Terrible experience at Cape Town Fish Market Blouberg.

A few friends and I visited the Cape Town Fish Market in Blouberg on the 18/07/2021 for a Sunday afternoon lunch. We were quite excited as this branch was highly recommended to us and was praised for its outstanding customer service and exceptional food quality. We did NOT receive any of these.

Upon our arrival we were welcomed and directed to our seats where we waited for almost 15 minutes for a waiter/waitress to introduce themselves or provide us with menus (mind you, there were waiters/waitress passing our table throughout this 15 minute period, non of them making the effort to check up on us). Once I was able to signal one of the waiters and inform him how long we’ve been waiting to be assisted, he very eagerly took our orders and profusely apologized for the delay. We ordered our starters, mains and drinks in one go as we were hungry and considering that we had to wait so long for some sort of assistance, we wanted to avoid having to wait for a long period of time for our food.

We then waited almost 20 minutes for our drinks (two coco-cola’s, one glass of water and a milkshake). One of us had to wait almost 35 minutes for a milkshake that was poorly prepared. At this point we still haven’t received our starters and after about 45 minutes, another waitress brought our starters. Upon placing our orders I asked if I could please have some extra mayonnaise with my sushi and I was willing to pay extra which the waiter assured me was possible. When our sushi was brought, not all of the sushi that we had ordered was on the plate and there was also not any mayonnaise. The waitress then apologized and said that she will bring the rest of the order as well as the mayonnaise. After waiting for about 15 minutes, she brought the rest of the order and then informed me that they were not able to give me extra mayonnaise because they didn’t have any extra. I then asked her how she could say there wasn’t any mayonnaise when there was clearly mayonnaise on a few pieces of our sushi. At this point we were already so frustrated because the service that was being delivered was so terrible.

After the debacle with the sushi, we were then waiting for our main courses which took about 40 minutes from when our sushi had arrived. In this time, another waitress came to our table and placed what appeared to be our food on the table and walked away. 20 seconds or so later she came back and removed the platter from the table and almost inaudibly said “this is not your food” and removed the platter from our table and simply placed it at other patrons table. We were so shocked (luckily we didn’t touch the food) because the waitress did not even apologize or anything.

I then asked to speak to the manager who was understanding and again profusely apologizing for the poor service provided by his staff. He informed us that he would have our friends milkshake remade, that he would have a word with the staff that was assisting us and also find out what happened with the platter. We felt better after he gave the impression that everything would be sorted but we still had to wait for another 30 minutes for our food and 10-15 minutes for the milkshake.

We were on the verge of canceling our order, paying for what we had ate and drank during our waiting period and leaving because we were absolutely fed up at this point. Just as we were about to do that, our food arrived. The quality of the food was so poor, the prawns were almost burnt and there were literally 6 pieces of calamari on each platter. We didn’t even finish our food because it unappetizing.

This was my first and very last time going to Cape Town fish Market. I’m sorry but it’s not the cheapest and if this is the kind of service one receives has a paying customer, I’ll rather dine elsewhere. Poor customer service and poor food quality. Would definitely not recommend it.