Rivers of Yarrambat — Restaurant in Melbourne

We held our engagement party here in December 2022. Whilst being a stunning venue, it is a real shame that I unfortunately need to describe Rivers' service as controlling, stingy, snobby and overall unwelcoming.

The Function Manager's role, while personally friendly, didn't seem to be there to make our experience pleasant and easier, but instead appeared to have the role of enforcing strict rules and controls on what we could(n't) bring, and limiting the portions to strictly 8pp so that we are forced to pay an eye-watering price-gouging price of $40 per bowl of chips. Suggest renaming this role to Function 'Controller' for accuracy (again lovely people personally, just describing the role here). Other venues in comparison offered to simply continue feeding people until they were full for a cheaper price.

Meanwhile the Function Manager was essentially unreachable by phone (even on contract due dates when we had urgent questions) and did not appear at the function itself or at the preparation days for the function, instead relying on the hard-working staff on the ground to try to pass on their messages if they remember in addition to their actual roles.

Similarly any slight changes to the number of say vegetarians/vegans a day after the contact deadline had to be run past the 'Head Chef', but when we needed to ask whether there are nuts in the donuts on the night the Head Chef had left early and again it was left up to the staff onsite to deliver the news that they cannot advise us.

Finally only ~2 months after signing the contract Rivers passed on a price increase from their security provider. This came as a shock and didn't seem to be common practice given that even with our wedding planning our vendors have locked in the price for the next 1.5 years for us.

Overall a very disappointing experience which the view didn't make up for. Rivers - please realise that you are not above having customer service despite your lovely views. Your customers clearly love and respect your venue (at least we did) so please trust that we have nothing but the best intentions for the decorations, etc. and please give us a bit more trust and independence (given the prices we pay for it).

Until then I would come back for lunch dealing with the lovely cafe staff, but I won't be back for an event unless the strict...

Have been bringing friends and overseas visitors to this restaurant for several years. Only in the last 2 months I have spent hundreds of dollars and dined with about 40 guests. This is great advertising for a restaurant .

Today a dear friend whom I had introduced to Rivers invited me and my overdeas guests to Rivers, 6 if us.

Very very dissaponted on this occassion. We ordered 6 vegetarian meals and sweet potatoes for the centre. Our orders were taken and menus collected. At that moment one of the overseas guest asked for "potato wedges for the centre" traditional potato wedges as we know it with sour cresm and sweet chilly sauce, all being vegetarians we did not question the order to share .

Unfortunately to the suprise of all of us the wedges came with a creamy sauce and ham.

Remember we all ordered vegetarian meals and politely with an aplogy told the waiter we are so sorry but we did not expect wedges came with ham. All six of us expected the traditional wedges. The waitress being very rude just related "its on the menu and you should have read it. Continuing in a rude tone and abruptly removed the plate and said " if you want another one you will have to pay for both dishes ". She did not note have any courtesy she had removed the nenu from us when we ordered the wedges. It was our overseas guests who made the ordered. The waiter could have pointed out to us that the wedges had ham as we all ordered vegetarian meals. In the interim I spoke to a lovely male waitress apologied for our error and for causing our female young waitess and the chief any extra work.

Surely the next lot of wedges came out very late after we finished our meals and we left behind almost all of it.

Thank you to Rivers for acknowledging your longterm customers by making them pay for a dish twice for an unfortunate human error and having your staff give attitude and be extremly rude.

I am so dissaponted that I am now sadly not sure if I will ever visit this ...

I like coming here so my kids can feed the ducks. The surrounding grass area, adjacent to the lake, is also a great spot for the kids to run around. However, the customer service at the cafe is quite inefficient. This morning, we came back in from feeding the ducks and asked the girl working the coffee machine if we could just sit straight down for something to eat. She said to speak to the two people at the cash register, who would find us somewhere to sit (fair enough). We went over as instructed, but the man at the cash register left us standing there for quite some time, before finally looking up and telling us to wait back at the entrance. More waiting ensued before someone else finally came and showed us to a table. We were then left to our own devices for what seemed like ages, before someone finally appeared to take our order. In all honesty, I felt like we were being ignored, maybe because we weren't sitting in the adjoining room overlooking the lake (which is where the staff seemed to be focusing most of their energies). I got my meal in a semi reasonable time frame, but there was at least a half-hour wait for my strawberry milkshake, as there was only one person making drinks for pretty much everyone. From first arriving, to getting your order in its entirety, the whole process is slow as a wet weekend. There's an awful lot of staff running around like headless chickens, but the system clearly doesn't work as well as it could. Otherwise, the nursery is great to wander around, but it's the kind of place where you look at the plants and then go and buy them somewhere else much cheaper (ditto with the gift shop). Every time I come here, I keep hoping I'll have a really satisfactory experience, but it never quite happens. If there was another cafe closeby, I'd probably go...