Ronnie's — Restaurant in Melbourne

My partners family was visiting from out of town, staying in the city and requested some Italian. After looking online we thought this place looked good, we love the sharing food concept and the menu sounded good. When we arrived a very friendly man greeted us, introduced us to a waitress and told us she’d be looking after us this evening then showed us to our seats, and we thought oh lovely service. But that’s where it stopped. We were not even offered water after we sat down. Something we noticed other tables seated after us were immediately given. We didn’t even have a chance to request because our server didn’t come back to our table for quite a while. I had gone to the bathroom and back (a bit of a hike) and assumed my table were waiting on drinks but they said no one had even been back to ask. It took them almost an hour to come around and take our order for dinner, despite being sat next to the kitchen where everyone seemed to be walking past we seemed to have been ignored. When our drinks eventually did arrived, the waitress spilt the drink all over one of our guests. We understood it was just an accident so it was no big deal, but it was not helping our experience. At some point our server disappeared completely. No one came to check on our table or ask if I’d we needed any drinks, as I said earlier despite staff walking past our table all the table we’d be ignored, or they’d look over and then start walking the opposite way. When our waitress did appear, she walked right past us and didn’t even acknowledge us. If she was on a break surely our table should have been covered? The food was actually very nice. We all enjoyed our meals. The cheese waffle? Delicious! But the service was terrible. We ordered dessert and some drinks, the dessert came out but the drinks never did. After asking a waitress two more times about the drinks, they responded, “ oh do you still want that?” Yes, yes We did. It was another fifteen minutes before it was received. It was a beer. We could see the bar. They did not want to be bothered. We actually really enjoyed the food and the atmosphere was nice, but service is just as important as the food, and unfortunately I probably wouldn’t return here...

Since my initial visit to Ronnies, my wife and I returned to Ronnies for another meal before we returned to the UK. The experience was much better this time. The waiter Nick explained all the dishes on offer and was attentive throughout. The food arrived in good time and was delicious to taste. Overall, this was a much better experience than our previous visit outlined below. We would have no issue in returning to Ronnies in the future. Tony Reilly 23/08/2024

My wife and I are here from the UK visiting our daughter and we (6 diners in total)came to Ronnies yesterday as she particularly loves it and wanted us to enjoy it. We parked outside and knew we had a 2 hour window. By 90 minutes, our mains hadn’t arrived and we were panicking a bit, checked with the waiter who said it was coming within a few minutes. When the 6 meals arrived, one was stone cold and one was luke warm. The other 4 were fine. We called the waiter over who apologised and said he would replace them. We said to not bother and we would leave it. The other 4 were happy with their meals. Just as we were about to leave, one replacement meal arrived that we didn’t request and the waiter (a different one) took it back. Another member of staff, possibly the manager had a discussion with my daughter and she tried to argue that we weren’t waiting that long really before backing down. We were given a 10% reduction to our meal. What annoyed us most was not the lateness or the cold meals but the attitude of the manager. We can all have bad days but you accept it, learn from it and do better next time, not try to excuse it. We had no issue with the waiter. He was pleasant and very apologetic. Hopefully this experience hasn’t ruined my daughter’s love of...

We visited last Friday for dinner and was super exciting trying out the place. Our first waiter, who mentioned it was his first day, was confuse when explaining the menu and misunderstood our request of serving the main together. Instead, he thought we wanted the entrée and mains served at the same time. Just a bit of an awkward long wait, as one of our main was steak!

The food taste and presentation was quite basic — nothing particularly refined or memorable. We ordered the focaccia, the viral vodka fusilli - average taste and the steak with truffle from their seasonal menu. No where in the steak can you find/smell/taste the hint of truffle.

What really make the experience memorably worse was the overall service. We were still finishing our dessert around 9.20-9.30 pm when a waiter who hadn’t served our table all evening abruptly dropped off the bill and later come with eftpos machine without explaining or saying anything. It felt like we were being silently rushed out. Understand that bill need to be settled for closing but I do believe the approach can be more professional.

When settling the bill, a waitress asked how our meal was. We mentioned we were particularly disappointed with the truffle steak. She said she'd pass the feedback to the manager — and left mid-transaction to do so. She returned shortly after saying, “That’s surprise, the steak is usually good.”, and we continue with the billing process like nothing was happening. At this point I just left speechless, because there was little point interrupting the process and the whole conversation just to ‘pass the feedback’ just to have no action taken.

The restaurant wasn’t busy on the day we visited so I’m not sure why service is so...