Spleen Bar — Restaurant in Melbourne

My initial experience was good, the bartender was polite enough to explain to me how I could buy a ticket for the comedy show, but soon after that a tall guy who was moving chairs around preparing for the show walked past me and in a rather aggressive tone told me to move aside as he was entering the edge of the bar. I said oops sorry! but he rolled his eyes at me as he shoved past me. I calmly asked him "is there a problem here?" I told him i was standing there as i was unable to get online to buy a ticket, i asked him if he could assist me, again in a very unpleasant manner he came up to me seeminly annoyed and basically told me to leave. His words were "we'll be right tonight"! In other words he wanted me to leave. I was astounded by his attitude, his disgraceful customer service gave me no option but to write this review. Watch out for the big man, with a very intimidating nature when visiting the only place open for entertainment in Bourke Street Melbourne on a long weekend Monday night Clearly not a very happy employee. I am a licencee myself and i run many comedy nights back in Sydney and let me say I have never ever treated a patron in such...

Disgustingly racist security guard who denied my friend entry seemingly because she is Mexican!

Despite not saying a word when we approached, and that we’d had the same amount of drinks - but I’m white - he refused her entry. Claimed we needed to wait 15-20 minutes and she would magically sober up, so we proceeded to sit on the wall and run the time down, all the meanwhile she was as sober as I.

The security guard then gave us a nod to indicate we could re-approach and as we did he deemed my friend’s behaviour to be aggressive despite her again not speaking! When she did try to speak he directed his questions towards me and ignored her, he then admitted she was not intox but was being ‘aggressive and rude’. Clearly his fragile male ego had been offended and yet he still proclaimed I could enter the venue as if I would leave my friend behind as she had been unfairly targeted due to her skin colour - that is racism to be clear.

The security guard was very offended at the accusations of racism as he himself was brown and yet it must be so internalised he is unaware of it or Spleen has a submittal white’s only policy like Australia...

Avoid this bar at all costs. Our experience was shockingly poor, marred by blatant discrimination from the bar staff—particularly the woman in charge. As a group of seven non-Australians, we were unfairly targeted from the moment we arrived. Despite being completely sober and well-behaved, every order was met with absurd hurdles: demanding ID (I’m 62!) or questioning our sobriety—even though one of us doesn’t drink at all.

While other customers ordered drinks without issue, we were singled out and forced to jump through ridiculous hoops, like calling our friends downstairs from the pool table to "prove" they were sober. The staff hid behind liquor laws, applying them selectively to us while ignoring others.

We stayed hoping for better service, but it never came. This place is an embarrassment to Melbourne’s hospitality—rude, discriminatory, and utterly unwelcoming....