Gerroa Boat Fishermans Club — Restaurant in New South Wales

We ordered the ‘Surf n Turf’ and couldn’t even cut through the steak with the steak knife.

It was tough. Real tough.

My husband’s great grandfather was famous in Canada way back when, because he got caught in a blizzard for 51 days in minus 50 degrees, and he survived by eating his boots. As I gnawed through my first and only bite of this steak, for the first time I think I really understood what he went through. Trying to eat this steak was like trying to eat a leather boot.

My jaw got sore, and I could barely swallow.

My husband and I generally don’t like taking meals back or wasting food. But at $48 a pop we couldn’t just sit there. We’re in our 40s now… surely, we could be grown up enough to take back a bad steak?

My husband was the brave one. And to our delight the staff member he spoke to was completely reasonable! He dealt with the situation perfectly! He was so nice, and said thank you for letting him know. He said he would happily cook us another steak… we said ‘thank you, but no’… we were concerned that the problem was with the cut of meat and that it might come back just as tough. So, he said we could have anything else… we opted for the schnitzel – easy and quick!

While we were eating, we realised there was a twenty dollar difference between the meal we initially ordered and what got. We had eaten the ‘surf’ part of the meal, so didn’t expect a full refund… or even the full difference… So we went back up, and suggested maybe we could get a dessert and call it quits. Again, the staff member we dealt with was amazing. He was 100 percent happy to offer this, but had to inform the manager.

Everything was all good.

BUT THEN – the disgruntled manager visited us at our table. I immediately sensed that she was a person who might benefit from listening to a Brene Brown Ted Talk or perhaps a read of 'The Four Agreements' by Miguel Ruiz.

Anyway, the purpose of her visit to us was to tell us that, even though we ate the schnitzel they had in fact still cooked us a second steak. We said ‘oh! We did not know this!’ And she said ‘WELL! We cooked you another steak!’

We sat there a little bewildered. You know the old saying ‘if a chef cooks you a steak and no-one tells you…’

She basically came over to tell us that we should pay full price because they cooked us another steak, but did not tell us or serve it to us. She was rude and behaved as though this was somehow our fault. It was strange and completely un-did the great customer service we had had!

She wasn’t happy that we had been offered a dessert, but we got one anyway. The kids devoured it. And we left the Gerroa Fishermans Club thinking ‘yeah, nah, we probably won’t spend our hard-earned cash...

Unfortunately this place is cursed, having change hands about a year or so ago and showing promise it has reverted to horrible once again. Maybe it's hard to make ends meet and the rancid lard is kept in the vat far too long to save a few dollars. We have been here many times in the past and like I said it was encouraging for a good while once the new proprietors took over (the previous were rude and couldn't care less), but we ordered two chicken schnity's early June 2024 and they were served a very dark brown with black/brown burnt sections, and they really stunk of very old rancid sour lard. The chicken flesh was also a brown colour from the stale lard permeating past the crumbed exterior and into the flesh, not a nice pale colour as you would expect. Unfortunately they smelt so sour & rancid they were inedible firstly from the dried out brown interior texture and vile lard flavour and secondly the rancid sour lard smell was so bad it was totally unappealing and unappetizing, very, very rank. I guess if you like the smell of very old sour rancid lard fat it might excite & appeal, but seriously there is no excuse for this. This was not the first time recently it has disappointed. We took the schnitzels back and were rebuffed the chef saying that it must of been the suppliers fault, really? I'm not an idiot. Then he refused a refund after asking for one. BTW everything is out of a frozen packet and cooked in lard NOT vegetable oil here. My advice is to go to Cronin's Hotel at Gerringong the chef there has pride in what they serve, or Gerringong bowlo or...

Been many times and had some lovely lunches here, but last Sunday wasn't one of them. Meals were cold due to having to line up to collect food, there was no tartare sauce on the hot and cold platters and no self serve condiments. This necessitated asking serving staff for 2 tartare sauces...they said they had to prioritise meals, we asked three times before we got some...by then the meals were stone cold. And whose idea is it to give 1/3 of the plate on Hot and Cold platters to a rather disgusting smear of seafood sauce. Hot and Cold platters were downsized and not enough for even a woman's appetite, consisting of 2 tiny oysters, 2 medium prawns, 2 or 3 pieces of calamari and 2 or 3 pieces of fish (plus chips and salad) and three prawn cutlets, no comparison to previous platters we've had here where the prawns were large and the oysters were plump. Noise levels were such that regular conversation couldn't be heard at the table. After our rave reviews, our overseas guests were unimpressed with the greasy chips, cold meals and the weird concoction of scallops and wet bread crumbs and corn kernels. The one Hot and Cold platter was lost from our order and got colder as staff searched for it, the other was stone cold from waiting ages at the counter for tartare sauce and the first lot of scallops were ruined by the chef and had to be recooked and appeared half way through the meal (it was a main for one person). All in all, very disappointing, not filling, and everyone's meal was ruined in some way. What on earth has happened to our favourite...