The Commercial Hotel Merredin — Restaurant in Merredin

This place had only been open for a week when I tried to book a birthday dinner for my dad. I tried to call ahead to make a booking but couldn't find a valid phone number - not on Google, Facebook, Trip Advisor, Yelp or anywhere else. This is a brand new business and they hadn't even bothered to put a valid contact number on a facebook page.

So we thought we'd just try our luck on the night. BAD MOVE.

Upon arrival we were ignored by multiple staff, scowled at by locals and left waiting for over ten minutes. When I finally got someone's attention, I was given two menus; one for the bar and one for the restaurant but told there was no room in the restaurant and we should've called ahead (the whole place was practically empty) and that we could only order from the bar menu (burgers only).

We were trying to support a new local business and when I pleaded with them to let us order from the main menu and eat at one of the many, many empty tables in the bar area, I was point blank told no.

We left and they didn't care, so we took our $240.00 meal bill...

Owners do change every so often so under the current owner, staff are aware the grenadine attracts bugs but dismiss it being anything they should do anything about. We order 4 drinks with grenadine, every one of them had bugs. No refund, no apology, just cracked a new grenadine and swapped out the drinks. Staff said its happened before. Grenadine and other syrups shouldnt have a pour spout because of this reason.

Update: I appreciate the clarification. I wasn’t aware my parents were refunded after I left, so I acknowledge that and appreciate it being sorted.

That said, the bigger concern for me was that staff already knew this had been an issue before, yet nothing had been done to prevent it until now. That’s not acceptable when it comes to food safety. I’m glad the syrup spouts have finally been removed, but this should have been addressed earlier — especially if it had happened more than once.

Thanks for...

The first time we stayed in Merredin. Looking for dinner and there weren’t many places open, being a Monday night so we tried the Commercial for takeaway.

Went in to pick up food and I noticed that the place was very busy and understood when I was told it would be another 20 mins or so which didn’t bother me.

There were 5 of those square (clamshell storage containers), kinda like egg carton material takeaway containers.

When I got to where we were staying I realised that the containers soaked up some of the garlic sauce from the garlic prawns. The lamb shank in my partners meal was small and the cheesy garlic bread was burnt to a crisp and was inedible.

Can I suggest for creamy and/or gravy meals that they line the container with either bake paper or foil.

I understand they would have been busy due to not many food places open but hope you appreciate the feedback so they can learn from it....