Five Knots — Attraction in Ōrākei

Venue to Host an event: 3 out of 5

The main room is a large space, and it easily fits 150 people. Also great that they allowed a day prior for venue set up to be done & perfected, which was very appreciated. Nothing supplied by 5 knots except standard table ware and chairs. No views at all. Reason for no extra stars below.

Food delivered compared to cost: 3 out of 5

The ABSOLUTE HIGHLIGHT that would get a 5 out of 5 was the Seafood Starter Platter with Bread Selection. It was meant for 10 adults. We had 7 adults, 1 child & it was just enough. The reason for the Overall low score is because the highlight was the Spit Roasted Pig. Our family actually provided the 2 spit roast pigs & 5 Knots, RIDICULOUSLY, put a surcharge of 300 dollars PER PIG. This is supposed to discourage people from bringing their own food. As hosts, one of us had to sign a waiver in case of food sickness, which I doubt would have come from the pigs, I understand, however, this was a necessary step, though with the extra 600 dollars for no effort on their part, with the waiver signed and the "oh so understanding" manager, surely the surcharge could have been halved at least, given the reason being it's a sign of respect to the elder to have a spit roast pig at a celebration??! However if the manager who touted that not only did he "own" the place but that he "understood our Polynesian perspective", this was just a line that only applied when buttering up to we, the hosts when he was trying to explain a "situagion", as he surely could have lowered the huge surcharge and also allowed us to draw money out with a bar purchase.. this explained later. The salad ran out before the line of people did, and 1 of the salads was definitely NOT the salad that was supposed to be part of the package I.e feta used instead of blue cheese, baby spinach used instead of, I think, it was kale.. it wasn't the same salad nor the same cost to make! The roast vegetables were also mushy, e.g, the courgette was squished into the other vegetables, so all was roasted at the same time rather than the correct time & too long. Just because there is a lot of something doesn't mean it meets the quality that had been paid for & expected from a venue such as this.

Service 3 out of 5.

Serving staff are friendly enough, not smiling but not rude, very discreet when serving plates & taking them away. Easy to flag down. The manager was the problem, actually, not purely the staff/food, the wait staff were a 4/5. Anywho, so when he thought to try and "relate to our situation," he claimed to be Maori, which, from appearances, he only pulled that card up when dealing with Polynesian/Maori groups. He deserves a 2 actually, eg. a young niece was doing a surprise Tauʻolunga, for my mother, as we were celebrating her life & a milestone birthday. It is absolutely necessary, especially as an Aunty, that we put money on her when she dances. I, very calmly & thoroughly explained that the line of us wanting to get money out will buy a drink from the bar, even though none of them usually would, as they don't drink & our tab meant juice, soft drinks etc were free, just to be able to get 50 or 100 out. Essentially, he'd boost sales just by allowing us to get money out at the same time. The waiter confirmed there was enough cash in the till. The waiter, fully understood, & really wanted to help by doing so, but said he 'just had to get the managers permission", though he couldn't see any problem since the cash was there & he'd make quite a few sales as well, he said he'll probably say yes but gotta get permission eye roll. The Barman came back looking really dejected, I said, "What happened?" He said,"Manager said NO, & wouldn't consider it!? I don't get why, but he's like that sometimes.." eye roll. Apparently, when he tried pleading our case esp. Re: sales they normally WOULDN'T make, the manager gave him the line "I own this place, so my decision is final, deal with it" seriously? I HIGHLY DOUBT he owns 5 knots 🫷🙄 Gd space, ok food, manager passive aggressive, not...

It is a huge shame having to give one star, as the venue itself is beautiful. Amazing views, plenty of parking and a great location. But this is completely let down by the horrendous customer service we have received by the staff at Five Knots. When we first booked our wedding it was easy, Jason and Tess were easy to deal with and accommodating. That was at the beginning of 2022. Fast forward a few months and a new event coordinator comes on board things go down hill. My first annoyance was even though we already had booked the wedding in, the event coordinator had no clue that is what our booking was for - even though numerous emails had “Wedding” in the subject line. She tried to charge us for the use of both rooms instead of having one included in the wedding package pricing. I had to make it very clear what event we were having and all other details had to be given to her again. Then we find out that there is an Iron Maori event taking place on the same day as our wedding - all good happens. The venue told us we couldn’t get in until 2pm (this was to be the time we had guests arriving), so I said to the event coordinator all good we will get them to arrive at 2.30pm instead. We did a little bit of digging around about the event happening and logistics for us and found that the road is to actually open at 12.30pm instead - not what the venue told us. So I went back to them and said this, they came back with the prize giving for this other event was happening at 12.30pm and the crew wouldn’t be leaving until 2pm and this means we have to move our wedding to start at 4pm! We wanted to try and make things work, but we were not allowed to drop decorations off the day before to have someone walk in on the day to set up AND they wanted to charge us an extra $400 to hold the venue the night before so we could decorate then - we never asked to decorate the day before, only to drop them in early.

Not only were they forcing us to move our event to later in the day but also came across as very rude, unwilling to help and it felt like they wanted us to cancel. Which is what we ended up doing!

We saw the other poor reviews from the last couple of months and their experiences are similar to what we have had to deal with. The event coordinator completely lets this business down and shouldn’t be employed in that position if she cannot deliver good customer service.

We know the iron Maori event was out of their control, but there was nothing done to help us be ready for our event and it SOUNDED like they had double booked us.

Save yourself the stress and hassle with this venue - go...

This venue is in a great location with great views and scenery. The food was excellent however thats the only positives.

I had a small wedding at this venue recently and the organization from the start should have been a warning. Staff changes mid way through planning our wedding and the staff did not show up to viewings without any communication. They apologized and promised this won't happen on our wedding day but guess what - our event coordinator never showed up. I understand things come up but they have my number and email address and the least they could do was inform me.

The venue was not cleaned prior to my wedding starting. The carpet had not been vacuumed, table cloths were dirty and the bathrooms were disgusting including food in the urinal!! One of my guests helping, prior to the wedding starting, had to run around with the vacuum and found there was some broken glass on the floor! This is unacceptable when you have paying guests and we expect a certain level of cleanliness.

Security provided for the event over stepped by yanking drinks from guest's hands including the groom without any conversation or explanation. She also accused one of our sober guests of being too drunk when a glass she was holding accidentally fell on the dance floor.

As mentioned the main food served for dinner was excellent. However, we paid $10 per person for 2 extra canapes to be served during the cocktail hour. We paid for 40 guests (as that was their minimum guest number) but only had 32 guests at our wedding. Yet there was not enough canapes served for all guests to the point that guests had to ask for extra food to be served as they were still hungry and didn't even get a single canape. I don't understand how we were charged $400 extra but not served $400 worth of food.

Even down to the small things like floor and table layouts and the colour of the table cloths were wrong when I turned up, and as there were no staff around to change them my guest and I had to re-arrange them to the agreed upon layout. Later found out the requested table cloth colour could not be sourced and this was never communicated to us.

Everyone enjoyed the night but when you pay money for a venue, you expect to get what you ask for, at a reasonable standard. Poor communication, not showing up to meetings or the event night and when questioned about these items, they gave us unacceptable excuses such as covid for the venue not being clean!

I do not recommend this venue. Well the venue I do but not the...