The Bower Manly

Whoever wants this place rated <4 stars wants it to fly under the radar of tourists. The restaurant is top! Super view of the sea, good breakfast, bar menu, cold drinks, self-service, great oysters. I could spend my time here every lunchtime. Thank you!

The location is hard to beat. Unfortunately there has been a noticeable deterioration in the hospitality of the staff in the past few months. My assumption is that opening at 8am is a licensing/council limitation (undeniably missing out on a ton of business by not opening earlier) - but the staff have taken to barricading the door with a freezer in the morning to prevent a queue forming.

The QR codes have inexplicably been taped over on all the tables outside, meaning you have to queue to order. Many of the new staff are brash and unhelpful - quick to say no but rarely offering alternatives. Comments from other reviews about times not being honoured for happy hour etc.are no surprise.

Visited this beautifully located Cafe on the 17th of June to a quite packed crowd. The sun was glistening and me and my partner were eagerly wanting to enjoy a nice brunch.

The atmosphere was very vibrant. I ordered a deluxe breakky roll and she ordered zucchini fritters. As it was busy we were expecting to wait a little longer for our food. The total wait time was 50 minutes and at the half an hour mark we wanted to confirm if our order was received. The waitress checked and said we would be next in the list and would be about 10 minutes. Our food arrived 20 minutes later and about halfway the crowd died down and there weren't too many people there so I was confused at how our meal could literally take almost an hour to be delivered

I was very disappointed in the wait time due to the fact that our order was not a difficult one. It seems like I am sounding very entitled and picky but I have never waited close to an hour for something that would take 10 minutes to make. The food ended up being good but the fact that the order management and service wasn't up to standard diminished the experience.

The view was great tho. I would recommend only getting coffees or takeaway as they seem to be made rather easy.

Very disappointed and can’t rate the food as we left after nearly an hour. Restaurant staff seemed disorganised and uninterested in serving the customers. Such a shame as it’s a great location.

Staff refused to take my order for a bacon and egg roll (which is supposed to be an ALL DAY breakfast) at 11.30 am… quite rude staff (a french guy) unfortunately…

A place this beautiful has no right serving such brilliant food. Arguably the best we had on our trip to Australia. Staff also excellent, thanks!

Not bad, not many options but I guess if you enjoy acai then it's the place for you! Nice setting on the way to Shelley beach

Great coffee if you're on a walk in the area. It gets busy super quickly in peak times (summer) so you need to be prepared to wait. Staff manage really well despite the crowds and constant flow of people passing by. Next time I'll try dining in.

Magic little spot idyllically located on the water front. You can sit in the sun here all day and watch the people go by. The food and coffee is pretty solid aswell.

A really nice cafe. The location is beautiful, we sat outside and looked over the water, it was amazing.
The food was really yummy, but they’re fairly small portions, the Mexican Skillet is delicious, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re hungry, it didn’t fill me up at all

Absolutely love The Bower cafe! I don’t think you can get a better location perched right on the waters edge with Shelly Beach on the right and the Northern Beaches coastline stretching up on your left! I typically grab a coffee to go which they hand deliver to you outside on the promenade but plenty of tables for dining-in. The French staff are awesome too, they always take time to make you feel part of a community!

Great place to pop in for a cuppa or a feed, amazing view of the water and pedestrian friendly space so just the sound of the ocean and people strolling by. Staff are usually young french or Italians, so great chance to practise your language skills!

You can't really find a more idyllic breakfast location than this. The view from the cafe is the beautiful 'Shelley Beach' and the people gazing here is second to none.

The food on offer was of a high quality on our visit with my wife's choice of the corn fritters with smoked salmon winning the day.

The service was very friendly if a little imperfect (had to follow up on our add-on request of hash brown and chase up some cutlery) but all was easily remedied.

I would go back in a heartbeat.

The coffee is superb, the food is great, the service is friendly.what's not to love?

Oh, did I mention the out-of-this-world views in one of Sydney's most magical locations?

We are regulars, and that says a lot - especially given that we love to search out the best possible coffee. Turns out that it's here, right in this little slice of paradise.

Happy to say I'll never be seeing the new owners of bower again after being laughed at by the staff and publicly humiliated. I can not eat egg yolk. I kindly asked for them to remove the egg yolk prior cooking. I paid near $70 dollars for my breakfast. They said you can remove the yolk once we bring it to you. I explained to them how simple it was to separate the yolk three staff laughed and said once more “ you can remove it once we bring it out “ I asked not to worry about it and simply refund my money and ill take my business else where. They said “ okay we will do it” I explained I have already been laughed at in front of the restaurant and would just like to leave with a full refund. They also tried to sting me for this. Nothing was eaten or served i had to show them the transaction to be fully refunded. The service was unprofessional in so many ways. I will never go back to the bower under this new management and staff ever again! The local corner coffee shop down the road were incredible and will take my business, my friends and family there in the future. I can confidently say i was nothing but humiliated and shamed upon for the Bowers lack of efforts and customer service, it really is not worth the view! Absolutely terrible customer service and experience!

This place probably gets great reviews. People around me were eating what looked like delicious meals. But we just stopped in for tea, coffee and toast. Coffee was OK, tea was ordinary and $8 for a slice of fruit toast served in a bowl (who does that) not well toasted was rubbish. Would you be happy for two slices of fruit toast for $16. An experience not worth the spectacular view.

Location is great, however the standard of food and drink doesn’t match. Coffee was grainy, food was bland and tastes and looks very much like it’s prepared in batches. Could be great with more care and quality.

Beautiful view, but massively overpriced. Would appreciate it if they'd put more effort in the food so that it's a worthwhile spot!

Food was pretty average but we waited 30 mins for some starters and they brought us the wrong order 4 times wouldnt recommend

Average food and they wanted to charge $6 to change the egg from poached to scrambled for my pregnant wife