesteryear, with attention to detail, manners, and customer care. Now, after they take my order, they come back and check what my order was. I ordered an iced tea and they plonked a plastic bottle of Liptons on the table. In the past, it would have been poured into a tall glass with ice and a slice of lemon. I had to ask for my water glass to be topped up. There were stale crumbs in the corner of the cake cabinet. My gift card refused to register although he tried five times. The food and decor was good, the Service was very basic. I’ve given it three good tries, but no more!

We went as a group outing to see the concert in city hall. Booked lunch for after, well ahead of time and the free concert is a regular event in the hall. On the internet when we researched the Shingle Inn, the choices looked great and I have had many very positive experiences at the Shingle Inn in Browns Plains. In fact they are 5 stars every visit.They seated us outside the venue which was great considering our group size, so excellent for our groups social outing thankyou for this space. There was only 1 item on the menu that was gluten free for lunch which is very poor in this day and age. So I had no choice at all. We had to chase my meal up at the end as everyone else had eaten. The Fritatta was so watery I could not eat it and the salad tasted like it had a blue cheese dressing on it which I can not eat and made the plate just smelt awful (this was not the stated dressing in the menu).3x members of the group ordered chicken and avocado sandwiches but there was no avocado (they had run out). 1 x member questioned this on ordering and was given extra chicken but the others were not but were still charged full price. Honestly, the meals were sub par, the lack of choice ridiculous. The staff did their best with the tools they had but mixed up about 3 drink orders, bringing out wrong coffees, doubling up on some of the coffees and then just the delays on the meals themselves and forgetting a meal, etc... The iced chocolate one member had even seem to curdle in the glass and so she stopped drinking it.The most successful dish one member had would have been the pumpkin soup. I don't think you can mess that up though.We drove 1.5 hours for the concert and a lovely lunch. Enjoyed the concert and the social outing as we always do, but wish lunch was somewhere else and will be next time. ☹️....................................................................................MY REPLY to Kathy (Head Office) as I can find no other way to reply. Your response only means that maybe you were not advised there would be one Coeliac amongst the group. This does not address any of the issues I have raised about the food. Your standard menu only has ONE option on it. There are NO allowances to have anything else catered to someone requiring GF. The missing Avocado and the fact that alternatives or a partial subsidy were not offered are not okay. The curdling Iced Chocolate is not okay. I am happy that you took the time to read my review and respond. It is wonderful when businesses can learn from their mistakes, but passing the buck on all issues because you were not informed of one Coeliac amongst the group does not help anyone. When you know you have multiple bookings on a day and one group of 12 coming in, wouldn't you ensure you have extra stock on most items. Thank you for your response though. Donna

So disappointing!Had a $60 high tea. Service was almost non existant. Had to ask for our food, after an hour of waiting, our included champagne was also after request and we had to ask for our tea 2 hours after arrival.On the positive side, the food was good.

Stopped for a coffee and ended up having brunch. Lovely recreated atmosphere of the original café. Fast and friendly service, nice food, the salad sandwich was freshly made. As a bonus, a quiet sanctuary from the busy city.

There were no prices on the cakes counter and was told it was against policy to show them, (if you want something to eat you want to see the price you're up for), they charged me $10 for a slice of cake after saying they were $6.80 the man just rudely said that was the start price. Their coffee while at a good price was only warm. I understand that prices have gone up but does that mean customer service should go down? I didn't even know they had a loyalty card until I posted my comment on Facebook... not that I'd use it now though. If you want to keep your customers, the 1st people to impress are your customers. There is one good thing to say..goodbye

Service & atmosphere was lovely.Mothers day High Tea lunch for 2 kids, 2 adults, seating at 11:30am - 1pm was booked. In advance with 3wks notice that 1 person was needing to be Gluten Free.Teens $30, Child $20 (unlimited juice, milkshakes) Adult $70 Inc glass champagne. (Unlimited tea,coffee)We waited 45mins to receive our lunch, Tween was missing items which I had to ask for, tea/coffee took a long time to get. There was no substitute for gluten free scone or sausage roll and as for the gf bread was very hard and not pleasant to eat.I was so looking forward to this experience and left very disappointed, not worth $70 for gluten free high tea.

Went for a special occasion for high tea Expecting high quality food and service, however this was not provided. Arrived at 10.30am to have a pre-booked High tea. On several occasions asked the staff how long it would be and was told that it was just being put together. 45 minutes later we finally received the food. Can't see why a pre-booked high tea wouldn't be ready at 10.30. Then much to our disappointment the food was certainly not to the standard to warrant the $44.00 per person cost. Service was terribly slow and even during our long wait we noticed at least 4 other groups come in and leave either because they had not had their order taken within 15 minutes or simply got tired of waiting for coffee or food or acknowledgement. There only appeared to be three junior staff working to manage a full restaurant and they were doing their best but could not cope. Not sure where any management or senior staff were to assist or provide support but it was definitely the blind leading the blind. Needless to say we won't be going back. Shingle Inn you need to support your staff, manage your business and get your act together.

We took our overseas guests for a Sunday lunch and the experience was very disappointing.Our food took over an hour to arrive, our drinks never arrived, and one of our orders was not served as requested.Our server was incredibly polite but obviously under pressure.What we were hoping would be a special lunch didn't turn out as we hoped.