Surfers Pavilion — Restaurant in Gold Coast City

If you ever win a competition with surfers Pavillion … do not take them up on the offer.

We won an engagement party at the Pavillion back in December 2024. Confirmed our date with them then for March 30th 2025 as that was when they had the best availability and surely 4 months notice is plenty of time. However what they fail to tell you is that “oh that’s only if we don’t want to take extra money you know”. Because what happened was I showed up 30 minutes early for my event to set up (as I was told would be allowed) and was give a space that was considerably smaller than what we were promised and much too small for 70 people. Now while we were annoyed by this we were like okay let’s make it work, how can we best organise a bar tab and make this function. Well around 45 minutes later they come over and let us know “oh sorry actually we’ve double booked this space” so we’re going to attempt to “create a space” for you. Which ended up being even smaller than original too small space.

After obviously bursting out into tears (this is my engagement party) we’ve already set up and my guest have arrived my sister asks to speak to the manager. Who tells us in almost the exact words “well you know with these competitions you just get what you’re given” well yeah but you’d given us the space and then allocated us to a section that you then required us to move … where my sister was the one doing the actual moving of the furniture to make it a usable space.

Keep in mind we’ve spent money on extra food and extra alcohol plus cakeage so it’s not like they weren’t making money off of us.

I would never attend an event at the surfers Pavillion but I also would never recommend anyone else hold one there either. There was one female staff member who was exceptionally upset about what had happened to us and truly tried so hard to make it up to us, and I do truly appreciate her.

However I would never recommend to a single person to go to the venue simply because of their lack of ability to do deliver on anything. There was a few other little issues however the main one would be the overbooking themselves (which honestly was probably a fire hazard) and the total lack of accountability that most staff took. I will probably be avoiding any location owned by the Artesian Group because clearly for a hospitality company they’re not very capable of running a...

My family and I arrived and ordered immediately after we were seated. My husband and my two boys were served their food around 20 - 30 minutes after we placed our order. They ate and finished their food and mine hasn’t even arrived. My husband went to ask to speed up and they completely forgot. The manager apologized and said won’t be long. I waited for another 15 minutes and my food still did not arrive while I watched other tables already being served even though they arrived much later than me. My husband then approached and asked again as I was very hungry and my son who is disabled was getting tired and wanted to go home. The manager apologized again and offered to pay back which my husband refused and said he just wanted the food. The manager said another five to ten minutes it would be ready. Again we waited more than ten minutes my food did not arrive and my husband who just wanted to leave told the manager it’s ok we would be leaving. He again apologized and forgot about us clearly. I then walked up to him just when we were about to leave to tell him how inappropriate to give us empty promises of food which supposedly were to be coming and that I have waited for more than an hour and other tables have already been served having arrived much later than me. The manager didn’t apologise and didn’t even look at me and completely ignored me. Only then I think the waitress nearby and the kitchen staff overheard.. I calmly walked away and when we were about to step off the restaurant the waitress came with my food running towards me. I politely declined as there was no point having such food having been treated so rudely. The manager clearly didn’t order the staff to prepare my food at all having forgotten it in the first place. My husband did take it out of politeness but I was already out of the door. This is the worst dining experience we have having eaten in similar level and fine dining around Gold Coast....

We had an extremely unpleasant dining experience. Despite having a kids menu this 'restaurant' is not suitable for kids and they make it very clear that they don't want kids there, however once you have made a booking you can't cancel when you learn this on arrival. They hold your credit card details so you're held hostage to your booking despite them not catering to kids. I can understand the appeal of this place for a different audience, but the vibe of this venue is a nightclub that you eat at, not a place to catch up with family and friends for a meal. The music is so loud, you can not hear the person next you. Our lunch went from bad to worse. It started off bad with music being unbearabley loud, but then we sat down to order and realised the only option for kids drinks was soft drink, which our kids don't like. Juice is only served until 11:30?! What is that?! Milkshakes are also only served for breakfast. So we found iced chocolates that didn't have a cut off time of 11:30 but they wouldn't let us have those either. Ok, let's get table water. Nope, not a thing either. So despite them clearly not wanting kids there, and making it very difficult for families, we couldn't leave and find somewhere more appropriate without being hit with a $110 cancellation fee. ($10 per person). I feel like we need to warn other families that aren't from the area and dont realise this place is not family friendly. What they did should be illegal. P.S. The chicken schnitzels weren't...