Review Dragon Fly Cafe - Brisbane

One of our meals was great, ( the waffles) but its a fairly simple direction of sunny side up for eggs & they come out fried. In regards to the host who greeted us, he came off as quite abrupt & a little rude. And it didn't appear to be that busy. this may have been a one off experience though as I've never been before. The setting was lovely, located inside a nursery.

Beautiful setting, excellent service, wonderful coffee but the highlight was the Belgian waffles 😱😱😱 freshly made freshly cooked ....ohhhhh blissful.

Was feeling very blue when a dear friend invited me for breakfast here. It was really nice, I had probably the best banana caramel milkshake here with a chicken parmi which was just what I needed. This place has a warm place in my heart now :) I will be visiting again.

I feel this cafe is such a missed opportunity. Such a lovely setting but horrible food and overpriced! If they could get a good cabinet menu with some FRESH options it would be so popular with the locals. Every time I have visited over the past few years I have been let down.

I've been here a few times just for tea and cake - only because it's a convenient place to meet. I probably won't bother coming here again. The staff aren't particularly friendly and at $12 for a teabag tea and a small piece of date and honey cake, well, it's not worth it.

The service wasn’t great —the wait staff couldn’t be bothered on a Sunday morning——so extremely overpriced —1.5% for credit card PLUS 10% for weekends??????—we have never had that at any other cafe!!!! Pure greed. The breakfast was cold-not what we really asked for —will not be returning.

Horrendous. One of our waiters argued with us after we asked 5 times for water to be brought out for us over a 45 minute period. The water was just sitting next to the counter and I even asked if I could just grab a bottle myself (third time asking) whilst I was up ordering and was told ‘oh no we will bring it out’. When asked again the waiter said ‘bringing out water isn’t my priority’ and was completely rude and when said I didn’t really need his attitude with my breakfast he continued to argue with me, should not be serving as a waiter. I have worked in hospitality and retail before and you DO NOT argue with a customer openly like this and act so rude, not a word of apology about the water, just kept arguing with us that is was busy and brining us water wasn’t his priority, stood at our table for a good few minutes arguing. It was not that busy and our food took forever to come out and was cold in the end, so not sure what his first priority even was if not the food or water? It also took longer for the coffee to arrive than the food. The cafe is also not cheap, you are paying top dollar for what? For it to take a very long time, get cold food, have your waiter argue with you and not even get basic bottled water. Complained to the manager who also didn’t seem to care and made up a bunch of excuses. Definitely avoid.

A little upmarket Cafe with an extensive display of more manageable plants for the all important green foliage displays. Lovely water fountain in the lake area. Not sure where the goanna have gone to though.

14/05/2019<br/>After taking my elderly Mother (who lives in an aged home close by), my Daughter & my two Grandchildren, I told many people about your beautiful surroundings & lovely scones & suggested they give your cafe a go. There are 8 of us friends who regularly meet for lunch or dinner & I recommended we have lunch together at Dragonfly Cafe on Saturday 4th May 2019.<br/>Firstly - about a fortnight beforehand we booked a table for 8 overlooking the pond & we were told that would be fine. When we arrived we found we were stuck in the middle of the main walkway & were then told that they were not allowed to give us a table overlooking the pond.<br/>Each of our 4 couples spent $80. I have never been so embarrassed. The food was absolutely terrible. The 2 steak sandwiches were tough & stringy. The lemon chicken was just cold, dried up garlic flavoured pasta with chicken pieces with no creamy sauce at all & not a hint of lemon.  The salad was very ordinary. The fish and chips...... our friend removed all the greasy batter. The corn & zuccini fritters were two tennis ball sized, sitting in the middle of a plate with no sauce, no salad, nothing & they were terrible.  FIVE of us left 3/4 of our food & the others also left a portion on their plates. Even the coffee was warm only. The following morning I wrote an email to the Manager...... to advise him of our disappointment..... NINE DAYS AGO. At this point of time I have not heard a word from him. No response whatsoever.  I have one suggestion for him...... Get a descent Chef and Kitchen Staff...... If you have care for your business and respect your customers, you need to act on it.   Nice atmosphere - SHAME  about the food.  I await your response................

This place has taken it to a whole new level since the last time I visited. Better menu with awesome food, nicer drinks and presentation. The breakfast dishes are fresh with a more innovative take on traditional breakfast options. It’s so nice sitting next to the rail overlooking the pond and have a stroll through the nursery after the meal.

