Red Corner Cafe

9 Reviews on “Red Corner Cafe”

• Lucy Kitley

  Came here for a quick dinner before seeing a movie. We had a shopper docket deal for buy 1 get one free, we were informed before ordering that the we could use the deal but it wouldnt include the drink for the meal deals Which was fine, we just had table water. The parma & chicken burger were nice, nothing amazing, but fine for the price! The only thing that let us down a bit was the service, the staff seemed quite disinterested & took awhile to take our orders.

  December 19, 2020, 8:10 am

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• Rommy Tsomaropoulos

  On Thursday night, we had a very poor experience with Red Cafe. To cut a long story short, we somehow paid MORE by using our shop a docket, than we would have without it, and were not informed of this by the cashier. When we found out and queried it over the phone, I ended up being sworn at by the girl I was speaking with, and was told to fu*king read the docket. Furthermore, we later noticed many other sneaky inconsistencies in the pricing system at Red Cafe. If you would like to know the details, read on!

  We chose to dine at Red Cafe for the very fact that we had a Buy 1 meal get 1 FREE voucher. We were aware that there were several (ambiguous) conditions on the voucher, but thought what we had ordered will qualify anyway, and if it didnt then we could use the voucher another time. My husband and I both ordered Chicken Parmas for $19.95 each. It did come with a pint for that price, but nowhere on the menu does it specify that it is a special. Also, nowhere on the menu does it specify the price of the parma without the drink. So, seeing we were told by the waitstaff that drinks are included, I ordered mine with a chardonnay, and my husband ordered the pint of beer with his, even though he really was forcing himself to drink it. We had already ordered (and paid for) several drinks beforehand. My daughter wanted the vego burger. She already told me that it may not be included as part of the voucher seeing she could only find it on the MEAL DEALS section of the menu. One might assume a meal deal is a special, even though again, it doesnt really specify exactly what that is. She has ordered the vego burger in the past on uber eats for $15.90, without any drinks included, so she just asked for a vego burger when ordering, as she didnt really want the meal deal for $19.95 which included a pint. The waiter asked what drink would you like with that?, to which my daughter replied, oh is the drink included?, and he said yes, so she ordered a diet coke with that, which ended up being a pint size as well. We had also ordered salads with the parmas, and a garlic bread. All in all, the food was okay, and seemed to be decent value. That is, until my husband went to pay. My daughter and I had left the restaurant to shop, so we left my husband with the task of paying (typical that this should happen to my husband!). When we met up with him later, he told us the total price of the bill, and that the cashier said all drinks had to be paid for separately (at FULL price) and werent included in the deal on the shop a docket. Nonetheless, they took off the price of the vego burger (he was told it was $19.95), so my husband still assumed we must be getting some value from the voucher anyway, so paid and left. Later on, when we went over the bill, we realised we were charged MORE by using the voucher, than we otherwise would have been had there been no voucher presented at all! For example, the parmas cost $19.95 and then another $8 each for the drinks. The vego burger would have cost $19.95, plus another $5 for the diet coke. In the end, we were ripped off by just a couple of dollars (plus the cost of a drink), but it was the principle that bothered us so much, and the fact that the cashier didnt even tell my husband that he will be paying more than he needs to by surrendering the voucher. He could have simply told my husband to keep the voucher for another time (and pay a little bit less while he was at it!).

  I rang up to query this, which is where the situation really went down hill as it was handled extremely poorly by the responding staff member. The girl on the phone told us that, firstly, we should have informed the waitstaff that we had a voucher before ordering anything, as the voucher changes everything. We dont use vouchers very often, but have never done this in the past at any other restaurant, nor does it say to do that on the docket, nor does it say to do that anywhere on the menu. When I tried to tell her I didnt know we needed to do that, she belittled me, and told me she had been working in hospitality her whole life and it is a widely known fact that you are supposed to do that (Really? Pardon our ignorance.). Furthermore, she tried to tell me the parmas were actually part of a menu special offer and that is why they werent included in the offer. If this was the case, and if the parmas really were a special offer, and seeing the shop a docket specified that its not applicable to menu special offers, why did Red Cafe even accept my voucher in the first place? Should they then not have informed us that actually, the voucher wont even work, and that we can use it another time? One statement on the docket does say No Drinks, but this is not what we were told by the waitstaff who said all drinks are included. Perhaps then specify on the voucher that if you are buying a special that includes a drink, you will then be charged extra (full price) for the drink and it wont even be discounted at all from the rest of the special offer. Yes, thats right, the FULL price of the drink will be added to the FULL price of the meal, even though it was a deal and the drink price should have already been part of the existing meal price. Before I could talk/reason/argue any further with the girl, she told me its all on the docket and you just need to fu*king read it. Angrily, I hung up the phone without really getting anywhere, which is the reason for writing this extra long review.

  The more we looked into it, the more holes we could find in what we were charged for and the pricing system at Red Cafe. Seeing they did accept the shop a docket voucher, which is a Buy 1 meal get 1 FREE voucher, then why were ALL THREE of our drinks charged for? I get that they would charge for the two drinks that were included in conjunction with the two meals as part of shop a docket offer, but then should they have not left one of our drinks included as part of the meal special and not charged extra for it? Using the voucher should have just voided two specials and charged for two of the drinks, rather than three (1 meal plus 1 FREE meal! It says nothing about a third meal!). So there was another drink we were ripped offFurthermore, if a vego boss burger costs $15.90 without a drink included as per the uber eats menu, why was an extra $5 ADDED to the pint meal deal price of $19.95? Thats almost an extra $10 charged to us just for a watered down diet coke to be included.

  Overall, our experience with Red Cafe was one I would not wish upon anyone. It is really unfortunate because we have been customers with them since it first opened at Southland in the 90s as Red Corner Cafe, and now we probably wont dine or order from there ever again. We do not believe loyal customers should be treated like we were on Thursday night. Red Cafe should ensure this never happens again by perhaps giving additional customer service training to their waitstaff, (although no swearing at customers should be a no brainer), and not being so sneaky about the way their pricing works.

  October 27, 2020, 8:09 pm

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