No Bones Byron Bay — Restaurant in Byron Bay

Visiting from Sydney for a couple days. Saw reviews on this place and was eager to check it out. Didn’t get to however because despite the restaurant being totally empty, I was made to feel like me coming to have a meal here was an imposition —

At 5pm, as soon as they opened (I was waiting for it to open) I went in and asked if I could have a table for 1.

The waitstaff asked if I had a booking.

I said no.

He said I would need to be out within an hour.

I said, “That’s fine - as long as the kitchen gets the food out to to me quickly, I can eat it quickly and be gone by 6pm”

He grimaced at me and said “I’m not sure how long the food will take, but we’ll need the table in an hour”

Um... what? I had already agreed that as long as their kitchen wasn’t held up and made my meal quickly then I could be out quickly — I had even already decided what I wanted to order from the menu online before I walked in!

I told him this and he just said “I don’t know how long the kitchen will be though and we need the table back within the hour.”

They just kept telling me that they needed the table within an hour but couldn’t tell me how long the kitchen would take, and then leaving me standing there and not seating me - even though I clearly expressed several times I would like a seat and would be quick. Told them “it’s just me, so it’s not like I’ll be spending time chatting with someone and taking a while - I will just be eating and then leaving.”

The staff never made an attempt to seat me and allow me to order, despite my agreement to their terms.

At this point I just felt totally unwelcome, so I left. I was disheartened and embarrassed to have had this happen.

Out of curiosity, I looked at No Bones online booking system and found they had multiple free available tables to be booked throughout the night, so it’s not as if they were totally booked out and needed the table for people who had bookings at all!

This just made things really confusing to me, so I went back to ask why it was the case that an empty restaurant, that isn’t fully booked out, would not make an effort to seat a customer that was wanting to pay for a meal with them.

Another member of staff told me that I had misunderstood the situation. I’ve worked in hospitality all my life and I eat out A LOT. If I was welcome, I would have been led to a seat as soon as I first said “as long as the kitchen gets the food out to to me quickly, I can eat it quickly and be gone by 6pm”. If I was welcome, the staff would not have kept me standing there, grimacing and debating with me on whether or not I should be seated due to alleged time constraints until I felt so uncomfortable that I left.

There is no way I could have misunderstood that situation - if you want to make a customer feel welcome to eat at your establishment, you lead them to a seat. If you don’t want them there, you don’t lead them to a seat.

It’s pretty clear cut what happened and it was only made worse by the fact that the other staff member suggested the fault was on me, rather than owning up to the mistake — telling me they were sorry for what happened; that it shouldn’t have happened; that I should have been lead to a seat; and then leading me to a seat.

That would have been nice. Instead all they did was tell me I was wrong and that they are “pretty close to being totally booked out all night” which is why they set the time limit, but made no attempts to offer me a seat and resolve things, so I left again.

It’s a real shame I couldn’t try the food and give a positive rating on that, as I really was looking forward to trying this place out...

Attached to this review are photos of the empty restaurant at 5:30 as well as screenshots of booking availabilities, with the times the screenshots were taken in the top left of each one - you can see when I looked at the booking system at 5:25, 6:30 and after 7:00, there was availability for tables for 2, 4, 6 and 8 person bookings ALL throughout the night... but seating 1 person in an empty restaurant at 5:00pm was such a...

This was our third time at No Bones, but probably our last. The first 2 times I would have given the place 4 stars, it was good food and service although not much variety and a little pricy. This third time I'm giving them a 1 star, and that's only because the staff were friendly. We ordered the Calamari, Duk pancakes, eggplant parmigiana and the green beans. We were seated at 8:30 and we're still waiting on our meals at 9:30 when we finally asked why it was so long. We very quickly received the Duk Pancakes and Calamari. I would say they'd been ready and sitting in the warmer for quite a while because the Calamari was dry and rubbery and the Duk was crisp and more like a Smith's crisp then a piece of duck. The Duk was also listed as a "Big" meal, but it is anything but big, to classify it as more than an appetizer is being generous. To add insult into injury, we noticed another table receive the Duk pancakes and to be fair, it was at least twice the size of the serving I received and the Duk actually looked like it might be more like real duck and not a crisp. The eggplant parmigiana and green beans were ok, but none of us were impressed. The staff were friendly and offered us another Duk pancakes and ended up not charging us for it which was nice. But overall the experience left a bad taste in our mouth. Its pretty obvious they stuffed up the service and rather than own the mistake and apologies (which we would have been fine with) they tried to get away with...

Best vegan restaurant EVER. Where do I start? The service was outstanding: attentive and friendly staff, recommendations offered, well timed serving of the food… But the food, THE FOOD!!! I don’t think I had ever been to a vegan place where the food is this fancy and this tasty at the same time. And vegan!!!! The attention to both flavour and presentation was incredible. And the best of it? They were dog friendly (everywhere in the restaurant, not only outdoors)!! When I gave them some positive feedback about this, they just told me they were animal lovers, full stop! And it makes total sense right? Vegan place that also acknowledges that your furry baby is part of the family and sometimes you want to bring them along? It just makes sense but it’s not common at all. Also, just to confirm it is not a facade, unfortunately my dog got sick when we were there and, without saying a word, a staff member swiftly came to clean it all up. So professionally that I only noticed my dog had been sick when I saw the staff member clearing it all from under my chair. I was super embarrassed but she kindly brushed it away as something that happens sometimes and that’s it. Honestly, the world needs more places like this. You guys have earned a regular customer as I am 100% stopping by every time I...