Decided not to return here. Used to go here for a change since it was an ok place. I dont know whats happened, new management maybe, but this place has just lost it. Menu has lost creativity especially lunch menu. Walked out last time we went for lunch without even ordering. Coffee barely got drunk at a recent breakfast and service has died a painfull death. Id be reading and acting on this pretty quick. Points for location only. Sell up and hand it to someone else. Poor

Beware .. under new management .. we’ve been to the Dragonfly Café a number of times over the years. It was considered a treat as this café has always been very overpriced, but the food and service were good and the location in a garden centre is lovely. The café was always full whenever we went, so we were surprised this time to find it nearly empty. The menu stated to ask the staff what cakes were available yet when I did, the waitress's reply was she didn’t know, she hadn’t looked, despite it being late morning and the café having been open for the day for 3 hours. She told me to go and have a look in the cabinet myself. As she couldn’t be bothered to look, neither could I, so I just ordered coffee which unfortunately was weak and tasteless. My companion ordered a scone which, of course, should be served cold, so we were surprised to find it had been neuked in the microwave to boiling point. Cutting it open the steam billowed and as we asked the waitress why they do this as the cream and jam would just melt, she shrugged saying that’s the way they always serve it. To add to it, the scone wasn't fresh and was so dry, it was inedible. I asked the waitress if management was new, stating the food and service were appalling. She was unapologetic and as apathetic as she was when taking our order. I doubt this café will be open much longer as patrons come to find the exorbitant prices, poor food and terrible service are now standard.

Used to be my favourite place to take my parents when I returned to Brisbane. After Dad passed I’d take make mum as it was a nice reminder of good times together. No longer. The service is slow- as I write this it has just clicked over an hour and ten minutes since we ordered lunch and no sign of it yet. Even our soft drinks took 30 minutes to arrive though ordered when there were only 6 customers in the venue. When our drinks order arrived it was wrong. Two drinks delivered for four of us, on informing them of this we were told to wait we weren’t the only customers in the restaurant! When the rudeness of the reply was not appreciated I asked to speak to the manager. Perhaps there had been a change. I was informed that she was the manager and had been there for over 20 years and I should retake my seat and let her get back to work. Perhaps herein lies the problem! I reminded her that food was a service industry. We had our overpriced, very average beef and chicken burgers<br/>(21$ each) and left! Who would consider staying for coffee and cake? I guess we could have ordered the “preprepared toastie and salad “for 20$! It may have been quicker but sadly even if the food was fabulous the manager was not. Judging from her attitude and manner I doubt it will improve. As my mother said when we left, “ that was just horrible. The food the service and the people” perhaps I should have just written that as it seems to sum up the experience totally! We won’t be back. Shame I love the plants and lizards.

Service very average here, no smiles and quite surly. The restaurant was not busy! Food was pretty good (pork belly salad) and coffee great. But will not return due to the unwelcome atmosphere from the staff. Have heard similar reports from other people who have eaten here too :(

So, this place used to be fabulous. I used to take visitors from out of town here all the time. But now, they've just failed their third strike.<br/><br/>I'll avoid all the emotive language I'd like to use, as it really was great a couple of years ago, but they are over priced (over $30 for a small latte, soda water, apple juice, and two slices of banana bread), they don't serve breakfast to the allocated time (ie stop early), make poor recommendations (they once suggested the chocolate brownie, it was absolutely disgusting, I told them and the same staff member who had recommended it 20 mins previously said yes, it's got a funny taste and not many people like it...... what the heck did you recommend it for then!), some of the lizards there are looking sick (there's significant tail damage to them), look I could go on but just let me tell you that it is crap.<br/><br/>I told the staff member that I much preferred the cafe from two years ago and even they agreed, it's not what it was.<br/><br/>And did I mention it's disgustingly over priced?! $9 for banana bread. Um, thanks but no thanks.<br/>

Went on Mothers Days. Expected it to be super busy but it was only ever half full. Really nice setting and the staff are lovely but none of them seemed to know what was going on. Plenty of mix ups and my beef was rock hard. They gave me another one though. <br/><br/>3 people = $209. I can cop that if everything is exceptional but it definitely wasn't. Was expecting so much more. Maybe stick to coffee and cake.

