The Exchange Hotel — Restaurant in Newcastle-Maitland

Quite possibly the rudest staff in all of Newcastle, particularly the bar manager Josh. We booked for 20 people who each paid $70 a head for bottomless brunch. Waited 10 minutes to be seated, had to continuously get up from our seats and walk downstairs to get drinks because the staff refused to serve us cocktails at the upstairs bar, food and drinks were literally slammed down in front of us, finished plates sat on the tables for close to an hour, the waitress told us to ‘hurry up’ and eat our entrees as the kitchen was closing in 5 minutes (even though we were only an hour into our 2 hour booking). We were made to move outside and off our table even though there were people still eating. As we were leaving Josh and another waitress proceeded to loudly complain about our group with most of us still in the room. It was incredibly unprofessional and impacted the two girls celebrating their birthdays. When I confronted staff about waiting for us to leave the room before speaking about us, both Josh and the waitress told us we were rude, that we should go elsewhere and that just because we booked a 2 hour bottomless brunch doesn’t mean we get the table for the 2 hours booking… the owner later confirmed that the next booking didn’t need the table for another 2 hours after our booking ended. The staff then refused to honour our final drinks order in an attempt to impose some kind of superiority over the situation. Petty, rude, incompetent and terrible customer service are the polite ways to describe the staff...

Visited The Exchange Hotel, Beaumont St, Hamilton, Newcastle, for a Christmas pre-dinner drink with staff. The intention was to enjoy a pre- dinner Gin& Tonic (or two) then, when the rest of our colleagues joined us, to have dinner upstairs @ The Exchange. We arrived @ 4pm on Tues 19 December & requested a couple of G&T's @ the upstairs bar... NO GO! Told to go downstairs as the upstairs bar was closed for service. Downstairs bar: Told that Gin & Tonics are unavailable as there was no tonic water available at the Exchange Hotel all. Reason given: 'We've run out of tonic...A busy weekend'. So, we 'Exchanged' our dinner plans & dined @ The Bennett Hotel, Hamilton instead. Top shelf gins @ The Bennett (as The Exchange did have too) but with tonic available @ The Bennett. Our party of 7 enjoyed a great night...excellent meals, wine list, service & tonic too! So Exchange Hotel manager& owner, if your hotel was to run out of tonic on a weekend, might it be a good plan to be sure to restock immediately so as to supply & sell your high end Gin? Surely, by Tuesday, you'd be organised to be restocked? Nah, no such business & customer focus @The Exchange Hotel,...

I attended last night for my 40th birthday. After an argument broke out on the main footpath before entering my husband was grabbed and pushed onto the street by an NHN security member, as he was reaching his hand out to stop them from attacking him in the ongoing traffic many other security guards also launched with one of them throwing a punch and splitting my husband's lip. Myself and my party of 40-year-olds and over will never be attending this venue again and are very disappointed with the way the club handled the matter at the end. I also have video footage to provide laughs from the bouncers saying they would go for round two and then promoting the should go around and shoot us (c&^ts) and pretending to place a bag over the guards head as he says so to shoot those involved where they live. Then admitting they need to make sure we are 150m away from the premises, this video too will be forwarded to the police, Event number registered with the police, BAD VENUE and VERY BAD VIBE...... Seems we are not the only ones who are complaining of this same...