Riverbank Estate Winery — Restaurant in Caversham

It was upsetting that I have to write a review like this regarding my once beloved place - however, it was shocking what they delivered and their poor attitude when given feedback to.

Live cooking station is not live If you have been to any of the wedding Expos, they like to promote their ‘live cooking stations’ and we signed up for it, as it is supposed to be ‘buffet style’ and provides a good atmosphere for the night. However, none of the station was ‘live’, let alone ‘cooking’. If I knew, I’d just sing up for a regular menu to save my guest from getting their own food.

“Buffet” style with limited amount of food A few guests (including our family members) gave us feedback that food was not enough for everyone - trays were empty and nobody refilled them. Not to mention the minimum guest number is 80 and we only had around 70, so the food should be more than enough. We provided feedback to the manager after our wedding, regrettably, she was not only defensive, and also told us that she ‘personally filled up the trays three times’, and that it could be ‘cultural difference’ that our guests are getting more food than they should. It was shocking not only that she made such racist comment, and also the food was not there for guest to ‘take themselves’ but was served by waitress so guests cannot control the amount of food they want on their plate. When we reached out, guests feedback that they were not hungry but also when they wanted more of certain things, it was not refilled. When we signed up for a ‘buffet’ style’, I’m surprised how is it ‘buffet’ when people don’t get enough to eat. To make things worse, my partner overheard that night there were ‘lots of food in the kitchen for staff to takeaway’ - of course it did not come to him as we did not realise on the night that guests did not have enough to eat. It was utterly disappointing, unprofessional, and definitely not worth the money.

Stop serving drinks before drinks package finish time Our family members and other guests (after we asked) also reported that waitress stop serving drinks (soft drinks/wine) before our drinks package ended. They offer to serve ‘tea/water’ instead when it was 9-ish - to me that was just horrible, bad service that nobody wants in their wedding.

Kicking you out as soon as drinks package finishes Our drinks package finished at 10pm as we wanted a relatively early night. What RiverBank did is that the manager went to pull out the speakers right at 10pm, while my guests are still having their last sips on their drinks. (We only figured out afterwards what actually happened). It was absolutely rude and inconsiderate. We already agreed to tune down the music and gave it some buffer for guests to leave, however they insisted that all music will need to stop. This is, in my point of view, not how a wedding venue should treat their customers. When we went back to give feedback, I clarified with the manager is that what she’s doing to all wedding couples (I.e. pulling out music on the dot when their drinks package finish), what I get was her crossing her arms and told me ‘yes’. Dietary requirements not catered for as promised We filled in a form with dietary requirements, including gluten/dairy free prior to the wedding. It was announced (and promised) that food will be delivered to them so the guests with dietary requirement will not need to go out and get their food. However, a few of my guests (one of whom was pregnant) kept waiting until most people got their food, and when they asked the waitress, they were told that they can just ‘go and get what they can eat’ at the counter.

Poor attitude From what I already mentioned, you can probably tell the manager’s attitude was nothing close to professional, or I’d just describe it as rude. It was really disappointing that when we went back to clarify the above points, what we got was her rolling her eyes at us, and being really defensive. Of course the best part was the racist comment she made. (When actually more than half of our guests were caucasians, if...

WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! We had our wedding at Riverbank Estate this year and chose the Live Cooking Stations Buffet package, but we were sorely DISAPPOINTED. A few weeks before our wedding, the Events Coordinator was changed to a new person and she was horrible to deal with. She overpromised everything, but underdelivered everything on the wedding day.

The food was served in large aluminium take away trays instead of the advertised Live Cooking Stations, and the food did not get refilled after they were finished, which was not the buffet we were advertised. The food was not ready on time and came 30mins after the original schedule, but they did not advise us of this which caused confusion when guests went up to get food, but were told no food is ready. We were told by the restaurant that our guests with dietary requirements will be served customised meals on the night, but this never happened and these guest were left with nothing to eat until they got too hungry and had to go get the normal food being served in take away containers. The so called "salads" on offer were a bowl of lettuce and spinach leaf with no dressing, and each guest was only given 1 thin slice of beef brisket which was meant to be the main dish of the night. Our drinks package was purchased till 10pm, but by 9:30pm our guests were already being told they cannot get any more drinks and the only thing left was water. At 9:55pm the Event Coordinator went and pulled the power plug on the sound system and said the music has to stop now. But as the sound system was running off batteries the music didn't immediately stop, so the event coordinator went to verbally abuse our guest that was helping us with the sound system and demanded he turn them off immediately. At 10pm an old man approached me as I was saying fair well to my guests and demanded me to turn off the music, I asked who this man was and he told me he was the owner of the venue. The event coordinator then went to attempt and unplug more cables connecting the sound system which was private property of my guest and not property of the restaurant. As the groom, I had to stop talking to my guests to sort out this dispute and we turned off the music. I stayed behind to help pack things up and overhead the restaurant staff saying there were still heaps of foods in the kitchen and asking who wanted to take it home, which didn't make sense as my guests did not get enough food to eat.

We tried to provide some feedback to the Event Coordinator a few days later but she blamed our guests for everything. She pulled the RACE card and said the culture of our guests ate too much (most of our guests were actually Caucasians), she claimed to have refilled the food on the night herself, but our guests sitting right next to the food advised us the food was never refilled. She said every couple that holds a wedding at the restaurant will have their sounds system unplugged on the minute their drinks package ends. We asked her why the owner of the venue was there on the night as he was not invited to the private event, which we paid for exclusive rights to, and she just said he's the owner. So expect to have a random old man at your private event if you come here. She then proceeded to ignore us and roll her eyes when we tried to give her more feedback. We asked her if she was okay for us to put what happened in a review and she said "go ahead, we don't care". Very disappointed with the service and we will never be coming back...

I never write reviews for places even if they're bad but my experience here was just the worse. When we arrived, we were told that our entrees are being made. As we had a set menu and only one entrée was available. We sat at our table and ordered wine which on its own took about 15 minutes to arrive at the table. A different server came to the table and took our Mains order, We then waited an hour (from walking in and being told our entrees are being prepared) and about 45 minutes (after we got our mains order taken) for said entrees to arrive even after going up twice and asking where it was. We had gotten fed up and as we were going to leave were told by one of the servers that the entrees are ready, My mother said that we had been waiting an hour, only to be called out from across the restaurant by who I assume was the manager that it "wasn't an hour" and talking back to my mum. Very Rude. Had evidence to show that we were waiting for said time but very unprofessional calling out like that.

Our main server was great though. Don't know what his name was but was very nice and caring the whole time, and was being barked at by the manager the entire time. The other server that was on had major RBF and even when trying to talk to her seemed bored and uninterested to be at work. It's disappointing to see that people have had similar problems, only to be ignored by management not replying to their reviews but replying to reviews that give them 4+ Stars. Would not go back here at all and will definitely advise friends not to go here unless you wont slow and rude service. I also hope that assumed manager sitting on her laptop all shift is reading this and know to get an attitude check and not be so rude to customers. Even asked the server if you could come to the table to talk and was not even bothered to come by. The one star is for the excellent server who had to be in the middle of...