Bensons Café And Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

Went with friends for lunch. Place was about at 1/3 capacity if that. Ordered a Cab Sav at $38, a coonawarra hidden gem 2014. It was off, rusty colour and sour smell. It was replaced with a Pinot Noir which was perfectly fine. Menu states see specials board for pasta of the day. Only pasta on board was linguine with chicken avocado and bacon in a creamy spinach sauce. We waited for about 50 minutes for our meal to arrive only to be served 2 bowls of pasta. The chef had only prepared 2 sorry we will have to wait for the other 2 bowls. My friends started eating their pasta so it would not get cold. There was pappadelle instead of linguine and no avocado nor bacon but mushrooms. When we questioned this we were told the one on the board was the night special, but it was the only pasta to be seen on the board!! Then my pasta came out, sorry there will be a delay for the next bowl???? Here's a bowl of wedges and tomato sauce while you wait. Finally the 4th friend got her pasta. We ate our pasta at 3 different times!! We suggested maybe one pasta could be free of charge due to the delays and the manager agreed. There is a big sign up New Matcha Latte, I asked for that, after a 10 minute discussion in the kitchen was told they didn't have it. The bill then came and he had charged us 1/2 price for one pasta not free as he had said. My friend went up to query the bill and the manager said he charged half price because she was rude to him about the wine. She was not rude we just did not want to pay that amount for a bottle of off wine. He asked her if she spoke to her grand child like that!!!! He also complained that he had lost a bottle of wine which I mentioned he will most likely serve it as house wine and make more on the bottle anyway. I also pointed out that my meal was also late and I didn't not get any recompense for that. So he dropped one bowl of pasta off the bill. NEVER AGAIN. Friendly waitress, very rude manager, off wine, meal not as per description and advertised drink not available. It used to be good....

Really great food and coffee! The customer service was good and the person that served us was very polite and pleasant :) Downsides were, we went with a dish in mind that we have had many times before and were craving to see its no longer on the menu, our second choices were lovely though. Something else that would have made our meal better was, the tables are all wonky! We sat down at one table that was on a huge slope so we moved to a window seat and the table was crooked again. Also, it was a freezing cold day and was really cold inside there, most people had kept their outer coats on while eating, would have been nice to have a heater on.

UPDATE JUNE 2023- We returned after a while for a brunch. 1 of 2 of the meals was great, except missing something stated on the menu, which is fine if they are out, would be nice to be told prior though, my partner was wanting pancakes so we saw there were some on the menu here, that was our deciding factor in coming in here over other places. He said the pancakes were awful, had a strange taste and were rubbery, he told the lady at the end and all that was said was, oh sorry about that. Even though they weren't finished and he brought it to attention, was still charged full price which was disappointing. The presentation was absolutely flawless though, shame the actually pancakes...

Wow. The worst dining experience we have ever had. Hands down. Absolute dump. Wrong entrees arrived. Mains took over an hour & we had to ask. Barramundi and Flake were worse than homebrand frozen fish in a supermarket. I'd say McDonald's fillet of fish would have been better quality. Fish was so dry, it was like chalk. Definitely not fresh. Nothing was. Chips were soggy. All tasted like it was from a packet or jar. Grilled vegetables were mush and coated in some sugary sauce. We walked out in disgust after a few bites of the main meals after waiting over an hour for them. Whoever is pretending to be a chef in the kitchen, you should quit and get a new career. And for the owner - If you're going to treat groupon customers like this, why even offer a deal? Seeing all the other tables get served before us, their meals looked great, logically we came to the conclusion that we were just to be treated as an afterthought. Thanks for wasting our money and more...