Yaldara Riverside Restaurant — Restaurant in South Australia

What Happened to this Restaurant? My partner and I had a lovely experience here in October of last year, but sadly this felt like a completely different business.

To start with, a 10% surcharge on weekends to cover staff is valid, ONLY IF YOU ACTUALLY PUT STAFF ON TO WORK!! They had one front of house girl who was very clearly underage, serving alcohol (this has been reported to SAPOL) and one other lady (owner/manager I think??) and this was it. At the time we got there, there were only 2 other tables yet our meals still took an hour to come out. Some were good - such as my duck and my wife's pizza, however the schnitzels were both burnt and dry as a bone, the steak came out very cold but the chips on the same plate were very hot, and a meal was brought out to my mother who cannot eat certain things, and after ringing beforehand to make sure the restaurant could cater for her, and again clearly specifying at the ordering counter, she was served a meal that clearly had these ingredients in there and then they tried to tell her that her meal was as she ordered it! Furthermore, they then tried to charge my nanna a credit card fee for paying with cash!

Then we get to having cake at the end, and they have the audacity to charge $20 for cakeage fees yet all they did was give us a plate that we had to move the cake onto ourselves. They didn't even have a lighter to light the candles, so my nanna had to have her cake without. Then when questioned about this, with a lot of attitude I received in return: "well we've only charged half the cakeage fee so..." They also didn't bother to clear our table of our plates from the mains, so my pregnant wife had to go up to the counter and take them to the staff. We had our cake and got out of there, because we'd rather have spent the rest of our time together as a family anywhere but in this venue.

Hospitality was non-existent, and unfortunately given the location of this venue - this business should be pumping. I guess we should have taken the hint when there were hardly any people there for Sunday lunch, that there were some issues...

I really hope the young girl is able to find another job where they aren't actively setting her up to fail and potentially face legal repercussions, because this was not at all fair on her today to be put into the shitshow that was this restaurant and have to take the brunt from other customers about the businesses lack of professionalism.

Absolutely disgusted and will not...

Extremely Disappointing Experience

Long but honest review.

Our experience at Yaldara Riverside Restaurant was incredibly disappointing and frustrating from start to finish. Despite being called a "riverside restaurant," we were seated nowhere near the river, with no view at all. When we politely asked to move to a clearly available table with a view, we were initially told no — because they were saving it for another couple who arrived after us. Only after pushing the issue were we finally allowed to move.

We then waited over an hour for food that never arrived. There was no table service, even though it’s advertised as a full restaurant — we had to go up to the counter to place our order and paid in full before food arriving, instead of after, like a casual takeaway café. One young staff member who appeared to be the only server on the floor looked under-age and untrained, which added to the lack of professionalism.

To make matters worse, we didn’t even receive the wine we ordered — a completely different one showed up on our receipt. When we raised the issue about our food taking so long, the main service person, Stacy, blamed the delay on her son accidentally sending our meals to another table. That kind of excuse just highlights the chaos behind the scenes.

The only silver lining? Stacy did accept our request for a refund — which ended up being the highlight of our entire visit.

With poor service, disorganisation, misleading advertising, and zero atmosphere, this place should be renamed “Yaldara Roadside Café” instead of “Yaldara Riverside Restaurant.”

There are far better places in the Barossa to enjoy good food, wine, and...

I still can’t quite believe how I was treated yesterday (Mother’s Day). Took my son out for lunch, we decided on garlic bread, halloumi fries and two pasta mains. I ordered and paid and our sides were brought out. We were then confronted by a waitress who I later found out was ‘Amelia’. Amelia came to the table and asked if I’d ordered the halloumi fries to which I answered “yes”, Amelia said “no you didn’t”, a little taken a back I responded “yes, I did”. Amelia- “NO you didn’t”. Me- “YES I did, with the other girl”. Amelia- not according to this docket” I said “if they weren’t put through I’m happy to go and pay for them”. Amelia- “can you go and pay for them now”. I went inside and saw the waitress who took my order and I asked “do you remember me ordering halloumi fries?” To which she responded “yes”, I said “could you please tell that girl?” Pointing in the direction of Amelia. They both then looked at the order screen for what felt like ten minutes scrolling around, one went out the back and came back to scroll some more. Amelia then turned the screen to me and barked “is this your order?” I looked at the screen and saw that it wasn’t my order and said “no”, they went back to scrolling some more then the penny dropped and they realized there was a mix up with the table next to me. With a barely audible, half hearted ‘sorry’ from Amelia she walked away and I was left standing there feeling completely gobsmacked. The food was nice enough but the service left a very...