Bridgewater Hotel Loddon River — Restaurant in Bridgewater on Loddon

• Edit to below review* I called Virginia as per her note to my initial review. Virginia denies being at work last night (although both ladies appear to have incredibly similar demeanour and voices) and she requested my review be taken down as it's not in her favour. Please note, I confirmed with a young staff member last night whether it was Virginia who had been at our table and was told by this lovely young staff member that yes that was Virginia who had been at our table - this obviously must be a case of the young staff member not knowing who the owner is...? Maybe staff need to wear name badges so everyone knows who is who? None the less, there was an older lady who had grey blonde hair in a pony tail wearing a black hat and shorts who isn't called Virginia (as per Virginia) - so for the sake of this review we will call said lady 'Karen' then. Our food took well over 80 minutes to arrive last evening at Bridgewater Hotel. I wish I had of red the other reviews about 'Karen' before spending my money here. We ordered 2 kids burger meals, 1 pizza and 1 chicken burger meal. At 60 minutes post ordering our kids meals finally arrived, we waited another 10 minutes before asking 'Karen' if the remaining 2 orders were coming. 'Karen' scoffed and said 'I told you it was going to be a long wait' (which she did not). In the mean time a large table of people who had arrived half an hour after we placed our order has their food served to them. 'Karen' came trumping out to our table and in a dramatic voice shrieked 'your order was only placed just on a hour ago!' I politely showed her our online banking is time stamped - it was at that point 80 minutes post ordering and her response when I said the table beside us had been served even though they arrived well after us she again dramatically replied 'Well I don't know! You'll just have to wait your turn!' and turned on her heel and took off in a huff. We overheard various complaints about 'Karens' service a few tables down from us as just like us they had half their meals and the food was pretty ordinary apparently. I wouldn't bother coming back here, our food was super oily, the kids burgers were what I assume was frozen meat patties from a box originally, and the pizza was very damp. We paid well over $120 with the 15% public holiday surcharge and trying to do the right thing by supporting local to be treated like that. Sorry Virginia, if you want 5 star customer reviews for the hotel you need to provide 5 star service unfortunately, such a shame is it's a beautiful location being on the...

Boy oh boy what a find!

A friend of my wife’s sent us photos from a dinner event the hotel hosted a few weeks ago and we were thoroughly impressed with the food that they were serving! We made the plan to drive up from Melbourne and visit family in Bendigo but made plans to journey the extra little bit to Bridgewater to try out their normal dining experience.

What an absolutely fantastic venue! A beautiful building with the most magical beer garden, with the fairy lights hanging in the outside dining area its like you’re dining under the stars.

We had super friendly service from Rich in the bar, wonderful country conversation that you don’t receive in the city. Our food was super tasty and truly lived up to our expectations. The Slow Cooked Lamb Shoulder was to die for and our Braised Pork Belly was on the a better level than some of the fancier eateries we have visited in the city!

Steph was absolutely wonderful when taking our orders, asking all the right questions and making sure to inform us that the Lamb Shoulder takes approximately 35-40 minutes to prepare (absolutely worth the wait). Her attentiveness and fantastic smile was a highlight and is the first thing my wife commented on when I asked her what I should write in my review.

We were lucky enough to be greeted by the chef who had ventured out to the bar at the perfect time. He was so polite and engaging and was more than happy to explain to us some of the processes that went into our dishes. Ethan you are truly a credit to your craft and the hotel is lucky to have you.

As you can probably tell by my review we were over the moon with our experience at the Bridgewater Hotel and we look forward to coming back more regularly over summer! Fingers crossed we manage to get tickets to their next fine dining dinner event!

Well done guys! You should really be proud of your venue! We will definitely be telling all of our...

This business is apparently dog friendly, but not if your dog is a size subjective to their liking.

I had my dog tied to a pole, where he’s been several times before, however the bar manager didn’t like this location.

The offered for me to tie him next to another groups’ table (which he would annoy them), or outside to a ute where I could not see him and in the heat.

They actively discriminated against my Very well behaved, and substantially Trained German shepherd referring to previous incidents of dog behaviour at their premises… if this is their concern then they should make other arrangements and not advertise the premises as pet friendly.

I found Virginia to be rather sarcastic and dramatic, quite frankly rude and I will certainly not be back.

When she first walked up to the area, it was very dramatic (pre-Madonna like) flapping her arms and saying “whose big dog is this” (I was pretty much standing right next to him).

That was sorted, went to the bar to order a drink, the male asked what table I was (Virginia was not at all serving me or part of the conversation) and I said the large one near the rear outside door, she snickered at me because I didn’t know the table number.

We booked for 19 people but then found out they hadn’t organised a big enough table, causing us to be split over 2 tables.

Quite frankly rude and sarcastic, the gentleman was fine, however she was quite rude and I suggest that you train your front of house staff to be more...