Milky Lane Canberra — Restaurant in District of Canberra Central

So, my girls and I were SUPER excited to have lunch at Milky Lane. We decided to come hungry, after feeding our eyes on the Instagram page. We arrived ready to indulge in food, fun and banter but were initially greeted with extremely poor customer service.

First of all, my friend asked if they stocked any of the stronger beer options, above 5%. The bartender, who we hadn’t even said anything to, responded across the restaurant (while making a cocktail) “Well we don’t have VB”. Wow, ok, slow down mate, why do you have to be so rude?

It took an hour for our order to arrive, after requiring immense clarification of the menu items (one of my friends had a few allergies).

The staff seemed very undertrained. Although it was a little busy, there were 6 people on the bar and approximately 10 floor staff (possibly more), so there was no reason for the food to take so long and for the service to have been so poor.

My friend had asked for the vegan burger to be come altered because of her allergies - so substitute the bun for lettuce and the vegan pattie for a meat patty because she has a grain allergy. Then they told us that we were going to be charged an extra $6 for the pattie substitute, which we found a bit ridiculous, because SHE WAS NOT HAVING THE VEGAN PATTIE. After this, the waiter came back and said the manager had agreed to waive the cost of the pattie “this one time”, I mean, it’s not like she is selectively allergic.

We asked about the ingredients in some of the sauces because of allergies and the waiter had to go back to the kitchen 5 TIMES to find out this information. Shouldn’t it have been part of the training? On the menu, it had clearly stated to notify the waiter of any allergies.

We ordered fries, expecting them to come with our burgers, but 15mins before our burgers they’re out. It was a bit shocking because we expected it to come with the burgers. We later were told (after asking), that the SIDES come out first....still don’t get it, isn’t that called a entree? Then, the food came out, an hour and a half later, and 2 of the burgers were just shocking. The vegan burger was nothing like the advertising photos on Instagram and the onion rings...well there was no onion rings, just a little piece of battered up onion and the vegan bun substitute....We’ll let the photo below speak for itself. After finally being able to speak to the manager and asking for both burgers to be redone, she obliged. This was after we explained what the problem was and our letdown expectations. She agreed to send the burgers back, take them off the bill, give us 2 drinks on the house and replace the burgers with what was initially ordered (aka: what it should’ve been).

After we had finished the meal, we walked up to pay. Somewhere the communications had broken down because on the bill, the 2 drinks ‘on the house’ were still on the bill. The lady at the till asked us to calculate it all and tell her exactly how much we will each be paying. After we told her what was taken off and clarified the bill, completely disinterested, we had to step aside to figure out the bill ourselves. Her attitude was appalling.

Safe to say, from the moment we sat down, to when we left, two and a half hours later, we unanimously agreed not to go back. Or, to hit up...

Visited for dinner with a large group of people for a celebration last night. The evening started off quite well with all food and drinks arriving quickly.

However when half of the table ordered their second round of drinks, they never arrived. The other half of the table ordered drinks at least 10 minutes after us, and theirs arrived, but still nothing from the first order.

We continued to wait, and after 20 minutes, asked the waitress looking after our table where the drinks were. To which the reply was, "I'm sure they're coming, just being made by the bar! Don't look sad!" This seemed like an extremely unprofessional comment to tell a customer to, not look sad.

The other half of the table yet again had ordered another round of drinks, and again theirs came and still nothing for our sides original order! This was now going on close to 45 minutes since we placed our order. One guest from our table went up to speak with someone, and 5 minutes later the original waitress and another waiter returned to our table with their ordering tablet, looked through and it appears that the order was never sent through correctly!

Our second round of drinks finally arrived, and then not 2 minutes later another waitress came around with our bill and advised we had 15 minutes left!

I understand we were given a 2 hours time slot, however considering the fact that the error of drinks had been made on the restaurant's side, it would have been considerate if we had been allowed slightly longer to finish our drinks, and not be forced to rush them and hurry out just so a new table could be seated!

While I understand technology errors happen, the issue with the overall experience is that when we raised our concern over the missing drinks, no one did anything about it. There was no checking in with the bar to see if they had received the order, it was just assumed they had.

Overall very disappointing, and I would recommend speaking with staff about how they handle issues like this in the future. And would recommend when this type of issue does arise, to not then promptly kick the customers out just to seat...

I initially wanted to go here as I’ve seen some incredible stuff in many of their social media advertising. Firstly, you would be lucky if the food you receive even slightly resembles what you’ve seen in the photos posted on their social media. Pretty well everything that they advertise aren’t things that you can order (or are heavily spruced up, modified menu items). I brought this up and in response was told that this isn’t false advertising - rather, that it is ‘fun content’ for their social media (they backed this up by saying that they never specify that what you see in photos is available on the menu). When every single bit of their online content doesn’t represent what they actually serve, I think this grossly pushes the boundaries of what could be considered as ‘fun content’ and could be considered purposely misleading.

I came to the Braddon branch not long after they opened. The music was so loud I couldn’t hear the person in front of me. My girlfriend and I were shouting at each other the entire time - trying to hold a conversation was just frustrating.

My thick shake came out really late and was lukewarm by the time I got it, so it was probably made and forgotten about (also nothing like what their shakes are depicted as in the photos). My girlfriend ordered a gluten free bun for her burger (gluten is a massive IBS trigger) which they also forgot about. We weren’t game to wait around for another burger while all the other food was already served so she ended up eating the bun she was served.

I had contacted Milky Lane through their Instagram about my experience in the hopes that we might end up giving the place another shot. I was told they would follow up the complaint and never heard from them again.

I really wanted to like this place, and even after my first experience I was open to giving it another crack. There has just been too many negatives and as far as customer service goes, they have absolutely nothing to show for it. Go get a burger at Ducks Nuts, Soul Cartel or The Duxton instead because this place is...