The Local Shack Hillarys — Restaurant in Hillarys

Im not one to leave reviews but I felt that after my families experience at THE LOCAL SHACK Hillaries I needed too! The Dull Atmosphere and lack of paying customers for a Friday night in a location such as this should have been our first warning, but Tbh the fact they had games and the menu type appealed to our daughter and seemed like it would be a bit of fun and we give every thing a go as some of the best places I’ve eaten at we were the only people there at the time. This is NOT one of those occasions! We ordered, fried calamari salad for my wife, nachos for my daughter and sliders for myself. With a late order of chips and S/P chips. The staff, all teens did not know what was going on at all with the menu or anything else for that matter and it seemed more a local drop in centre than a restaurant. Our meals came out at different times with my young daughters a good 7/8. Minutes after ours and when it did I almost burned my hand off as the plate The nachos was on must have been in the microwave or under the salamander for it seems like an hour as it was literally too hot for me to hold onto for more than 10 seconds and that’s through a handful of napkins, if my daughter had touched it she would have sustained 3rd deg burns, the nachos around the sides and top were scorched black and In edible. The sliders buns were all stale to the point of falling apart which they did, not to mention the fillings were not at all fresh or flavoursome i actually didn’t eat all of two and couldn’t bring my self to trying to third. The calamari was ok, minding though that was the first thing I tried and realistically if your hungry the first thing that you eat usually does taste ok for a few bites, for the most part the squid were soggy and also finding a fresh crisp lettuce in this economy isn’t the hardest thing to do either. The chips finally came out and hoping for something edible that Surley no one could get wrong i was again disappointed with both types being Hardly fresh, more like re fried, cold and soggy. Oh and got two of the three paid for sauces until the third arrived as we’d had enough. I wish i took photos to post but honestly I didn’t want to have to see what I waisted over $60 for again. We left hungry and in all a bit cheated, as we never intended on waking into a place, handing over our cash ( sorry they didn’t accept my cash. CARD ONLY) which having cancer and wheelchair bound is hard to come by these days and then leaving both food and cash at the same place. I did mention our experience and very near serious burns injury of a 3yo to the some what duty manager (not expecting a refund) even though we literally couldn’t eat what we’d paid for, so that he may pass our experience onto the owner in the hope that it never happens to any one else and was replied with oh umm yeh umm sorry about that! And proceeded to walk away. Any way the over priced beer was cold and strawberry milkshake was good so that’s something I suppose. But over $60 for a beer and a bit of milk hurt a bit! But i suppose you get that sometimes, it’s a shame because i hate having to write...

Seriously among the worst breakfasts we've ever had

While understanding that staff shortages cause problems, especially in BUSY restaurants, Sunday morning was NOT busy and there was adequate staff - so no excuse for the abysmal experience we had We eat out regularly and this is the first negative review we've left. We accept variable quality of food and service; this place managed to fail on both counts... the food MAY have been better (though half an avocado (literally) plonked on a bit of toast is hardly haute cuisine... and the "creamy feta" from the menu description was virtually invisible... had we been able to eat it fresh instead of waiting for several minutes (about 5, in a not-busy restaurant) and after several requests, (second met with "if you give me a second" from the manager") for a fork to eat with...one fork between the three of us would have meant at least one of us could have had not stone-cold poached eggs, ugh Another table close to us (one of only two or three tables occupied at the time) had EXACTLY the same problem, no forks, with the added bonus of their meal coming out over a protracted period My husband's order (basic menu item plus option of poached eggs) came without the poached eggs... they were cooked and his meal replaced before our guest and myself got our forks to eat OUR (cold) eggs ... the girl on the register struggled with the ordering process - training people is an important part of service provision, we are in the service industry we know this as should this owner After the whole debacle the owner insisted we pay $4 for the eggs that weren't included as ordered (but not paid for at time of order) would not take $4 cash so we had to wait in line for the untrained girl to struggle with several orders for poor unfortunates hoping for a nice breakfast. I could have pointed out my uneaten COLD poached egg(s) and asked for a refund - or the manager should have worked out that it was worth sacrificing two eggs in the interest of offsetting his failures. He DID apologise, but was not interested in the feedback, it felt like a token apology The place looks okay, but has a strange, unpleasant, smell as others have described... my husband thought it was stale cleaning products, I thought stale cooking oil... either way stale and not appropriate to its fresh location. Not a dealbreaker on its own, but in conjunction with food and service.... yeah

Absolutely no redeeming features for this meal, this restaurant under...

Don’t waste your time bothering with this place. Good points- good decor and kids play area... bad points - went in and sat down with menus after being told they’d come take our order ‘soon’. We waited and waited until I was second guessing if we were actually supposed to order at counter. Watched two other tables get up and walk to bar to order after having same experience. It was a warm sunny day and no water placed on table (which should be the first thing you do - seat people, give them menus, get them water!! Basic hospitality). We watched the waiter (male) sort of wander around aimlessly back and forth while we tried to grab his attention each time but he had tunnel vision. There was a waitress standing out the front handing out menus and trying to flag down more customers - how about look after the ones you’ve already got! She walked past our table and we managed to flag her down to ask to order and she told us that the other guy was the one taking orders so we said can you please send him over, we’ve been waiting ages (about 20 mins) and we would like water too. She sent him over but then proceeded to shoot us filthy looks every time she passed us. Guy came and took our order finally. We ordered drinks plus water for table..... 5 mins later he came to our table with food in hands saying ‘have you guys ordered yet?’ and we said ‘yes.... YOU took our order a few minutes ago’ and he held the dishes up asking ‘is this yours?’. After being informed that wasn’t our order he proceeded to wander around the restaurant until he found the right table. And yes, each table has a number on them so god knows where the system stuffs up there cause a minute later another waitress nearly put someone else’s drinks down on our table too. We sat there waiting for another 5 minutes and still no drinks... so we’d been there a half hour by that stage and hadn’t even got water on the table. All the while the chick was still standing out the front trying to flag down passers by. At that point we decided that we no longer wanted to stick around for their poor service and decided to leave. We informed the staff and all they did was huff at us saying the food was ‘ready’. Well, if you can’t so much as bring people some water when they ask and offer ridiculously poor service then this is what happens. We decided to dine elsewhere and had an...