Studfield Charcoal Chicken — Restaurant in Melbourne

⚠️ Be careful! if you accidentally leave anything behind at this shop, they won’t return it and will simply say “it’s your responsibility.” No accountability at all even when it is their fault.

A very disappointing experience after years of being a loyal customer.

We’ve been regular customers of this charcoal chicken shop (on the same street near our house) for around five years. The food has usually been good and tasty, especially their whole chicken, which my daughter absolutely loves. Also most of the time friendly staff.

Unfortunately, our most recent experience was extremely disappointing and made it clear that they don’t value their long-time customers at all.

I picked my daughter up from school and placed a simple order: one whole chicken and chips. When I arrived, I saw multiple chickens and large portions of chips already prepared and ready to go. Yet, for some unknown reason, they kept me waiting for 10 minutes to prepare new chips. My daughter was hungry, and I was in a rush due to a work meeting. Eventually, I had to leave. My friend — who was with me, dropped me home and went back to collect the order.

When he brought it back, I was shocked to find only a quarter chicken breast instead of a whole chicken — something my daughter doesn’t eat at all. Not only was the order incorrect, but when I went back to the shop to explain the issue, there was no apology. They casually asked, “Do you want to keep that chicken breast?” I said no, we hadn’t touched it. I had simply opened the bag, saw it was wrong, closed it, and returned it. Still, they charged me an extra $10 to get the full chicken I had originally ordered.

Eventually, they gave me the correct chicken. But when I got home, I realised the chips were missing, even though I had clearly returned the entire original bag (with the chips still inside) to them. It seemed they had just reused the old bag and handed it back with the correct chicken, keeping the chips.

My daughter was upset, so I asked my husband, who was nearby, to return to the shop and explain. He went back just a few minutes later, but once again the staff were rude and unprofessional. They refused to give the chips back and claimed “It’s your responsibility, you left it here.” No apology. No effort to resolve the issue. Eventually my husband back without chips as he was reluctant to pay any more cents to them and buy the new thing.

After five years of supporting this business, this kind of treatment and lack of accountability is really disappointing. If you plan to order from here, make sure to double-check everything before you leave, because if they make a mistake, they won’t take responsibility, and they definitely...

Hi, I am a regular customer where i travel from Ringwood to your shop during the week to predominately buy your salads for work. The salads are wonderful and your chicken is fantastic.

What i have found on two occasions and one was today is that the two young girls you have working at the weekends 1.00pm Saturdays dont offer the same level of customer service that i find during the week from the older ladies.

I had to again ask the girl again to please fill up the container of salad. I ordered two salads 1 at $6.50 i think and the other at $10.00. She filled the salad well below full both times. Then she put the hot chicken in the same bag as the cold salads. So i had to ask for another bag to seperate them.

I find it frustrating to have to ask but during the week they are perfect. Im happy to pay good money for the salads etc but please ask your staff not to be tight at the weekends with the salads as they are not cheap in my opinion.

The food is fantastic and thats why i keep coming back.

Thank...

Talk about size deflation!

Meals are getting smaller and smaller, when we called up to question what we had just paid $50.00 for we got passed around to every incompetent employee who was unable to help us. My wife asked to speak to the manager who then hung up on us. We then tried to call back assuming such a well recommended local establishment may have made an error or the phone line may have dropped, to which they just ignored our calls.

When I called instead of my wife the owner answered and was threatening over the phone claiming we are harassing them when we were only trying to seek some sort of explanation or respectful resolution.

Oh well. Based on the sizing alone hardly...