The Holdfast Hotel — Restaurant in Adelaide

Update 28th July 2025. After posting my initial review about our function, I received a phone call from the manager Steve, and I have to say he was absolutely fantastic. He was incredibly lovely, apologetic, and genuinely took the time to talk through everything with me. He made me feel completely heard and reassured about the situation.

He even offered for us to come back in for dinner on them as a way of saying sorry, which I really appreciated. This kind of follow-up and care is exactly what you want from a venue manager, and it honestly left us feeling so much better about the whole experience.

Thank you for taking the time to reach out, it really shows that you care about your customers.

We recently held my husband’s 40th birthday at the Holdfast Hotel, and while the venue itself was nice and the food was tasty, the overall experience with the function coordination and catering was extremely disappointing.

In the lead-up, I had to constantly chase the functions coordinator via calls and emails to confirm basic details such as times, food, and bookings. Many emails went unanswered, and several promised call-backs never happened. Less than a week out from the event, I still didn’t have confirmation and ended up having to finalise everything with another staff member instead. I also never received an invoice prior to the night.

We had arranged pizza platters to cater for 60-70 guests, but on the night I discovered only 9 pizzas had been ordered, nowhere near enough to feed 60–70 people and completely different from what was originally agreed upon.

In the end, the order was adjusted on their end to cater for around 50 people, yet there was still nowhere near enough food. Many guests even mentioned they didn’t get to eat at all.

And to add, the pizzas that did arrive took so long to come out that several guests ended up ordering their own dinners.

On top of that, I had to chase staff just to get plates for the cake and spent much of the night running around trying to make sure things ran smoothly myself, which is not what you want when you’re hosting a milestone event.

To make things worse, I rang the following day to arrange collection of items we had left behind and was promised a call back, which, unsurprisingly, still hasn’t happened.

Overall, the lack of communication, insufficient catering, and poor organisation made what should have been an stress-free celebration unnecessarily difficult and...

I had made a booking three days in advance for a table for 3 people. They gave us a table for two with an additional chair situated in the corner which was very cramped. We had ordered our food via the app at 7:30. We had waited until 8:30 and still were not checked on, nor had we received our food. We had recieved two $15 cocktails shortly after ordering that were small and flavourless. We were still waiting for our food an hour later at 8:30 and then we came up to the bar and asked where our food was. We were very respectful throughout this whole process as we also work in hospitality. Upon asking about where our food was, the staff member had communicated that the app we ordered from was broken. We were not notified about this upon arrival, or when our drinks came out, otherwise we would have ordered at the bar. The food came out ten minutes after this and was also bland and flavourless. We approached the bar and asked for the manager, we spoke to Josh. We explained the situation and he said the app had been having issues the day before and across the last few days. He said the drink orders were coming through but meals were not. He did not apologise and said “I’ll take the feedback on”. He seemed as though he did not care to hear what we wanted to say and wanted the conversation to be over. We raised the point about how we were not checked on for an hour, as well as the general disappointment we had felt. We were not refunded or given a voucher to compensate for the lack of care. It was not a busy friday night as staff were leaving to go home at 8:30. They also had no sense of urgency and the staff continued to check on their big tables next to us and not us. We are disappointed with the service as staff failed to rectify the situation. We will not...

Entree of chicken wings was decent. Not the best ive had but good for pub food. The reason for my bad review though is the abhorrent main/special. The rib eye. To sum it up a 40 dollar steak that came out bone dry, slightly overcooked and worst of all with zero seasoning and no crust (Grill marks not a maillard reaction). The kind of cooking that thouroughly reminded me of my stepdads burnt unseasoned barbeques as a kid. 40 dollars is an okay price for a rib eye but this was just rubbish treatment of something that is supposed to be a special treat. As for the simpler meals like the calamari and the chicken burger it was just okay. Again seamingly under-seasoned and i could swear the calamari was just some freezer bag calamari, which for a pub? fine. But with the prices of a nicer bistro? Not really on. Overall if youre a heavy drinker or smoker or tradie who cant really taste much anymore anyway im sure this would be a great spot to have a beer, a schnitzel and a spin on the slots. The staff was okay. While ordering the young lady was friendly enough but during and after our meals and even the tables around us no one came to ensure or ask how the food and atmosphere was. which is worrying and possibly a sign that they dont really care much about the quality? At first glance it seems it could be good or okay, but was left feeling thoroughly let down and glad i got to at least have some chicken wings instead of leaving hungry. Feels a bit harsh typing this out so sorry for that but i feel as though i need to leave this feedback at least in the hopes that maybe some of my issues could be thought about for the future. Always feel sour leaving a place knowing that I in all likeliness wont be...