Gasthaus on Queen — Restaurant in Melbourne

If I could give this place zero, I would. I didn't eat here, I never even walked into this place, but I know the staff are rude, arrogant, and completely unreasonable. My friends and I were dining next door when we decided to go outside for a smoke. There were seats on the kerb directly in front of the restaurant we were dining at. No other patrons were sitting in the entire area, no 'No smoking' sign but we were rudely interrupted by some larrikin who told us to basically get lost, that we weren't allowed to smoke there and that we weren't even patrons. Ridiculous, how was anyone to know that the kerbside seating belonged to Gasthaus or that smoking wasn't allowed? He then was argumentative, obnoxious, and completely out of line by swearing and being confrontational, saying he didn't want the smell of smoke going up his nose and gestured that smoke was going up his nose. I always attempt to smoke discretly, but it's a fricken public side walk. If you don't want smoke going up your nose, go inside. You can't tell someone what they can or can't do on a public side walk. Furthermore, as we were explaining to this guy, that we weren't aware that this area was a non smoking area, and that we didn't know these seats below to the business next door, some idiot sticks his head from out the restaurant (didn't even come out of the restaurant) and starts yelling obscenities, not sure if he was a patron or staff, either way not exactly the most effective scare tactic. I will admit I was heated and angry and didn't help de-escalate the situation, but I was just so taken aback by the rudeness of this bloke. We weren't harming anyone else. We didn't know any better, a simple, 'guys, there is no smoking here, if you want to smoke go over there, sorry for the inconvenience'. We would have gotten up and left, and everyone would have just moved on with their lives. I will never come to this place, I will never recommend this place, and aside from this review, I will be contacting the business to lodge a formal complaint.

Reply to owner: As mentioned in my review, if I could rate you lower than 1 star, I would. You can dispute all you want online, thinking that somehow this will improve your image but it only proves how petty you really are, you got my first review removed and when i reposted it you then decided to reply. This was your opportunity to apologise, acknowledge your mistakes, and move on (who is the one childish now?).

I had 3 friends with me that night and will all confirm you were out of line, swearing, being rude, and confrontational. So dispute it all you want, your potential customers, and readers of this review will determine for themselves.

You don't need to patronise me by providing your council guidelines, if I knew what your guidelines I would have never gotten into this predicament, on the night you could have politely educated me, doing it after my review is too late. What you need is a handbook on how to be a genuine, decent, and respectful human being.

For calling me childish, being unapologetic, defensive of your indefensible action, please know that if you attempt to remove my review again, I will inevitably repost it.

Wish you all the best with your restaurant business.

Reply to owner (part 2): Simple. Firstly, I want a public apology and admission that you were wrong to confront perfect strangers and berate them in an offensive, profane, and rude manner that is unbecoming of a business owner in the hospitality industry, let alone of a decent human.

Secondly, admission you had my original review removed, and not to have my review removed again.

Finally, don't think my refusal to contact you directly, Chris, is some sort of indication that I am merely an internet troll, I will be more than happy to oblige once you have publicly apologised.

End of conversation

10/11 - review...

Very poor service... This place is counting on how many beers you can drink. After my 1st serve I was told of how fast I was drinking, each time I was requesting a beer, the blonde waitress appeared unhappy, after my 4th beer(which was a while later after meal) I was told that there was a restriction on how many beers can be served on their premises, considering that 1 beer costs 16 dollars, almost double the price comparing with other places, I found it arrogant, rude and offensive from a waitress to tell me that. The blonde waitress seemed annoyed every time I was calling her to order more food and drinks, as if I was asking a personal favor from her. I was so disappointed that I had to cancel my dessert and leave. This feels like a narrow-minded, communist restaurant in the Melbourne CBD. I don't think this place should sell any beers. Otherwise, they will control the way you drink your beer. I have been to many places around Australia and overseas, I have never experienced being taught on how fast or slow should I drink my beer. Or otherwise why would they sell beer???

In reply to your response, let me tell you about what happened as you obviously have no idea of what happened to that incident and just jumped to the rescue of your rude staff.. We dined in your restaurant to celebrate a birthday of one of my family members. I thought it would be nice to have a few drinks to enjoy and relax as it was a long day for us . We were out all day and everyone were tired and all very thirsty as we barely had any drinks all day and for me a nice beer went just like water, (had 4 mugs of beer in a span of almost 2 hours). After our main meal we ordered a dessert and what supposed to be my last beer before we head home . The lady who served us sarcastically told me " I have never seen anyone drink beer as fast as you did " I asked her what did she mean? She reiterated it to me again. I found it strange and offensive as I was not drunk at all. I was always polite, and I did not display any inappropriate or aggressive behavior. For her to talked to me like that way I felt offended in front of my family. I am a professional and I know how to conduct myself. Had I been rude or created a scene you would have known as you were probably somewhere there or other staff would have told you so. My wife told me that the lady who served us apologized to her and admitted, saying " I Am Sorry THAT I RUINED EVERYBODY'S MOOD TONIGHT" not the other way around. I was not upset of not getting any more drinks as I could have it somewhere else if I wanted to. In fact, I cancelled my last order. What made me upset is the rude attitude of your staff !! It seemed to me that I was judged personally on how I consumed my drinks. And how you dealt with this review speaks volumes " YOU ARE NO DIFFERENT, APPALLING!!" I regret to have been in your restaurant and will never be there again. You should know how poorly some of your staff treats your costumer as I am not the only 1 who gave you a rate of 1 star for poor service. I am hoping you would take the proper initiative to offer a better customer experience in the future by hiring and training more...

Unfortunately as a vegetarian my experience at Gasthaus was terrible. I ordered the 'vegan cauliflower schnitzel' - when it arrived all that was presented to me was a boiled half head of cauliflower with some dried herbs sprinkled on top, a few roast potatoes and some salad leaves. The cauliflower had absolutely no flavour. As the dish had been called a schnitzel we expected the cauliflower to be breaded in some way and with flavouring. At $34 the dish felt like a complete rip off. When we communicated our disappointment to the waiting staff they talked to the chef who questioned 'how would it be possible to crumb a cauliflower in a vegan dish as this requires eggs'. We explained that there are many vegan alternatives to egg that allow food to be breadcrumbed and fried and showed that many easy recipes could quickly be found online. The restaurant refused to change our order or allow us to have a refund. It could be argued that this restaurant's target audience is meat eaters only and if this is the case it would be better to not offer any vegetarian/vegan food instead of incredibly poor and overpriced offerings.

response to the owner (14/03/24): Wow! Could anything demonstrate more contempt by an owner for their patrons than the owners response to my original message! It's fascinating - looking back at other Google reviews that are anything less than 5 stars and they are met with a hyper-aggressive response from the owner. A few themes seem to appear! Patrons are confused by poorly described dishes which the owner claims is due to customers 'misunderstanding the menu', slow service times and poorly prepared or flavourless food which the owner consistently claims is fresh and that the customer has 'bad taste'. Maybe it would be worth the owner of the GastHaus taking some time to reflect on these reviews, thinking about what could be taken from them to improve their food offerings and bettering their restaurant instead of jumping to the defensive and aggressively blaming customers! Or maybe it's just time for them to take a break and have a holiday - I'll leave...