Bond Melbourne — Restaurant in Melbourne

If you looking for a place to go to and ruin your night - you found it! And i am not even talking about general admission or guest list. I am talking pre paying for the booth and still not being able to get in and enjoy yourself. Now, i don't normally write review but this place deserves name and shame.

We reserved a table for 6 people on Saturday night - 4 guys and 2 girls so the boy/girl mixture is right. Table was $1200 and allowed us to bring 10 people with us. Generally when you pay for something you would expect to get what you pay for. Well, not in Bond Lounge. 4 of us arrived on time and the other 2 people were coming in half an hour. We got seated at our table, advised bouncers and the manager that there will be 2 more people arriving soon and were told thats not a problem at all as we have 10 entries with the booth. Cool.

Our beverages arrived, we had a nice girl looking after us (who complained to me how overworked she is and how they have not enough stuff to look after all the tables). Half an hour later upon other 2 people arrival, we were advised they can't come it as club is now at full capacity!

OK hold on a minute, so you pay for the booth upfront, you get a confirmation from the bar manager that you can bring 10 people - 4 people arrive advising 2 more on the way and then they are declined the entry.

So here are - i have me and my business partner with our girlfriends inside, and 2 of my clients who we invited out outside not being able to come in because of... well not sure why, because they were still letting others in. Also special mention goes to ill mannered bouncers - who clearly do not give a single care about the business or clients who pay their wages. At least have a decency to look at people when they talk to you and no look away.

We asked fro the refund as we could not stay and let the other group be outside. Well as you can imagine we did not get it. We were offered to tae our bottle with us (which is worth $80 at the battle store) and they would keep our $1200 for.... i guess just cause they can (according to magically invented policy which bouncers come up on the spot)

We are not trouble makers, we run a successful business and do spend a fair amount if coin when we are out especially when taking our corporate clients out. We were dressed to impress and by any means just wanted to have a good night.

So for those who want to have a good night - my advice to stay away from this place.There are nicer bars and clubs you can go to in Melbourne - Emerson on Commercial road is always a good spot.

We area also taking Bond to small claims court and reporting this activity to ACCC for...

If I could give 0 stars to this place, I would. What was not wrong with this place? Firstly, when I came across this club and looked at their website to contact them about organising a birthday for my husband, the number on their website was not reachable. That was the first red flag. However, I still decided to place a booking with them for an open guest list and asked the Management Team to provide further details about this venue and potential packages. I received a generic response stating that the guest list will be organised and was passed on to a different team member to discuss potential packages. This second team member refused to spell my name correctly through each email (shows what little care they have for customers): second red flag.

We came to the conclusion that the open guest list was sufficient and that we will be happy to pay for our own drinks when we arrive on the night, knowing that we will provide them quite a bit of business from 25 people. Again, as a response to this, I received a copy and paste email stating that the guest list has been organised for me (exact same one from the first email response from the original team member I was contacting) without answering any of my other questions within the email: third red flag. There was NO mention of the fact that guest lists do not have guaranteed entry throughout any of this communication.

Come Saturday night when our party arrived at 9:30pm on the dot, we were distraught by the racist behaviours of the bouncers, who refused to let our group of people of colour enter the premises. We were not allowed to even line up in the queue, as they said "I won't let you guys in even if you line up". Yet at the same time, other "white" people in the line who were supposedly "not guaranteed entry" were allowed inside. When we asked to speak to the manager, they said "I'm the boss, and I can't let you in". Not a single person from our group was drunk or behaving inappropriately, and a friend of ours who had already entered the venue before we reached said it was entirely empty inside at the time. I am appalled by the fact that racism is still an ongoing issue that a so-called multicultural city like Melbourne has to continue to tolerate. Believe me when I say that you will be reported for this one day, and many similar reviews suggest that this is clearly not the place to be in this modern...

Wish I read the reviews for Birthday Packages prior to booking. I contacted Bond management via email and after several emails, we had decided to opt for Birthday Guest List which includes free entry prior to 10pm and post 10pm it'll be $20. This option suited us perfectly as we had made it clear with Bond management team that we've got about 25-30 people and will be looking to spend some money that night. We had it in writing from the management team that all necessary arrangements had been done and they were looking forward to us. Upon arriving to the venue, this is where all things went downhill.

Upon arrival, the bouncers outside said quite rudely "tables only, guest list is not a guaranteed entry, you won't get in". It was extremely disappointing provided we had discussed at length with the Bond Management about our event and the bouncers simply refused entry regardless of our conversation with Management.

In addition, the bouncers even had the audacity to say "you can stand wherever you want, you and your group won't get in" which was a bit more of a double standard as some of our friends had already managed to get inside Bond, without any table booking, without any guest list and they were not a person of colour. This surely isn't a coincidence when you compare this event and review to some of the other reviews listed below.

Safe to say, not only did they lose our business that night (at least $3-4k) but they've also lost the ability to market themselves as a premier place for "everyone".

This is not a fake review, happy to provide written email communication from Bond Management and other testimonies from people. To all people thinking of attending this place for a special event, please consider this and all previous emails as a warning as the last thing you want is for the Bond Melbourne to ruin your night like they did mine and other 30...