Coolangatta Surf Club — Restaurant in Gold Coast City

What let Cooly SLC down so badly was their service. Very poor. We were greeted at the main door downstairs by a grumpy lady who made a big deal about one of us not having a license. We got upstairs and waited like idiots at a sign that said please wait to be seated. Problem was that it was on a slight angle and the other side said take a seat. Would have been nice if one of the stag that was looking at us in that 5 minutes offered assistance. Ordering was awful. We had to go through 3 separate registers to get different things. It turned out that a crowd in front of me in the queue were at the same table as those behind me. And their system cannot add items to an order so they insisted on serving the 8 people behind me. At this point, I was directed around the other side to another register, but this staff member took the inconvenience out on me- snapping statements and processes. I just wanted to place an order! That same person delivered one of our drinks and shook her head in frustration at my wife because she couldn't take the table number (more items to come).

The food came and it looked good. Big portions which is kinda nice seeing the prices are pretty steep. 2 of the service staff were more polite but the rest were rude. No smiles and basic lines like reading a boring script. Quality was average to poor, and portion size does not make up for this. Calamari was OK, but slightly over cooked. My chicken Parmigiana looked very impressive but the ham was only ok, the sauce tasted old or based on a jar mixture but the chicken itself was good. Side of chips were fine but had no edge to set it apart from other parmi dishes. Side salad was not dressed - only a bit of salad cream on the top cucumber. Kids meal was fine but a little overpriced. XXXX gold is $6.05 but $4 across the street. The final kick in the teeth for me was no doggie bag. If you run a place that does large portions, I think the logic is straight forward.

Long review I know and if you are still reading, I'll end with this: This place MAY be worth it if you are a club member and dine there regularly. If you are not, it is overpriced and a very poor service experience. If you are at Cooly on holiday, there are a lot of other and...

I don’t enjoy writing reviews with a single star attached to the food, but today there was little to be happy about. Had the food been cheap I may have walked away with a “you live and learn” attitude, but cheap it was not.

Crumbed barramundi was inedible, and we questioned whether it was actually barra. The fish was cooked beyond it’s limits, then cooked some more. Dry as cardboard. A mouthful to each person at the table confirmed we weren’t overreacting. Atrocious cooking, and unforgivable tbh. If you can’t cook barra, get out of the kitchen. But the pain continued around the table.

Fettuccine with bugs, prawns and chilli oil was also grossly overcooked. Although generous in portion, the bugs were dry and tasteless. No care taken with what is otherwise a delicate flesh. The prawns didn’t fare much better. But the omission of chilli oil (a primary driver of the dish’s flavours) was another thing. The duty manager, to his credit, brought two pots of the “…they mustn’t have put much on” oil, but the so-called chilli oil was a flavourless watery soup that tasted of nothing. Note to Chef: the ingredients of chilli oil are secretly hidden in the title. No water in chilli oil. Add olive oil. Add chilli. Who would have thought it.

The fettuccine was snapped in half, which is blasphemous in Italy and should be here too, as it is across any competent kitchen. The dish was tasteless. And not cheap.

The Quiche was also disappointing. “Extremely poor”, was how it was described. I won’t say more.

The service at the club is fabulous. The staff are delightful. The view amazing. Reading other reviews here, I would suggest that the kitchen has many problems dating back months.

To the manager’s credit, he offered to replace the fish, but we declined. A refund would have been more...

Not a good ‘food experience’ - yet again!!

Firstly, I might point out that we have been members of this Club for many years, only just renewing two out of three memberships.

Staff are always pleasant and never an issue.

Meals have been just average on our last few visits, we haven’t complained, we’ve wanted a pleasant experience with my elderly mother without causing a fuss, plus my husband likes the position and enjoys a drink looking at the ocean - also we have many fond memories of enjoying meals here with my father.

We dined here Sunday for an early evening meal, ordering entrees first of garlic bread and half dozen oysters kilpatrick, then 3 main meals of July’s Special, Greek Marinated Lamb Chops.

New menus with increased prices, but that’s okay, we are happy to pay the extra if you receive nice meals.

Although the meals came out looking delicious they unfortunately we not. Our chops were not cooked thoroughly, they were tough, and definitely not marinated.

After notifying a wait staff member, I sent back one of my chops back to be cooked - my mother’s chops were raw as was the husbands. These were ‘lamb chops’ how wrong can you get it !! One doesn’t have to be a master chief to cook these meals.

We did ask to see the Manager on duty to show him our plates. He apologised and offered a round of drinks and or a voucher towards our next visit. We declined his offer. These meals should have automatically been refunded on the spot, as our plates told the story.

After over a decade of patronage we won’t be back in a hurry, which is unfortunate - we have given the benefit of a doubt that it was an ‘off night’ re the food the past ‘four visits’ - and you think, ‘let’s try again ‘ never complaining - but ‘this broke the camels back’ at...