The Essendon Hotel — Restaurant in Melbourne

Given you have still not removed your fake bullying allegation, I have no choice but to raise this defamatory allegation with my lawyers tomorrow.

Avoid this place at all costs. Despite acknowledging the poor customer service, as you will see from the response from the owner below, in an attempt to completely paint the incident in a different light, they will create fake stories. I never, apart from ordering a drink, engaged with any other staff. She was the only one I spoke to when I was trying to explain what had occurred with the other waitress. I’m shocked that she thinks it’s acceptable to throw out an allegation of bullying in an attempt to completely discredit this review. Her extremely rude waitress really put a dampener on the whole night. When trying to explain what occurred to the manager who witnessed further rude and unprofessional interruptions by the same waitress, only to be told “I’ve apologised already, what more do you want”. Do you know what I want, I want to be treated respectfully by an establishment I am spending money at when there was no basis, interaction or engagement or reason for such rudeness by your staff. Train your staff to be respectful to your customers or, as what will happen in this case, they will simply no longer be your customers.

Reply to comment by manager: the fact that you have just made up that I or our table interacted rudely or really at all with your staff is just really disgusting. I’m not surprised though because of your defensive and condescending replies to other reviews. You could have taken this review as an opportunity to improve on the customer service experience instead of trying to defend the indefensible. You should be ashamed of yourself, to go to the length to make up something just so you can discredit our actual experience. Shame on you. Bullying is a strong accusation which I don’t take lightly, especially as it is a completely made up accusation given I only spoke to you. Please amend your false and fake reply before I take the...

Had an engagement party in the private venue upstairs and the event manager was nothing but rude, condescending and not accommodating at all. DO NOT book here for special/important events as she will ruin it! If she sees this I’d like to say just be kind and if you don’t like people in general then this is not the job for you!

In response to Essendon hotel: Not sure where this legislation and liquor license business has come from. To simply put it, your event manager was incredibly rude from the moment we arrived. Dictating where decorations were to be put and not allowing anyone else to have any input. When asked to confirm that the tab begins at 7pm instead of 6:30pm she responded in a condescending tone stating “I’m the event manger… I know what’s going on”. No need to be rude or nasty when simply asking questions or confirming certain things. Everyone was incredibly nice to her and she responded in a way that showed she could not care less about her job, the event or the people she was conversing with. Someone has paid good money to host one of the most exciting nights of their life at your establishment and the event manager has made sure we will never be doing this again. Thank you.

It just keeps going hey hahaha. This constant defensiveness just shows it all. I will be in further contact with managers of the venue not to worry. The organiser of the event tried to explain his frustrations to the event manager on the night, she looked disinterested and could not care less about what he was saying. My friend who the surprise event was for was left in tears! On her engagement night! Don’t care about the speaker and licensing. It was the way she spoke to everyone and handled everything that was plain rude!...

Decided to get myself a pub meal. The Essendon Hotel was 200 metres from where I was staying, so I went there. I was greeted at the door by an abrupt, "do you have a booking". No I don't was my reply, question two, "are you here to have a drink or to eat?" I'm here to eat and drink... are you by yourself or others. Mate what's with the 10 questions I'm thinking to myself, but my reply was only "me". Wait here please. I'm left standing at the door like a bouncer... a few minutes later, come in sir, Sam will take it from here. Now you call me sir... so Sam directs me to a spot at the bar. And throws the menu down on the bar.

I sit and look through the menu. I decided to order a drink first. A kind Barmaid takes my drinks order, a house alcoholic ginger beer. Quite nice after a rather brutal beginning. Eventually, I order a Parma, waited about 10 minutes for it to be served. I can't fault the quality of the food. Drinks are a bit pricey, but that can be expected.

The atmosphere is loud and the place is pumping. If you want a nice quiet meal and a drink with a special person, this is not the place, however, if you want a great meal that's alive with different people then come to the Essendon Hotel, but be sure to...