The Goose — Restaurant in Busselton

As a local, what an embarrassment the Goose is to Busselton. Do not waste your time or your money for the worst service and wait times in WA! No wonder why the restaurant was so quiet for school holidays.Tonight, there wouldn’t have had more than 60 customers and it was mind blowing that the service could be so terrible. As for management, what a disappointment you were to your team when they were clearly failing in the bar and kitchen for hours. Isn’t it is your job to step up, help out and fix problems to keep customers happy and not stand there on your phones, laughing and chatting? How embarrassing to have customers complaining to one another who were standing at the bar following up delayed orders as everyone was fed up over the ridiculous wait times. So many tables walked out and we wish we did the same. This was not the first time we had experienced such terrible wait times at the Goose since the new build.

Here’s what happened to us: You have a sign as you walk in that says please wait to be seated and at 5pm you have a manager standing near the counter chatting to colleagues who makes eye contact with you and continues a conversation that was not work related by any means and we had to wait 4 minutes before he came over to the counter and asked what we wanted. I said we had a booking and he pointed and said it’s over there. As a bare minimum, customers should be walked to the table but one of the staff or waiters, offered water, shown the menu and told we will be back to take your order soon.

After finding our table we ordered two drinks straight away with one of the waiters to which took 20 minutes to arrive to the table only for the cocktail to arrive and not the beer. I asked the waiter who bought the cocktail to the table over about the beer and he looked confused. 5 minutes later the beer arrived at the table. At that point we talked about finishing our drinks and leaving and wish we did because the service only got worse. Other guests joined us and ordered 3 kids lemonade drinks and after 35 minutes we asked where they were and they said there’s a long wait and I said please can you follow up as we have been waiting over half an hour for 3 kids lemonades. The young waiter went to the male manger who laughed and the neither of them came over to update us or apologise, 10 minutes after that the drinks arrived. We ordered food at the same time with the drinks and waited almost an hour for entrees and the dips were missing so had to go to the bar and find a staff member to complain to and then 3 minutes later mains come out as we start eating our entrees. 10 minutes after that the adult mains arrived we were still waiting for the kids meals to come out… the adults finished their meals and then the kids meals came to the table piping hot.

We were going to have our staff party here in December but have now changed our minds as we want it to be enjoyable for our staff and tonight was far from that.

Feedback: to fix your issues Two staff designated to cocktails, 3 staff doing all other drink orders (waiting 25 minutes for any drink is ridiculous - drinks should be out in 5 minutes of ordering), get new managers who actually care, can lead and step up to ensure a smooth process for all dining customers. Kitchen staff - get your orders right and sort your communication. 50 minutes for entrees is ridiculous, and then to have mains arrive 3 minutes later and kids meals 10 minutes after that is unacceptable. Your restaurant wasn’t even busy tonight and you’re struggling now?! Would hate to imagine what it will be like...

My partner and I reached the restaurant on October 17 at approximately 7pm and was attended to and seated at table 10 promptly by a gentleman. We ordered the seafood chowder and realised that there was a dead mosquito on the flat bread. We requested that the flatbread be replaced with a fresh one and the wait staff brought it back to the kitchen. As I was siting on the char, having a clear view of the kitchen counter. I saw the waitstaff passing the dish to the chef which I believe that used his bare hands to remove the dead insect. As the waitstaff came brought us back our dish, she confirmed that the bread was fresh and was replaced. However, with a photo as reference, the “new” flat bread that was served was indeed the previous one. Not only did the wait staff served us contaminated product, but lied to our face. While we got our fresh flat bread served by the gentleman who seated us, the enjoyment didn’t last long as we found another insect within the soup again. We requested the gentleman who seated us to take a look and he did apologise for the mistake twice in a row, but the fact of the matter is that this still occurred. He confirmed with me that the issue has been raised to the manager and no further service has been provided. This shows that parts of the wait staff have been properly trained however some were not. As quoted by the gentleman who seated us “ she’s young and did not know better, while the chef should have known better” is no excuse to lie to the customer to the face.

As a paying customer who was served contaminated product not once but twice, the least the restaurant could offer some level compensation towards a paying customer like providing us with some dessert or could’ve had the soup on the house. Some level of gesture and acknowledgment of the issue would really have been appreciated.

The overall dining experience was good and the chowder was hearty, but the level of service I would have expected for a premium location such as The Goose leaves a lot...

Perhaps you come for the view and put up with everything else. We were early in a Monday morning for breakfast. The staff who greeted us were less than bubbly, mostly friendly but certainly not welcoming in a good service way. There were plenty of seats because we were early and the electronic ordering was fairly seamless (though not a preferred method for me). There were a few things in the paper menu not on the digital version, which can be quite traumatic when kids are involved ;). Everything came quickly and looked delicious and BIG serves. So what went wrong, two of our dishes had smashed avo which three people at the table tasted and commented it “tasted strange”. We aren’t overly fussy and generally don’t raise issues with staff as we assume it is just that we don’t like something. I did mention this to the lead wait person as we left in case there was an issue with something that went on the plate. They shrugged it off. The loaded Frittata- sounds great. Looked pretty good. Until you uncovered the actual frittata which looked a bit like chunks of, mostly potato, in jelly. Not like a good egg frittata. It was cut as a rectangle from a large tray of pre-made stuff which was then heated. My god how hard is it to make a fresh frittata? The banana pancakes were good, almost great though heavily smothered in the dulche de leche. It was nice but a bit too much. The kids breakfast burger was grand and then hash-browns as well. The maple muesli was tasty with plenty of fresh fruit. The smoothies were nice. Our extra shot coffees were overly milky and weak. The view is nice but doesn’t make up for a pretty average breakfast experience. Maybe they save all their good energy for...