Customs House Hotel Williamstown — Restaurant in Melbourne

Just had a Mother's Day lunch at this place with a table of 11. It was chaotic from the moment we entered. It was busy and the place was way to short-staffed to handle the sheer number of people. Waiting time for ordering drinks and food were far to long. Over 20 minutes! We only bought one drink each because we didn't want to wait so long again at the one bar to order another drink. There were only 3 staff at the one bar opened and they were taking drink orders as well as food orders for the entire establishment. I was waiting at the wrong side of the bar for 10 minutes but no-one told me to go to the other side even though they saw me. Went over to the other side where it was crowded with people waiting to order and no sense of order. The very young bartenders were obviously stressed and over worked. Then, for some reason, 2 left and only one bartender remained taking food and drink orders. Only one cash register could be used for taking food orders. We received our food which was very nice. The menu was limited for Mother's Day with only one pasta dish to choose from. Finally, I asked the waitress who bought our food for some water and glasses. She bought the bottles of water out but forgot the glasses. Asked someone else for glasses which eventually came. Then, noticed the bottles of water had "Jellyfish" floating in it!!!! Looking closely, the bottles were filthy with grime and a layer of this gooey stuff. Two of our group drank water from these bottles. How long were these bottles of water stored and how often are the bottles properly cleaned and sterilised? We returned the bottles and showed the young waiter the floating jellyfish to which he just said sorry. Appalling! We won't go back again. The service was appalling. It was an unpleasant experience. The managers and owners should have been better prepared for such a busy day. We went somewhere else for dessert and coffee. Really...

For the last 5 years the Past Trainee Nurses of Williamstown Hospital have been holding their annual Nurses Reunion at the end of February at this wonderful Venue, the Customs House Hotel Williamstown. We cannot say enough good things about the venue, the staff, the meals and the atmosphere. Everyone is so welcoming. As you can appreciate some of our members are getting up in years and we have worked with Jenny Marsh Functions Manager in setting up the room to ensure our members with mobility issues are able to move freely around the venue. The Committee have worked closely with Jenny over this time. She listens to what we want/need for our Reunion to be such a success. We work together planning out time frames, sorting out Menus, room setup, audio visual when required. Every year it just seems to get better. We have no hesitation in recommending the Customs House and the great crew. We always undertake a review to look at what we need to focus on for next year. With a 79% response rate the members unanimously agreed they wanted to return to the Customs House Hotel for our Reunion in February 2025. Here are a couple of photos with the Committee and Jenny, a photo of myself with our most senior nurse on the day, Claire who graduated in 1949, and is in her 90s. Also included are some photos of the room and our graduate nurses from the fabulous fifties, Shirley, Vonnie and...

Pretty sure the seafood risotto was their paella, needed to be reheated and seasoned when served second time, the seafood misto not worth the price with seafood not being fresh as you can usually rely on Williamstown to provide, and could only eat half of it as it was drenched in butter.

Lovely woman serving, offered us comp drinks or dessert to which we declined but she was super efficient, professional and fast being the only server especially.

Was cold in the front dining room too even if it was nearly full.

Edit post owner response: nice to see your server had better hospo manners with comp offer than your response but your seafood was NOT fresh in either dish, risotto was paella and no salt or pepper seasoning and I am a massive butter and cream seafood fan so misto is a favourite but when you can't even see the fish swimming under the "sauce" and you skipped lunch to save room for this meal and can't eat half won't be back and was ashamed to take my friend there to experience Williamstown fresh seafood, when a chef has to first ask for a risotto to be put in the microwave and then ask for cracked pepper and salt a seafood "risotto" that tastes like main paella is just embarrassing....