North Byron Hotel — Restaurant in Byron Bay

I really wanted to love this place. Went there twice in the past two days & had a not so good experience both times. Firstly, I do want to say that This was my first time back here since the rebrand & it looks great now, the courtyard is a lovely space and the furniture and pizza oven section give it a real quality look and feel. Yesterday my table was the first one occupied for lunch just before 12pm & after a few mins of looking at their currently reduced menu, my friend & I both ordered salads. As we waited a few more people trickled in & started to order. No problem with us, we had nowhere to be! After a little while we started to smell the pizzas being cooked so we thought surely ours would be out before then but nope, other tables started receiving their food and ours was still nowhere to be seen. After around 45 mins we enquired as to where our salads were, only to be told that the meat (one salad had chicken, one beef) needed to ‘rest’ before the salads could come out - which felt like a bit of a lie but ok! After a wait of 1 hour and 15 mins they finally arrived! In fairness both were tasty and very fresh but not worth that long of a wait! Tonight, we tried again! We’re staying across the road so convenience trumped any kind of reluctance we might have had plus maybe they were just having an off day yesterday, right? Nope! It seems like disorganisation is what is going to let this place down, we ordered a pizza at 6:55pm when there were already a few people sitting out in the courtyard & a few scattered around the tables inside. Around 25 mins in a server came around with a plate of kingfish that we told her wasn’t ours so she showed us a food docket that had a bunch of things on it and then a pizza right down the bottom, we explained that the pizza was ours but nothing else, so off she went to find the rightful owner. Another 20 minutes passed and another server came over & asked what we had ordered before they headed back over to the kitchen. After it had been 55 minutes, and my mood was thoroughly on a downward trajectory, my friend told them we were no longer interested and wanted a refund. They told us our order was ready and would be brought over right away, which it was however I was fed up by that stage so we asked to have it boxed up to take away, which was done really quickly. After we walked out the door my friend commented that the box didn’t really feel warm at all which proved to be true once we’d walked the 5 minutes back to our accommodation to finally eat our dinner. The pizza itself was very pale for a wood fired pizza and even upon heating up in the microwave was doughy and undercooked. My friend was so mad about it he took it back and got a refund & we ordered a pizza from our hotel instead which was both quick & delicious. The staff at the North Byron were all great and all very understanding but the lack of organisation around the place really let down what could be a great venue. Overall, just a really...

❤️Really lovely staff❤️ I think mostly back packers or tourists? They were super helpful and happy to chat. Didn't really have a lot of experience with service but generally made up for it by just being nice and asking if we needed anything else. The bar guy was a delight, very knowledgeable on local ordinance and sounded like he had delt with more than his fair share of drunk nobs over the years.

🤡The atmosphere is very tacky🤡 Feels like someone has cut out a bunch of magazine pictures and told the decorator to "make it look like this". No soul, just loads of plastic plants, dusty shelves and pictures, cheap lighting.

The food was 50/50 We ordered about a quarter of the menu throughout the night and it was all over the shop. Despite using the app, the first person finished dinner 35 minutes before the last person was even served. 2 of the kids meals came out 20 minutes before the other 2 kids meals. Alot of the food was burnt. The fish and chips were dark brown and gross. Both in the fish burger, the kids meals, and the crumb on the giant schnitzel. It all left a yuck burnt oil taste which ruined everything after it. The fish burger was really a cucumber burger with a small brown lump of double fried fish, it was so bad 🤮 The wings were nicely cooked but the sauce was a disaster. The pizzas had nice hand made bases, but then they were covered in cheap silly ingredients. Honestly, again, looked like someone just flipped through a catalogue and told a high-school kid to "make that". Of the 4 pizzas that came out, one had 2 serving plates on the little tray underneath, while the others had none... 🤔 were we not supposed to use plates? Do we just eat over the table 🧐

The prices were generally ridiculous 💸💸 I understand a business cashing in on tourists, but I still expect reasonable food for those prices. This was a thoroughly disappointing moment on an otherwise wonderful trip 😢

... And then, after reading this review they criticize my choice of photos (I included some photos of the bathroom so the owner could clean the dust), and expect that I drive 4 hours so they can "try again" rather than accept responsibility for a poor performance, or try to fix the filthy mess 😂 #lame

Absolutely poor management here!! It's an obvious shame that the team is being carried by the gardener...

We recently attended a four hour function with 80 people at North Byron Hotel, and while the venue itself is lovely with great food and a solid atmosphere, the experience was soured by the complete lack of care for dietary needs and the unacceptable behavior of the event staff.

One of our group has celiac disease, so we were disappointed to find the gluten-free options amounted to little more than cabbage and lettuce leaves with a garnish and some GF bread. When we politely asked if the kitchen could put together something simple—literally just mushrooms and any leftover GF items—we were met with outright hostility. The young woman managing the event was astonishingly rude, dismissive, and condescending, making it clear that accommodating a medical dietary requirement was an inconvenience to her. We were told to buy food if we wanted more.

At this point, I imagine the venue will reply to this review with a vague apology, something about “passing the feedback on to management” and “learning from mistakes.” But the reality is, no empty PR response can undo the fact that this staff member showed blatant disrespect and made an already frustrating situation worse. If management truly cared, they would ensure their team understands basic hospitality and how to handle dietary requirements without attitude.

The venue itself is great, and under different circumstances, I’d be happy to return. But unless staff are held accountable, no amount of well-worded responses will fix the issue.

If you’re considering booking an event here, think twice—unless you’re okay with being served by a rude supervisor and paying for dietary accommodations only to receive scraps. Once they secured our group booking payment, all care or consideration went out the window. Management seems far more focused on maximising profit than ensuring guests are properly...