Garden State Hotel — Restaurant in Melbourne

Where to begin

We started the night waiting 10 minutes for a table, as we were informed that there were people from the booking prior still occupying our reserved table. We were asked to wait at the bar and that someone would come seat us shortly. After looking around the vacant tables ourselves we found our reserved table unoccupied and free from when we arrived. Upon question it to another staff member we were then seated.

Now for the food. We ordered our 2 entrees at around 8:30. We soon noticed that all the tables around us were experiencing significant delays with food. Shortly after ordering our entrees we ordered our 2 mains as we had reservations after dinner we couldn't afford to miss. After 40 minutes since our first order we received one of our mains prior to any entrees being served. We informed the waiter that we were still waiting on our entrees to which we received shortly after, and we were notified that our second main will be our shortly as well. After waiting an additional 25 minutes we informed a waiter that we hadn't received our 2nd main. To which we politely asked to speak to the acting supervisor. After another short wait we were simply handed cash by the waiter and told to have a good night. Upon waiting for the manager we noticed she had looked over to our table but took no regard of it, prior to received our refund to the missed meal.

Overall im not happy with this experience. They should have been prepared ahead of time as it was valentines day and were taking bookings well in advanced and therefore, should have anticipated a busy night but was...

More Training. The young guy on the door was really not personable took us to the table. Then the waitress came over who was the Manager we found out later gave us 1 menu between 3 of us. No table service which is fine but maybe get a bottle of water on the table and glasses. Went to the bar the staff didn’t know what a Tom Collins cocktail was so had to look it up. Few people waiting but the staff had no concept of who to serve first. We ordered and the Chardonnay wine on the menu they do not have anymore old stock? So we ordered $10.00 extra on the other types of wine. Asked to have same cost of wine and was refused. The very young girl Manager preceded to tell us that they couldn’t afford to print out new menus? So couldn’t take of these wines? No concept of sorry can we get you a drink? No idea think she was well over her head and should not be managing a bar when the staff have not been trained and she has not had any training when dealing with the public. The table was booked until 7.15pm and the same guy in the door came up with the next booking staring at us and said we need to leave the table now. We finished our $64.00 wine at a spare table which we found He should have told us at 7pm that we would have to leave by 7.15pm. I will never come back here. I have worked in hospitality for so many years and majority of the staff here have no idea of what they are doing. They seemed not very confident and had no directions. This comes from the top. I won’t be...

I lived on flinders lane, so I would pass by this venue all the time. The place seemed really cute, but it never seemed like my type of place. The vibes of the place is a bit pretentious and now having been, I can attest that it is. I’ll probably never come back again.

My experience:

I went here with several colleagues after work. We’re frontline workers and this was the first time we’ve gone out for drinks together.

I had an equivalent of a pint. I went to the bar to order drinks and I was told that our group was being cut off. The bartender was actually super lovely and I understand she was just taking orders. She told me that some of us in the group were “too lit”, to phrase it nicely. I found it amusing. I can admit that we were a bit rowdy, but none of us were intoxicated. We were merely excited and joyful to have drinks together after a long day of work. We weren’t being aggressive or disturbing anyone else. But maybe we just weren’t the type of crowd they wanted in the venue (or at least that’s the way I felt).

This woman came over to us at 4:20pm and said that we need to leave in 10 minutes. We were confused as we were told we had our table until 5pm. Anyways, no one in my group actually made a fuss, and we just left by 4:30pm.

I would recommend to go to Jack & Bones which is just a door over. The staff were super friendly and lovely. And the place...