Village Wine Bar — Restaurant in Melbourne

I dined here with my wife for our 10 year wedding anniversary in November 2023. Mixed review as follows.. We were greeted after about 10 minutes of trying to work out what was going on regarding a very disorganised queue by a lovely lady at the door who ensured we would be seated as soon as the next table became available. After about 6-7 more minutes I advised her that we had a table booked for 7:00 (by this stage it’s 7:20) to which she said we are quite busy tonight. I’m thinking to myself that this joint is either understaffed or very poorly managed. It turned out to be the latter. I quite quickly observed that the place was run by two identical brothers, who were both identical in terms of arrogance and ineptitude at customer service. The brother that served us looked down on us as he poured our complimentary tap water; maybe this was because I wasn’t wearing Hugo Boss attire or a bag of fruit, but was quite happy to sit down in the middle of peak hour to serve a homeless looking morbidly obese man in thongs who was obviously the beneficiary of an incapable Victorian government numerous glasses of wine as he clicked his fingers. Either way I could tell that this establishment valued wealth over customer service to common people. I was somewhat surprised by what happened next though, our waiter was absolutely lovely! An older gentleman that did not care that we weren’t millionaires but treated us like normal human beings on a night out or for us a very special night out. He was happy to take the time to describe every meal on the menu that interested us and every wine to his knowledge. I can personally say that I have more knowledge about wine than the two bother owners combined, that I can guarantee. The food was absolutely amazing and was up there with the best food I have ever experienced. The wine was so overpriced that I drank soft drink and I very much love my red wine but when you are confronted with prices that are 4 times the going rate, I draw the line. Our waiter’s service and humility are something that I will never forget and in turn I will never frequent this establishment ever again as...

There’s a famous quote by Muhammad Ali, “I don't trust anyone who's nice to me but rude to the waiter. Because they would treat me the same way if I were in that position.” There are so many places to eat in Melbourne that we do something similar with restaurants. We’ll drop by for a snack or just a coffee and see how we are treated. We don’t do this if the place looks busy, because they are running a business and it’s unfair to hog a table if you’re not spending much. Well, that certainly wasn’t the case at Village Wine Bar, in Albert Village. Almost all of the outside tables were empty at lunchtime, even though it seemed every other café and restaurant was heaving, probably due to it being Mother’s Day. This was our second visit, and we asked if it was OK just to have a coffee. They started by suggesting other locations before deciding that ten bucks was ten bucks and offering us a table in the direct sun. They tried to upsell us to a desert, which is understandable, before bringing us the coffee, which was good (although I suspect it was full-fat milk and not skinny as requested). We finished our coffee and were just having a sip of our water while we prepared to leave when the coffee cups were unceremoniously collected - at least three-quarters of the outside tables were still empty at this point. This sealed it for us. We have eaten in some of the most exclusive and spectacular restaurants in the world and to be treated like they were doing us a favour by allowing us to be customers was bizarre. We won’t be coming for dinner or a long lunch - this won’t matter as they are presumably making enough without our business - but it does seem a little...

I actually loved this bar so I'm disappointed writing this; I made a reservation for drinks with a client of mine and upon sitting down we were asked what we were ordering, I kindly advised we were just there for drinks (wine bar....) and was met with a dismissive look and told I'd made a booking to dine (restaurant was not busy at all at this time so it wasn't like we were taking up spots). I apologised but was quite shocked at the response. Despite this, I made another reservation for today to attend for lunch with another client and received a phone call at 9:30 this morning asking if I "actually intended to dine" because "what happened yesterday " and they were "full for lunch". I felt quite uncomfortable; I had intended to attend because I do love the wine and food but the phone call today has made me rethink my booking. When my assistant called to cancel my booking, the owner on the phone told her "I don't need your business".

If you label yourselves as a wine bar, people should be able to drink without ordering food. If the owner had kindly explained it to me I would have completely understood my errors in booking initially; instead he has lost business, and not only from me. I work in the service/media industry so it pays to be kind to people, you never know who...