Palmers

Auckland Summer has finally arrived, thank god for that. it has only taken all of January to come, but better late than never. While out walking at the Orakei Basin, my sister mentioned she knew of a good place for a coffee & some food.
A short trip later and I was standing out the Palmers Garden Centre & Café called Green Fingers. On a big Blackboard that write «Metro 2011 Café Winner», which is great to know, except only it’s now 2015. Why do places feel the need to hold on to an award that is outdated?. There is a fish & chip shop I know down south on the firth of Thames, that was crowned best shop in 2006 and to this day still proudly display that front and centre. Why. it’s 2015!
Waking through to Green Fingers and I was greeted by an oasis of sorts with an outdoor area with nice chairs and tables very tranquil even. On this Sunday it is lunch time and it is packed, seating is at a premium, the sun is blazing down there is no wind.
There are were two cabinets full of food to choose from or if that does not suit you, you can order from their menu. I settled for French Toast with Bacon & Banana followed by an Iced Coffee. My sister settled for a BLT & an Iced Chocolate.
It was only about 5 – 7 minutes when my food arrived and was given to me, huh. I just ordered, how can you make French Toast within such a short time frame?. Me thinks Chef Microwave had something to do with it hmm. However short the time was, it was pretty good. If it was microwaved, I couldn’t tell, so well-​played Green Fingers. You win round 1.
The Iced Coffee was a great match with this dish as you had the very sweetness of the maple syrup with the taste of the coffee, finished off by the grilled banana & bacon.
My idea of French toast and granted everyone has their own variation is bread, lightly coated in egg and fried. This wasn’t bread but more of a brioche that had been soaked in egg fried /​dusted with cinnamon.
By now the place had packed out, and it wasn’t just your usual typical gardeners here either, there were business men here, young families & oldies enjoying their cups of tea.
The service here was great, everyone was smiling and they generally looked like they were enjoying themselves and getting along quite nicely.
I would never had thought to have come here, but will now think twice when passing by and wanting to get something nice to eat in a relaxing atmosphere.
I have marked them the following;
Food ⁴⁄₅ — Very well plated up.
Service ⁴⁄₅ — Staff were great, clearly they are happy here with what they are doing.
Price — 3.5÷5 $ 21 For French Toast $ 15 & $ 6 for an Iced Coffee, pretty much standard these
Atmosphere — ⁴⁄₅ — Special Mention to the outdoor area & the L Shaped Kids area. Well designed.
Overall ⁴⁄₅ — Come for the Garden Supplies, Stay for the Coffee

If you’re the gardener type and after some inspiration, then come on down to Palmers Garden Centre in Remuera. You can find Palmers located on the bottom of Shore road, by the round-​a-​bout. With plenty of customer parking available onsite, there is no need to struggle lugging all your new garden purchases to the car.
Not only do Palmers have a great selection of exotic plants, but they also have the likes of herb plants (or seeds), swan plants and lovely trees or bushes. I’m not much of a gardener to be honest, but I do really like coming here and getting all exterior designer in my head with all the beautiful plant options available.
Palmers isn’t just a garden centre, they also have a great range of merchandise and a café. Here at Palmers they also have sculptures and vases for sale, as well as door mats, seeds, pots, umbrellas, pest poisons and much more. They have a lot of cute little home ware items which also make great gifts. Coming to Palmers would certainly be worth your while if gardening is your thing.

This is a really lovely place to visit! If you like garden centres, it’s pretty fancy and there’s everything you’d expect plus all sorts of super extravagant feature objects you might want to add to your garden.
There is also a lovely café inside. It is certainly worth the visit just to go to the café. There are three seating areas — a lovely conservatory with beautiful seating (see photo), or in the café with standard tables and chairs, or outside in the garden area with bigger outdoor tables. There are even some slightly more private gazebo areas too.
They have a huge cabinet of pies and salads and quiches and other savoury items, plus a big menu, and also an even bigger and very tempting cabinet of amazingly decorated cakes and treats!
Plenty of free parking out the front makes this a very handy Remuera café option.