Arcado Lounge

We had a lovely meal here last weekend when visiting our family nearby. I had the butter fried chicken and chips and my husband had the pulled pork chilli with a nice bottle of red wine. The restaurant had a lovely warm feeling and the staff were friendly and helpful. If I lived nearby I would definitely eat there.

Quirky group of lounge bars serving brunch, burgers, tapas, tea, coffee, cake, cocktails and much more. Food is reasonably priced and tasty. Pull up a chair on one of the outside tables and watch the Christchurch world go by.

Was very busy on Saturday morning 25/6/22.
Good place for breakfast, good prices, good vegetarian options.
Mixture of industrial and bohemian decor.
A little dark for such a sunny morning.

To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. The food and service here today was so poor. We had to wait ages for drinks and food. When the food did come it was cold, the eggs were over cooked and the veggie sausage didn't even look like it had been cooked. I love the lounges in Ringwood and Southbourne but this was awful!

We had a very long wait for our food, at least 30-40 minutes, but we were told this prior to ordering, so our choice to stay.

Chips are always served in a tin cup, lined with grease proof paper. However, when the chips are tipped out on the plate, there really are not many. On this occasion, not only were there only a few chips, they were cold. We spoke to a server but were told it would be 45 minutes before they could replace the cold chips and/or allow us to buy a separate portion of chips.

My question/suggestion to the owners of Arcado Lounge (and other places in this chain) .....if you were to do away with the tin cups, there would be less washing up. If you were to do away with the grease proof paper, there would be less paper waste. Doing away with both of the above would, not only be better for the environment, but less cost to yourselves AND that cost in savings you could pass on to your customers in the form of......more chips on the plate!!!! I really do not know anybody who loves your tin cups with just a few chips in.

Other than the situation with the cold and lack of chips....the burgers were good.

Great Gluten Free range, but they always tell you that they cannot guarantee the food is completely GF because there might be cross contamination. If you have a serious gluten intollerance, do not take the chance eating here.

This is our 'go to' venue, whenever we're in Christchurch. It's very spacious with lots of seating areas, however you can find quiet little tables tucked away if you want more intimate dining.

An intensive menu with something for everyone and you can order anything off the menu at any time.

The quality of the food is excellent and always quickly served.

The staff are super friendly and helpful.

Definitely worth a visit if your passing by.

See you soon. 👍

If you put a sign at the door asking people to wait to be seated, then have someone front of house taking care of it. We waited too long to be seated in a restaurant that was not busy. Then at the bar the staff were more interested in washing glasses than serving despite not busy, no eye contact or customer first approach. This place could be amazing, the look and feel is spot on, it just felt like mum and dad went out for the night and left the kids in charge.

Unfortunately our experience wasn’t great on Sunday evening.

Overall the food was so bland, and looked like it had been sitting around for a while.

I had to ask for the remaining bits of our food several times, and I still didn’t receive it all.

When i said the carrots served with the humus were soggy and old, and I wasn’t happy giving them to my child. I saw and heard the chef and waitress mockingly discussing it. We got even worse carrots back! Carrots that you can bend/are brown/haven’t been peeled should not be served and I’m surprised any chef would allow that to come out of a kitchen let alone for a child.

The waiters were lovely, it’s a fun Themed and relaxing place for everyone, kids included. But wouldn’t eat the food again particularly from the chef who looked like he would rather be doing anything else but working there.