Willaston Hotel — Restaurant in Adelaide

WOW! The Willaston Hotel has a fantastic restaurant!

Initially, I thought that the competitive pricing of the restaurant's menu would indicate that the food was... 'average' for a pub meal, at best. However, this is far from the reality and it was a fantastic surprise, especially when coupled with great customer service and a wonderful family-friendly environment!

I thought I'd go check out this hotel after hearing that they provided some 'good' meals at decent prices. I booked a table in advance, rocked up, was greeted professionally and pleasantly, ordered some main meals (seafood and the curry of the day) and sat to watch the kids play in the nice playground area indoors.

The pricing of the food was very reasonable at first glance, the food was brought out fairly promptly despite being modestly busy, yet one of the greatest surprises was the quality and quantity of the food - the quality was fresh (even the seafood), while the quantity (especially the curry) was beyond expectations (we couldn't eat it all)!

Then, to really drive home about how wonderful this place really this... they have a 'salad' bar which proffered some fantastic quality potato-bake (they actually go to the effort and expense of properly putting ham into their potato-bake! Winner!), a variety of fresh salads and vegetable options, the customary bread rolls and a delightful pumpkin soup! The kicker - the 'salad' bar also includes an ice-cream machine with jelly available! Don't get me wrong - the jelly was a bit lacking on flavour, yet out of the entire experience, that's the only thing i can remotely criticise!

The customer service by the waiting/bar staff was perfect with nothing to criticise - they did a great job!

Needless to say, I'll definitely be making the trek to go back here as regularly as possible. If you even wanted to be truly frugal (not that you need to as their pricing is cheap as it is) you can simply order a 'starter' from the menu with the added 'salad' bar and have soup for your 'main' meal!

Great job...

Mmm, who would have thought, on a Sunday, after a last minute booking for a lunch with great friends you would end up having one the best value pub meals ever? This is what we had today. Greeted by ultra friendly staff from the get go it was a great choice. Menu is quite extensive and has all the pub faves. However, this one has a couple of differences from the norm. First one is they have a seven set menu of $15 main meals(This is available 7 days). This is great if your not into really large meals that you can't finish. Perfect for us as we're past that stage of life. Second is that, included in your main meal selection, at no extra charge, are soup and a soft serve desert with jelly and various toppings! If this isn't the best value going around I don't know what is! 3 of us had the $15 selections and my wife had a steak which was $32. (2 x chicken parmi's with 2 different toppings, 1 x salad.) Everything was cooked/prepared to perfection. There's a good selection from the serve yourself hot/cold buffet to top up your plate to your liking. Hot bread rolls and butter are there as well. All our meals were served at the same time (always a bonus.). Dining room is really large and, considering the place was quite busy, it was easy to talk without shouting. Must be the carpets. Seating was comfortable and table spacing excellent so no squeezing past required. Staff were some of the most efficient, polite and friendly I've ever come across 11/10. Tables were clear constantly so that your not battling with empty plates etc at any stage. This all makes for an absolutely wonderful experience. So, thank you, Willaston Hotel for a fantastic day out. That brings me to my last point and the reason that I didn't give 5 stars - no craft beer on tap. Not even in bottles. Put at one decent IPA or similar on tap and the extra star awaits. Anyone who doesn't care about craft beer like I do, well, you can read 5 stars. Highly...

The pub was busy but they fitted us in a couple of hours out on the phone - cool, thanks. Busy isn't necessarily an issue right? The manager wouldn't combine our table orders (placed only 2 orders apart). He was brisk at POS - a bit irritating but fine...We could have ordered together... Our food came out over the period of an hour and 15 mins and half the bread rolls didn't arrive till we asked 4 times. They finally arrived just before the last meals at 8pm. We all ate separately - everyone was feeling frustrated but we were still ok. I went up for another beer - no freebie offered after we'd asked 4 times for the bread rolls etc.

Then one of the waiters had a go at us because the 3 kids were playing in (the now empty section of the pub), not the play zone (two of us were still eating our mains that arrived after 8pm). At this point everyone flashed up and on seeing the waiter laughing at us with another staff member, one of our group went to make a complaint. The lady that took the initial complaint was rude and made excuses. Then the manager came out and continued to make excuses. He even went off and checked the order times. He completely failed to address our issues and by this point I was furious. Refunding the kids meals was the least we could expect in this situation. The offer of free drinks came too late and honestly, neither platitude made a difference when the excuses continued and an acceptable apology was not forthcoming.

Willaston Pub, if you are busy, put more staff on. If your customers have a rubbish experience dont make excuses, and definitely don't have a go at people who are being nice despite having a rubbish experience in your pub! Take the hint about excuses, be more professional, and provide a better pub dinner experience next time.

Ps food was good. Don't change that. Maybe look at broadening you beer...