Flamingos Live — Restaurant in Newcastle-Maitland

Loved every bit of it!

We saw Newton Faulkner perform here on Easter Monday 2018; and attended both the lunch performance and dinner performance downstairs.

The theatre itself is cosy, but intimate. It's not difficult to view the stage and feel "close and personal" with the performer from anywhere downstairs in the room. I never went to the upstairs auditorium; so I can't comment on that.

Due to the fact that we were visiting from out of town, without anywhere else too much to go - we ended up at the venue an hour early before the first show. Staff were more than happy to provide a couple of coffee's while we sat in a seriously chic retro but comfortable lobby. We ended up hanging around between shows, which again staff were very facilitating with us while the venue was cleaned and re-set; despite it being clear that it wasn't the norm for customers to be in the venue at this point. Wait staff were generally excellent and responsive. One waitress in particular seemed to keep an eye out for us and take care of our table, offering recommendations on both food and cocktails from the menu.

Both lunches and dinners provided bundled with the ticket prices were great! They were delivered to our table exceptionally quickly after ordering. We had slow cooked lamb shanks and chicken breast for lunch, and chicken breast and feta stuffed field mushrooms for dinner - all of which were cooked perfectly. Lizotte's use a new menu for each of their shows (presumably based around market specials).

Keep in mind, meal ticket prices include a main meal only. This is clearly where Lizotte's make a good part of their margins; as entrees, desserts, and drinks are all charged in addition. All additional food and drink is charged to a tab per table billed at the end of the performance.

As far as the performance and sound itself is concerned - both were great. Being a smaller venue; it particularly suits acoustic performances, with minimal amplification used via the venue's resident engineer/miser and PA system. Like almost every performance I've been to - bass was a bit washed out, and the theatre's acoustics weren't perfect (probably in part to decorations like the drum set and double bass adorning the walls); however generally distortion was very very minimal.

Thanks again to all the staff there!!!

I'd definitely recommend Lizotte's for anyone looking for a night out, especially if your favourite artist/s just happen to be...

We really enjoyed seeing Luka Bloom, it was a great show from a vintage performer. The food was good and we especially enjoyed the salt and pepper squid with the passionfruit and chilli sauce. However the night was not a success.

We did NOT enjoy the staff member who thought customer service meant a loud diatribe accusing my partner of yelling at team members for 20 minutes (which simply didn't happen) because we complained about poorly made drinks. Actually we did wonder if we had fallen into the Faulty Towers experience. If we hadn't paid a premium for dinner and a show for an artist we really wanted to see we would have walked out in disgust. Our table neighbours were also confused as to the allegations. I simply can not conceive of how he keeps his job as he was rude, unpleasant, agressive and confrontational. One would have thought in a hospitality role this was less than desirable. Unfortunately he not only can't mix a drink but also ruined our night. His later apology was half hearted at best.

The other bartender was a champion who was keen to resolve issues and took time to check in with us after witnessing our distress after being berated like school children and he later explained they had almost run out of post mix tonic so a G&T was pretty much a gin and soda instead (er so why not tell people no tonic available?). We still don't know why anyone would think a dirty martini should have sugar added to it.

We love live music but will not be returning...

While Lizottes Newcastle has a lot to offer, our experience at the venue on Friday evening was dreadful. We arrived at around 6.45 pm and were served with drinks reasonably quickly. We then watched waitresses pass us by for the next hour and a quarter before I notified one of the waitresses that the man next to us who arrived with us had already completed his main meal and we hadn't been served the complimentary bread role. The role was delivered straight away, but we then waited another hour while waitresses again passed us by. Two meals arrived at our table, both wrong, so I complained to the manager. No apology. Our meals arrived soon after. No offers of further drinks. The waitress then returned to say that the manager had offered us free desserts, then disappeared forever. The manager then turned up and offered free desserts seeing as we were having a "terrible" evening. So around three hours after arriving, we were just receiving dessert. No further offers of drinks were made. At around 9.45 pm, the waitress who had abandoned us came past and asked if we wanted any dessert. At that stage, I just gave up. How to ruin a night, and really, these people really don't understand the damage they do to the enjoyment of their customers. Fortunately, the music was good, BUT, in the absence of an apology, I feel that we were let down badly. We won't be returning or...