Fitzroy Town Hall Hotel — Restaurant in Melbourne

We reserved at table for 7pm on Sunday of the long weekend. We arrived and no one was available to take us to our table for about 5 mins which is fine. The place looked lovely and cosy and we were expecting a good night out with our friends. We sat down at a nice table and our waitress informed us many dishes on the menu were already sold out - a bit odd at 7pm on a long weekend, but fine. We were told there were only two burgers left and one of our group wanted one. She came back to take our order and our friend asked for the burger. 5 mins later she comes back and tells us the burgers are sold out. Not a great start. Then throughout the evening it just got worse, hardly any water being topped up despite us having to ask - not responsible service when drinking alcohol. Then the beer we were drinking had run out, then the prosecco. It's just ridiculous, half of the menu sold out at 7pm, then the drinks. Waitress was never available to take our drinks orders as the night progressed. At the end, we get the bill. Just shy of $600 for 4 people. She said we had do finish up our drinks as the section we were sitting in was being cleaned up but we were welcome to go to the bar for drinks. It was 11pm. To our shock, a public holiday surcharge of 15% had been added to our bill - equivalent of $80. It wasn't a public holiday it was Sunday, the public holiday is on Monday. The service was terrible, most items on the menu including drinks were sold out. And then they have the nerve to ask if we wanted to leave a tip!!! We then proceeded to the bar area to continue to drink but were told it was closed. What?? We'd just been told we could go there for further drinks as they needed to close the section we dined in. We'd spent $600 and were there, keen to support local hospitality yet were met with indifferent and inattentive staff. Given covid has impacted hospitality they just didn't seem prepared or bothered. I'm really annoyed about the experience. Absolute amateurs charging fine dining prices. We ended up going to Polly's for cocktails and had wonderful service. In fact we left a $40 tip on a $290 bill there because they were so attentive, welcoming and appreciative of our custom - in the managers words 'thank you for choosing us, we know you had a choice after lockdown'. Night and day! the Fitzroy Town Hall needs to look at every aspect of their operation, from greeting to stock levels to service. Everything fell flat it was embarrassing. And yet they have the nerve to charge an $80 'surcharge'. I would recommend you stay away, it's just not...

We arrived at the restaurant with high expectations for my wife's birthday dinner, but unfortunately left feeling very disappointed. The atmosphere was noisy and poorly lit, making it difficult for me, who wears reading glasses, to read the menu. Although the food served to our group was pretty good, it was overpriced for what we received and the menu options were limited and not great (the menu we could choose from was different from the one we checked online before making our reservation).

My biggest issue was with the front-of-house staff, who were incompetent. They couldn't get our wine order correct from an underwhelming wine list and served us a wine we didn't order. When we pointed out the error, they offered to give us the correct bottle but expected us to pay for the incorrect wine they had opened and served. After a pushy and obnoxious head waiter/waitress intervened, they eventually relented. About 15 minutes later, a bar staff member brought another bottle of wine to our table, causing further confusion. We sent it back and thankfully were not charged for it either.

After finishing our meal, which was pretty good, we asked for the bill. I wanted to check it to make sure we were not charged for anything we didn't order, but it was so dark that I had to use the torch on my phone. The bill was in order, totaling $285. I handed over my credit card, but when the handheld EFTPOS machine was given to me, the amount was $307. I pointed out the discrepancy to the waiter, who struggled to read the bill as well in the poor light (I offered her my phone's torch). She eventually walked away with the bill and the machine, only to return 15 minutes later with the correct amount ready to be charged. We couldn't leave the place fast enough.

By the way, the bottle of wine we eventually drank was not great. I can't be certain, but it tasted slightly off, like it had been stored in a warm or hot location, but did not dare say anything as I was certain it would not be well received. To summarise, I would suggest the restaurant improve its front-of-house staff or at least invest in their training and basic customer...

Wasn't a great experience TBH. A 7.30pm reservation, we managed to finally get a parking spot on Brunswick St which meant we would be a few minutes late. Who knew that street parking for a couple hours in this area would cost almost 15 bucks, ridiculous!

Place was not that busy on arrival. Large family occupying 2 tables, one dedicated to the loud young kids and the accoustics in the hotel were terrible given the small number of customers.

Service staff took our orders and attempted to memorise them unsuccessfully. 10 mins later, came back with a notepad and took the orders again. Food took quite some time to come out given there were hardly any patrons left. Wife's main and entrée came out at the same time. Seemed to be confusion with the number of entrée's ordered, and while some of us were eating, some of us where left waiting. They tried hard with the service, but just couldn't get it right.

I ordered the Kingfish for entrée which came out with a massive amount of blackbean sauce. Mate next to me had 20% of the sauce I had, so of course mine was horribly salty and not balanced. For mains I had the sirloin which was ok. Although the steak was cooked right, did not have a good crust and the cap was not cooked which meant it had to be cut off... overall, an...