Empire Hotel — Restaurant in Sydney

My friend and I went here for the first time on the recommendation of friends for Saturday lunch. First impressions were favourable; the dining room was redolent of a Victorian-era parlour, with overstuffed armchairs and antiques, the fireplace and potplants lending a relaxed ambience. We ordered at the bar after a bit of a wait for someone to actually appear, paling slightly at the prices, but hey, we had heard the food was good. Went back up to the bar some 10 minutes later to order some beers. And waited. And waited. About 6 or 7 minutes later the flustered looking bar attendant appeared. Took the beers back to our table in the almost deserted dining room. Our meal buzzers went off so we went up to the bar to collect our food. And waited. And waited. And waited. Again after 6 or 7 minutes our flustered friend appeared, and told us that meals were collected from 'the library.' Which was through that way! Oh, nice of you to tell us that when we ordered! Maybe then the food wouldn't have been cold when we picked it up!! The servings were not impressive either, certainly not value for money, and the meal itself nothing special, although had it been hot it would have been a great improvement. The third time I went up to the bar to order beer I waited close to ten minutes before finally giving up and going to the other bar, where I expected to see the flustered bar attendant run off his feet serving a crowd two or three deep. But nope, it was just as deserted as the dining room. Will...

Great pub love the set up outside bar is great only let down was the food ordered a steak and a beef burger with a egg took 52minutes 👎 to get our order and the egg on the burger was a hard boiled fried egg 🥺😭👎burger tasted great 👍 but not so great 👎 with a hard boiled egg and the shoe string chips were dry and cold 👎 like they were ready 15minutes into our meal being served but had to wait for a egg to be hard boiled/fried our friend ordered some sweet potatoes chips which I ate and were terrific 👍 my partner wasn't impressed with her steak which was rather bland for a $30+ steak had no seasoning 👎 was cooked nicely 👍the mash potatoes was very bland and watery and the vegetables was 2 pieces of broccolini maybe they should take the s out of vegetables to make it singular not plural without being a complete negative Nancy these only minor 5 things I've mention could have easily got a 5 star review and made our who experience alot better the place had potential cooking a egg, seasoning food & getting the chips ready b4 it's being served ain't a loose all end all situation may I also suggest turning the volume up a tad on the sports on the man screen would create a bit more atmosphere and perhaps the raffles done on a microphone we didn't know what was going on outside and left giving our tickets away to others I live and work near by so definitely keen...

The empire is my local pub and used to be such a great pub. They have gone through a number of owners in the last few years and now they’ve lost half the pub to a Chinese restaurant. I still come to this pub regularly but some of the new staff and management don’t give a friendly vibe and are quite dull. I like to indulge in a cheeky pokies punt here and there and they have a habit of not fixing any gaming errors and after we asked about one of the machines was lacking paper and I wanted to play it I was told that I was cut off even though I wasn’t even drinking and hadn’t ordered a single drink.

They also have a challenge on the bar “if you balance any coin on the lemon you get a free pint” I have won this challenge multiple times and they have never honoured the challenge. I would like to state it was only with a 5cent piece but before I landed it I asked if I could use one and the staff said “any coin”.

Still a great pub and I will be back as it is my local. Just sad to see it go down hill...