West Beach Pavilion — Restaurant in Melbourne

WEDDING REVIEW:

We got married at West Beach in early 2020 and unfortunately found the whole process of interacting with West Beach to be incredibly disappointing. It obviously goes without saying that the location is amazing, cannot fault that. But the dishonesty shown by the staff that we interacted with was not just bad customer service, but also really misleading. I’ve waited a while to write this review, because I didn’t want to write it out of frustration. But having had to time to think, I still wish I’d known certain things before booking. So that’s why I’m leaving this review.

Also, aside from our own experience, we found from talking to three other acquaintances who also got married (or tried to get married) at West Beach, that all of them had equally disappointing stories. One acquaintance had booked their wedding here, when six weeks out from their wedding West Beach informed them that they’d had a request for the same evening to have a huge beach party. And because it was going to pay way more than their wedding, they told this couple that they had to find another venue. Our other two acquaintances had a more similar experience to us, which involved the event managers making all these promises verbally when we met with them, but then going back on their word and adding costs to things that they had previously told us were included. So to make sure this doesn’t happen to you, I recommend getting the following things in writing, including; which bridal suite you will have access to (they told us one and then let us know a week out that they have another event in that room now), your wet weather plan (they said we would have access to an undercover area, which they informed us a couple of weeks out that they had booked another event in there), the fairy lights (they sprung this extra expense on our friends the night before their wedding, they should be included in the price), the hanging day beds (they will try and charge an additional $150 for each of these, they shouldn’t when you are already paying about $20,000), and confirm whether there will be any other events at the venue at the same time (we didn’t know until 3 weeks out that there would be and the noise from it can be heard in all our speeches). Also be mindful that any changes to the menu will come with disproportionate increases in your per head price.

Unfortunately, the professionalism on the night left a lot wanting too. Firstly, they completely mistimed the serving of canapés, which meant almost none of them were served because we needed them to move onto entrée to keep the night moving along. And secondly, they forgot to cut up the cake to be served, until my partner (the groom) reminded them to. Of course, guests don’t notice these things and it was still the perfect night. But be mindful that you may have to be onto these things throughout the night as well as in the lead up.

It is still such an incredibly beautiful venue, it’s just unfortunate that it seems the owners are most concerned about profit and seem to encourage their staff to have a similar mentality. I would love to recommend this venue to other couples, but the added unnecessary stress it caused communicating with them (up until the night before the wedding) is not worth it when there are so many beautiful venues who will go out of their way to give you the best experience possible.

Also, many of the positive reviews were written before the current owner took over. Worth being mindful of that too.

I do wish them all the best though, because this venue has...

Myself my gf and her mother booked Christmas lunch here. We did this to have a stress free day and enjoy the fine food of Melbourne. Well this was one of the biggest let downs I have ever experienced in my life. From the poor lack of effort when welcomed at the door. Not even shown to our seats but pointed across the room. Then to the waiters which I can only imagine were temp and very cheap and inexpensive. Welcome nibbles from a full plate of pastries, to oysters with no lemon and baby prawns on a stick advertised as prawn cocktail. We were lucky to be even offered all 3 , new arrivals beside us we're not even offered any. 2 hrs waiting on starters which we only received due to complaining to management. Drink service which was rude and inconsistent RSA ?? . From walking around venue we realised it had gone all wrong but attempted to make a very poor effort at hiding it nor expressing his apologies to patrons. At one point a party of 10 and 2 kids just walked out after 2 hrs no food served at all . We received mains after 3hrs, cold and no sides nor wine served as promised. At this point we decided to leave also 3.5hrs later not willing to wait for dessert at this point. We left smiling and in good spirits as we enjoyed the company of other patrons in our surroundings. Unfortunately the laughing was at the expense of what we called The Fawlty Towers off st kilda. Its sad to see such an event fall to shambles, whether it was poorly organised, poorly staffed or whatever. Simple customer service and acknowledgement of the mistakes as they happened would of been a start. Wish this venue a speedy recovery and I hope it does right by the people of Melbourne who paid out for what I can only call a Fiasco on...

The only good thing about this place is the view. I got an email from them asking for my HONEST OPINION which I provided but no one from the team bothered to respond so sharing my experience here.

Had booked the cabana from 7.30 pm until 10.30 pm (on 30th Jan) and paid 150 dollars (no cover) for the reservation. At 7.45 when we asked to order, we were told that the kitchen was closing so this would be the last order for food.

Waited for 25 minutes for a jug of beer and gin and tonic (on a quiet night).

We requested that they bring the starters first and then the pizza and they agreed to do that but the first thing that arrived was the pizza.

Moving past it, the wait staff asked us if we wanted to order anything else just as our food arrived, we ordered a couple more dishes. 25 mins later we were told we won't be getting the food because the chef had already left.

I understand it happens when you don't have a reservation and the kitchen closes early on a weekday, but when you do and pay extra for a table with no cover, it's extremely disappointing.

We were told it is not very busy so we are closing the kitchen. Why accept a reservation when you can't serve them?

And all this wasn’t what prompted us to conclude that we were never going back, it was when the wait staff saw us trying to restaurant open the door near the beachside area to use the restroom. Rather than helping us, he decided to turn back rather than assisting us or guiding us to the other door that might be open. This was at 9 pm and not after everything was closed.

Highly disappointed. The one star is for the guy who took our order because he was quite nice.

Bad management and bad service. Not how we wanted to celebrate a...