Mount Helena Tavern — Restaurant in Mount Helena

My family and I had previously enjoyed meals at Mount Helena Tavern, but our recent visit on April 25th for my sister's birthday lunch was extremely disappointing.

We chose the venue for its nice outdoor area where the kids could play on the playground. The problems began when my mother was completely ignored at the bar for 15 minutes while staff served customers who arrived after her. I had to intervene and speak with the bar manager to get service.

When ordering our food, no one mentioned there would be any wait or delay. My sister's family received their meals after about 40 minutes, but my mother, daughter, and I waited considerably longer. My daughter and I finally received our food after an hour, but my mother's simple pumpkin salad still hadn't arrived despite her ordering first. After waiting another 15 minutes (75 minutes total for a salad), she had to leave for another commitment and could only take her meal to go, missing out on eating with the family during our celebration.

The food quality was also subpar - my chicken parmigiana was overcooked and dry. When I approached the staff to provide feedback about these issues, I was met with hostility. When I mentioned that my mother hadn't even received an apology about her salad, a staff member actually swore at me and falsely claimed to have given my mother a refund.

What should have been a pleasant birthday celebration was completely ruined by poor service, excessive wait times, and unprofessional staff behavior. I sent a detailed email to management two weeks ago explaining these issues and giving them an opportunity to respond, but have received no reply, which further demonstrates their lack of concern for customer...

Proper country digs. Feels like you're walking into the scene of a western as you leave the red dirt of the car park to walk up the ranch steps, checking past the timber railings, onto the porch, and into the bar.

With the rusty corrugated iron roof and big retro EMU EXPORT LARGER sign sitting as an iconic hat over the taps, the inside rings typical country pub. It has timber slat floots, a metal boarded bar, a pool table in a breakout room off to one side, and a bistro on the far side. A short turn left will take you through some double doors into the smokers that feels more like an unfenced backyard than a designated durrie zone.

The place emits a laid back, authentic bush pub vibe. When I was there on an early Friday afternoon the clientel seemed like descent middle class country blokes as opppsed to country ruffians. Chill not sketchy. Although, I did spot two rough past their prime slags in high vis talking shite, employed but looks like they hit the durries and crack well enough. No true pub could exist without them.

I only saw it on driving out but there's a bloody cool outdoor area on a lush green lawn out the front, about the size of two tennis courts. It feautes a semi-orderly scatter of the classic a-frame timber picnic tables vertically bordered by a few lines of festoon lights. Looks like it'd go off on a Friday night with the high capacity, fresh air and the doubtless rocking atmosphere. There's even a rich brown bridge over...

Unfortunately after a few disappointing visits I feel the need to write this review to warn other patrons who have allergies and are thinking of eating at the Mount Helena Tavern.

Our latest experience, today for lunch, was handled so poorly, again. We ordered our meals and the server was great at taking down our order and paid careful attention to the allergy issue. A simple ingredient to leave off the plate for them but a hospital visit our end should it be missed. We communicated this. When our food was ready the meals were all fine except one. It’s always just one meal of the entire order which is so strange.

(So if you have allergies please double check your food when you get it as often it’s wrong).

Annoying to not be able to start eating together, third time this has happened now, but not the end of world. What made it just really disappointing though was how it’s handled. We could have ordered another meal, which we did last time, but it goes to the back of the busy line and when you get your meal 30 minutes after everyone else has finished eating and (previous time) left it’s such a waste of a lunch out to be sat eating alone or not at all.

The attitude of the staff is oh well. And no I wasn’t being a karen about it. I was really embarrassed to even bring it up.

So again I left without eating so yeah third time...