The Willow Hotel — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Was a good pub. Changed owners six weeks ago and cut back on costs. Last night's meal was absolutely terrible, that bad two of my children couldn't eat it and they are not fussy eaters. Chicken burgers were deep fried to the point of burnt, wife's Thai beef salad like a leather boot with lawn clippings, even the chips have changed and are cheap rubbish. $25 for The Willow burger with blackened chips was disheartening. Prices have gone up, food quality fallen off the cliff. Locals are not fools, you can see the changed menu is cost cutting. Mashed potato served in a basket with a paper towel under it, seriously how about a plate, one less item to wash up I guess. I feel sorry for the staff, they are doing their best but clearly the new owners are out of touch and just greedy. The pubs rewards cards are no longer valid and not honoured as they are bringing in new cards and the new system doesn't recognise the existing reward card so you lost your points. Yep so I handed my card back to the bar staff to dispose of as it is worthless and the points accumulated not worth anything. What a rip off, usually on Friday night lots of regular faces and the place is packed with diners, but obviously other locals have abandoned the place too as it was dead last night. Over the last 5 years we frequented The Willow on average once per week as a family for a meal and a few drinks, which is an indulgence that we are lucky to afford. Last night the place was dead and I can see why, people can't afford to waste money on food that is horrible. The Willow just lost a local family that suported it for years, not spending my hard earned on crap food in under staffed pub. When a pub treats locals with contempt then...

Please do better.

I was absolutely shocked and disgusted to hear that the bar staff at this establishment denied my family member access to a power point, or alternative, to charge her dead phone recently. She simply requested to plug in her (electrically safe) standard Samsung branded charger to ensure her own personal safety.

As a local hotel, the Willow enables access to alcohol, which can and does bring entertainment and enjoyment to the majority of people. However, unfortunately there are also poor social impacts at times, including violence against women. As staff at the Willow have no doubt seen lately, many people in our community, and in our country, are victims of violence, and we have a duty of care to assist others when we can. I would like to remind this business of the social responsibility it has for patrons, and in particular women, to ensure their safety when possible.

If staff here need further education, I can recommend White Ribbon Australia (Workplace Accreditation - White Ribbon Australia). As a Moorooka local, I am disappointed that the staff at Willow don't seem to support the safety of my community.

I would ask the Willow and staff in future to consider the consequences that might have come to my family member once her phone battery had died. She is not from Brisbane, and I had no way of knowing she was safe.  People use their phones for their own personal safety, and the staff at the Willow put my family member's safety at risk by denying a simple request for help in this instance.

I encourage this to be addressed internally by...

The food is quite nice and well priced, hence the two stars. The actual venue is nicely maintained and I do enjoy the large set of windows to watch out over. Unfortunately i dont like the way we were treated by your young male server on the evening of 16/01/21 from 5.30pm onwards. We ordered at 6:10pm and by 7.00pm we had no food and everyone else who had ordered after us were starting to receive their meals. The place had about 4/5 tables seated at the time, so certainly not busy for them. Apparently their cash register did not process the order through to the chefs, the order receipt was not printed. So 100% not our fault at all, or theirs really. We were very patient with the server untill he started agressively stating 'do you want the food or the money back', over and over. He kept looking over to us like we were an issue and causing a problem. Annoyed looks and mumbling under his breath. What kind of service is that? How about you offer both the money and food back?!? Some training is clearly needed and seems would be very beneficial/useful for your staff to learn some actual customer service. All we did as PAYING customers was order food and then asked about our food nearly an hour later then copped unbelievable attitude and sass from an employee that clearly needs to be reminded where he works....in CUSTOMER SERVICE! Maybe even...