Airstream Cafe, Glen Waverley - a disappointment

Airstream Cafe, you disappoint me. I've been a long time customer because of the close proximity to home and I never thought it was such a bad place to enjoy a good catchup or a quick meal. That is, until Christmas day.

It was a boiling hot day and I was running late to meet my mum and brother for lunch. As I sat down, I ordered myself a Miami Spice mocktail which was meant to include mixed berries, plain yoghurt, apricot nectar and ice cream for $7.50. What I got was a pineapple juice.

As I was very thirsty, I didn't notice it was the wrong drink until I took a sip. I initially didn't want to change the drink out of courtesy, but our waitress insisted she could change it so I agreed.

Even before the waitress finished writing it down, she turned around and said to me 'let me just check with my manager first, since you did take a sip already.' That was after she convinced me to change it.

'Ok, I said', with a very confused look on my face. Would it matter if I took a sip already? They shouldn't be serving my drink to someone else anyway. Unsurprisingly, she came back and said 'sorry but I can't change the drink for you since you've taken a sip already. Would you like to order a Miami Spice on top of the pineapple juice?'

My eyebrow twitched, my face turned red and my frustration boiled over. I felt like it was MY fault because I took a sip by mistake so I should just deal with it. I complained. After a while, the waitress came back and said 'my manager said ok, I can change it for you' but it was too late. I was going to drink that pineapple juice, feel bitter and then blog about it.

It's a wonder how once I was in a bad mood, I start seeing all the flaws of the restaurant. The chicken calzone ($16.90) we ordered came out with undercooked pastry. When I bit into it, the pastry was stuck to my teeth. The filling was nice though but it wasn't enough to make me like the dish.

The Airstream Deluxe pizza ($16.40) was too salty and the base became soggy very quickly. The salami was dry and overall just wasn't a nice pizza.

The duck risotto ($21.50) was quite tasty, but had way too much pepper. I love pepper so that's saying something. Despite the pepper, I still liked this dish the most out of all the ones we ordered.

Jeff, my brother, also ordered a pint of lemon lime & bitters for $6.40. It was a reasonably large drink but $6.40 for such something so ordinary is a bit much. I didn't taste it however so not sure how good it was. Mum ordered a blue spider for $5.50 which was quite nice, but as she drank half of it before I even got there, I didn't take a photo.

Before we finished our meal, another waiter came up and put an iced coffee on the table. 'We didn't order that' I said and he looked confused. The next table also shook their heads. The same waitress who took our order took the blame and from what it looked like, she was made to pay and drank the iced coffee herself. It was messed up.

As you can see, the dishes weren't even cheap. For the bad service I received and the very average food, there are plenty more cafes around that I'd rather go to such as Mocha Jo's just across the road.

I will NOT be returning here again, even with the Entertainment Book voucher. You've just lost a regular customer Airstream, although you probably don't care.

I had wanted to post this up as soon as I ate there for lunch on Christmas Eve, but Yuye was right. It was Christmas and I didn't want to ruin anyone's day by reading such an unhappy post.

Question time: Have you ever had bad service at a restaurant? Would you normally complain or would you just ignore it?

Airstream Cafe
Phone: (03) 9545 1800
287 Springvale Rd, Glen Waverley VIC 3150
http://www.airstreamcafe.com.au

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