Lovely venue but the food is very much overpriced for what you get (much like food you would have at a coffee club). The area of improvement however is the food service. The staff are pleasant but the service is rather slow, lacking focus and requires trying to get their attention every time we wanted something - never proactively asking us if we wanted anything.

Side salad with dirt anyone! This plate cost $8.50 as a side salad. When I chewed the lettuce leaf it crunched with dirt. The leaves were wilted, came with nuts which was not mentioned on menu, drowned in dressing to the point the nuts were actually floating. I sent it back to the kitchen but NO replacement came back, nor any apology. As we were leaving, I complained when they tried to charge me for the plate. I was told it was a 'supplier' issue and not the kitchen staff problem. The pictures were taken after 1 piece of lettuce was eaten. The bowl was only half full on delivery. NEVER GO THERE.

My wife and I used to enjoy the brunch buffet at the Dragonfly Cafe at Eden Gardens every couple months.  Perhaps the novelty of Eastern Water-dragons scurrying between our feet wore off, or they lost focus on the food, but after a few mixed experiences (cold food, couldn't keep up with demand, etc.) in a row we decided to write this venue off.

not bad but for the cost of a lunch it needs to be much better see; Wild Canary at Brookfield - where service, quality and general look of the café is excellent.

Have just returned from this cafe and was bitterly disappointed. My friend and I both had the prawn salad. To start off the flavours just did not work. Unfortunately things continued to go downhill. The avocado had it's stem still in and the salad was terribly gritty. I was so hungry and I still had to leave most the leaves. The kids ice cream was forgotten and at $15 for a kids meal this should not be the case. Avoid at all costs super expensive for what it is.

Always had a lovely lunch at the Dragonfly Cafe but have been extremely disappointed with their last menu change. Very limited now and overpriced for the quality of the food that comes out.

Unfortunately the only attraction really is the nursery and homewares. Very ordinary food... Overly priced. I have a better cafe around the corner I will go to.

My favourite cafe. We love this place! The new menu is delicious, friendly staff and great atmosphere with the lake, ducks and Yogi the friendly waterdragon. Afterwards we like to browse the adjoining gift shop and stroll through the nursery.

We have been here a number of times now and the food is always presented beautifully. Great views and atmosphere. The staff are great - love it.

A pleasant lunch. I visited on a wet, cold Saturday with my husband & mother-in-law. Service was quick to order, however it must of been the waitress first day as she did struggle with the order. It was great that she read it back to us so we picked up on the things that she missed. The meals came out in good time & were lovely except the hot chips were quite cold (seems to be a common theme in other reviews?). One big thing that was missing is outdoor heaters, it would be worth their while to invest in these at it was so cold outside in the elements. Maybe everyone around us had been there before as they all had scarves & big jackets on but for the uninitiated it was very uncomfortable. We didn't have coffees at the end as we needed to get out of the cold.

Worst service I have ever experienced, would never go there again. Food was cold, too expensive and very unfriendly staff!!

Love the outdoor atmosphere with the plants and lizards, but the buffet breaky was well below par. Would not go back for breaky

Amazing food, but the service was pretty poor!

Lovely location. A lovely spot to take the wife for coffee and a light meal. It would be a fantastic little place if a few things were tweaked. The service is quite slow and lacklustre, and the serving sizes are exceptionally small for the price paid. The coffee quality varies from visit to visit - sometimes brilliant, sometimes not so much. Overall okay.

Great location and atmosphere. Food is average. Service is very poor and slow. The past two times we came here we waited 10 minutes to order food. The last time we went, we gave up waiting and walked out. Not coming back again if we're hungry.

Reliable, consistent and fresh food. Nice setting. However one of the slowest services in Brisbane.

Memories of times past. My wife an I use The Dragonfly Cafe as time out from a busy week, our problem is we don't use it enough. Although parts of the surrounds are getting a bit tired, We get much enjoyment watching the very young patrons with their parent / grandparents reacting to the Water Dragons, bring back memories of our now 20 and 18 year old children doing the same. To my thinking food selection and price is fair service is good.

Great food

Great little cafe! Lovely surrounds, great menu, kids area is nice too. Love<br/>Taking visitors to this cafe. Just don't get there too hungry as the service is consistently s-l-o-w. staff, however, are generally very helpful so maybe the speed of service is meant to be part of the experience? Thoroughly recommend the gnocci dish.

Slow service all round, otherwise great food $18-$35 and awesome spot over looking pond