📍 601 Maungatautari Road, Leamington, Maungatautari 3494, New Zealand
📍 Address: 601 Maungatautari Road, Leamington, Maungatautari 3494, New Zealand
📞 Phone: +64 7 823 0023
🌐 Website: facebook.com
A cafe where you can relax and appreciate the lake view!!! Good for parents w/ kids too, they have huge playground beside the cafe.
Looked for a pitstop on the road to Rotorua and stumbled across the Podium with its view of the domain river and watersports centre, parking and children’s play area. We got in just before the locals so clearly a popular lunch spot. Nice hot drinks and a lovely banana loaf.
The any-style eggs looked great but were unfortunately quite bland. They came with a relish, which turned out to be just two very thin slices of carrot and onion — a bit disappointing. Both the turmeric and regular lattes lacked flavor and mostly just tasted like milk. The café does have a great location, but the staff member who took our order wasn’t particularly friendly, which added to the underwhelming experience.
Went for food and coffee but left hungry as the food selection is trash and really expensive. Coffee is watery and bitter like my attitude after leaving there. The staff weren't rude so that's something but weren't great. Bet if I said anything they would be though. Also their large coffee is small. And is $6.70.
Great place to stop over for a break and have a meal. Neat little cafe near the river and it's next to the playground so the kids can play too. Plenty of seating inside and out. You can order cooked food from the menu or from the cabinet. Quality and tasty food. They have a small selection for Kids meals
I had a fabulous long black and delicious, freshly made Monte Carlo cookie...yummm! My husband had a really good flat white in a gorgeous English pottery cup and saucer. Very worth cycling from Leamington for!
Nice looking cafe, and good atmosphere but unfortunately, the food was quite astounding and the wait staff we dealt with were extremely rude. We ordered iced chocolates, to which they came out as just a cup of milk with minimal if any chocolate flavoring in both with a hunk of ice cream on tip. Not mixed, nothing. Asked them and they made us one new one to which was not mixed either, and just had chocolate sauces excessively squirted in. This was dumped down on the table, and we weren't spoken to. Long black delivered to the table and we requested a small cup of cold water, to which the waitress went to get, then as delivering to our table, dumped it down hard, causing it to spill all over the table to which she said nothing and walked away. We ordered a sausage roll, pork pie, hot chips, eggs benedict, big breakfast, and keto fried chicken. The eggs on both meals were so overdone even though they were requested as being poached and the mushrooms on the big breakfast were absolutely burnt to smithereens and unedible. Was mentioned to wait staff, and they shrugged it off, no comment made or even an apology. Their kids menu consisted of bacon and eggs or waffles. Nothing else so definitely not a "kid friendly" Cafe, considering there's a playground right outside, we would have thought they'd offer more options. Service was extremely poor, and considering our meal was a couple of hundred in cost, it was very very disappointing.
Enjoying the day at Karapiro, so decided to have some snacks at the Podium. I ordered a salmon sandwich, which came with salad. The salad dressing was amazing. Loved the salmon. My wife had the keto pie, delicious in her opinion. Worth a visit!
Shocking customer service and over priced. We waited for 20 minutes for someone to clean our table from last customers’ dirty plates, spoke to two different waitress to clean our table, no one came, ended up clean the table ourselves and deliver the dirty plates to their counter. The worst is instead of a thank you we were given a good stare at by the female staff I handed the dirty plates too. The same staff also slammed our coffee on our table without saying a word to us. Two regular oat flat white with a fluffy and bowl of chips for $27 ($2.7 for a fluffy?!) a bit pricey? Food is okay but sadly with the non-exist customer service we won’t return and will not recommend this cafe to friends or family.
Situated on the shores of Karapiro this makes a great destination cafe, especially on a nice day. I can recommend the cabinet food which was very tasty and will be back to try the menu. Highly recommend the sausage rolls and the cakes were next level too. The cafe itself is on the smaller side and can be noisy, but has great views of the lake and plenty of outside seating with the adjacent playground, ideal for families and adults seemed to find it equally enjoyable. Access from the Cambridge end as the dam bridge is often closed. Signage isn't good. Look for the office and go right instead of heading down the path, especially if you need easy access.
Podium Cafe is located at 601 Maungatautari Road, Leamington, Maungatautari 3494, New Zealand
You can contact Podium Cafe at +64 7 823 0023
You can find directions to Podium Cafe by following this map link
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