Avoid this place. Appalling customer service.

We were lured in by the fact there were still vacant tables outside, not easy to find on a sunny summer afternoon in Mission Bay. Wish we had taken this as an obvious sign that this place is awful!

Didn’t get to the food, or halfway through our drinks for that matter, the way management talks to their staff and customers was enough to make us simply walk out.

I made my first return visit in many months to this well known cafe with my young family over the Christmas weekend.
What a pleasant surprise. The menus have all been re-written by the recently introduced new Head Chef. One of the owners informed me that the cafe has been operating, under the same ownership, for 20 years. The menu still includes a mix of Dalmatian / Croatian specialities along with a range of Mediteranean gourmet delights. I had the Dalmatian spit-roast lamb with polenta & my husband enjoyed the Mixed Grill. The Children’s menu provided plenty to keep the young ones happy. Service was friendly & efficient.
As my husband commented, ” these guys were cooking with olive oil & promoting the virtues of red wine when most of the celebrity chefs were still in nappies!”.
Thoroughly recommend.

Went to Riva on a Saturday at beginning of December. Cafe was half empty. It was a hot balmy night, but they had the gas fire on. Food was ok but portions were very small, more in keeping with light lunch rather than evening meal. It was satisfactory , but not really enjoyable.

Visited this local cafe with overseas visitors earlier this evening. Riva has introduced a salad & dessert buffet which is available with every meal ordered – for an all inclusive price of $29.50. Great value, friendly service & a great innovation to the standard offerings of all the other cafes in the area. Well done Riva!

the worse customer experience! we ll never come back to Riva any more. food was cold and we had to waiting for our meals around 45 minutes!short front staff which was so disappointing!and when we came to pay we ve been told ” I don’t know how can I work with this machine!!! “
good management well done Riva Cafe keep going U ll get gold award for your fantastic service!

I’m really surprised by these reviews… I have dined at Riva several times and always found it to be delicious. The food is always tasty and the service friendly.
I would recommend this cafe to anyone. I’ve never been disappointed.

Service was slow, coffee was cold, I ordered salmon omlete which came out over cooked & like rubber! My partner had the Riva breakfast & the bacon was swimming in fat & the toast was cold. Had to ask for water which they never came back to refill.

Overall service was crap, food was disgusting & overpriced! Will never go back again.

Just had the worst customer experience ever at Riva Cafe at Mission Bay. And as I can see from the reviews I am not the only one.
The waiter was rude and arrogant: firstly refused to give me the change from $20 note and than I asked for $2 refund for car park said that we should spend more at Riva cafe to be able to get this refund. I will never come back to this place again.

We’ve dined at Riva for lunch three times this year, and had excellent service and food on all three visits.

The buttermilk blueberry pancakes are exceptional, as is the stuffed calimari. The coffees are decent, and our orders were filled promptly, with water provided as we sat down.

We were surprised to see all the negative reviews – we had several different waiters/waitresses on our various visits, but all have been courteous, prompt and friendly.

If having 3 out of 3 poor meals wasn’t bad enough, the the Pièce de résistance has to be the service. Staff training (chef and waiters) is clearly not a priority in this eatery. Warning… don’t complain because a) you won’t know what you’re talking about b) you’ll be told to eat elsewhere if you don’t like it and c) you’ll still be expected to pay! Avoid like the plague.

Bread was devine; service appalling; steak meal good; caesar salad worst I’ve had. Staff don’t seem to enjoy the job. Hope some improvements are made or will be another in Mission Bay closing.

that was by far the worst service in a ‘cafe’ ever!. Apparently, a burger now classifies as a piece of over peppered chicken put between two pieces of toasted bread. Also, drinks are not classified. Costomer service is poor, our waitress didn’t even get our orders right! Kid menus leave a lot to be desired. Cafe’s are there for you to have a nice meal with good service! not for a coke to cost $3.50 or for a sundae, not even mcdonalds worthy, to be worth $5. Never going back. I would have been better off spending $20 at mcdonalds then the $40 i spent there for lunch!!!

went here a few weeks ago ordered pasta with chicken in tomato and mushroom sauce the meal wasn’t great think i could have made better at home,me and my partner were the only people in the place and the waitress stood close to our table the whole time waiting to take our glasses and plates away which we found off putting and kind of strange,wont be going back again.

If it wasn’t in Mission Bay, getting tourists and new customers, it wouldn’t survive! Service is very very slow – they never see you or look for you, if you sit outside. Food ok, but plenty of mistakes on ordering, and both food and coffee very slow in arriving. No wonder the other cafes in Mission Bay fill first by regulars.

Me and my Girlfriend have been to Riva Cafe a couple of times and both times have been the two worst experiences we have had, 1st time my Vegetarian girlfriend ordered the french toast without bacon and stressed strictly without bacon however when the food arrived (5 mins after mine had) she had extra bacon, when asked to make another we found that they simply had taken the fatty greasy bacon off and you could smell this on the toast even though they told us it was a new one!!! 3 months went by and we were in mission bay and thought we would give it one more try. we ordered to start a banana smoothie which ended up on my table as a mixed berry smoothie. my girlfriend ordered eggs benedict with spinach! 10 mins later the waitress tells us there is no spinach left and asked if she would like bacon instead, she said no and that she would have a bagel with cream cheese, avocado and tomato. 15 mins later she brings her eggs benedict with bacon!!!! we by this time are getting frustrated and tell her we are going to leave, she tells us not to and that she will get it sorted for us. she asked again what she wanted so we both explained to her what she wanted and couldn’t have made it any clearer! after a long wait yet again a bagel appears with avocado but no tomato and no cream cheese. we were offered no apology and no discount what so ever. terrible service and we will never go back again!!!

Food was average but service left a lot to be desired. When we asked the waiter if he knew what was happening re one of the breakfast dishes he did not get, he said he ‘only had two hands’. Certainly won’t be back.

Evening dinner for 6 people including visitors to Auckland.

1. Waitress had poor understanding of good waiting
2. The restaurant ran out of the beer brand after our first round of beers, so we had to change for the second
2. Two of the party ordered starters which the waitress thought should be delivered at the same time as the mains – we had to explain.
3. The mains when they arrived had all the signs of microwave re-heating.
4. Mains should be served to all at the table at the same time. There was at least 5-7 minutes between the first person being served and the last.
5. The venison was tough, the steak likewise and the fish was dry.

I apoligised to our Auckland guests – all in all a very bad experience. It put me off ever returning.