Kinselas Hotel — Restaurant in Sydney

Very rude bar staff at Kinselas, spoils Mardi Gras spirit! 👎😏

My 2 girl friends, my partner and I were visiting Kinselas on Mardi Gras parade day (01 March 2025 @ 2:45-3 pm) to only find our afternoon soured by senseless rudeness and poor customer service at the ground level bar by a male bar staff (he called himself ‘Jacob’, they wore glasses and had a leather harness on).

I had ordered drinks for my partner and myself with a female bar staff at the bar and my girl friend had placed the order for her partner (vodka + lemonade) and herself (Bundi rum). But at the far end of the bar, she saw the male bartender Jacob / J pour the wrong drink in the glass. As soon as my friend saw him pour the wrong drink, she alerted the female bar staff to ask J to stop, as that was not her order.

J turned around and yelled “You ordered rum”, to which my friend replied, “No I ordered Bundi rum”. J replied, “I have already poured the drink now”, to which my friend replied, “I am not paying for that” (because it was not what she ordered!). J replied, “I am not giving you another drink”. And he didn’t serve anything to my friend at the end.

I think the situation could have easily been salvaged by J by just offering to pour the right drink for my friend instead. My friend was more than happy to pay for her ordered drinks. But J decided to waste both the poured drinks and give up the revenue and be rude by not serving anything at all and turning away paying customers.

Now, my partner and I were the only ones with drinks, and we had to rush and skull them as my 2 girl friends were left with no drinks and a spoiled mood!

This was a very unpleasant start to the Mardi Gras parade night, and not the slightest in the spirit of Mardi Gras celebrations, where we hope to be happy and treat others with respect.

I hope the Kinselas management can redeem themselves by avoiding such poor conduct and impolite response choices of their staff, spoiling the experiences of their potential patrons.

I am pretty sure we are not returning to Kinselas for the way we were treated, as it left a very...

Had really uncomfortable interactions here on Mardi Gras with a security guard and a staff member. I tried to enter twice - once to use the bathroom, the second to get water as I was feeling unwell. During both experiences the security guard touched me multiple times. He would touch and grab my arms and pull me in a particular direction. There was an obvious power dynamic at play as I am a young woman who was alone and was dressed in what would’ve been considered a “revealing” outfit. We watched him for a while and he wasn’t touching any men who were trying to enter, nor anyone who was entering in a group. I went inside to talk to a staff member to tell them what had happened to me, as I wanted the security guard to be spoken to about it so that he wouldn’t touch any other women that night - considering it was Mardi Gras and there would’ve been lots of young people around Oxford St in a vulnerable position. We were told by the man we spoke to that the security guard was “just doing his job”. It’s never a “job” to touch women without their consent. I was also asked by the staff member I spoke to whether i was “listening to what the security guard had been saying” - in an accusation that i was being drunk or disorderly. It was 2pm, I was entirely sober, and had been politely asking to enter to use the bathroom and get some water. None of that could validate being manhandled. I felt completely powerless and would urge anyone entering the venue to not do so alone in case it happens again because it doesn’t seem like they were interested in pulling their security...

Really love the bar and great bar staff but the older security guard (SG) acts like he owns the place with unreasonable excuses of not letting non intoxicated people in ... we sat outside on a Friday a few weeks ago, the SG must've turned away close to 60 people in the time we were there with a rather empty downstairs bar. My friends and I were in disbelief. A group of people from the Uk visiting wanted to come in and meet their friends but were turned away at the door for no reason at all which the groupd questioned the guard who replied because I dont like you... so the friends inside left with there mates and told the SG they would never visit the bar again ..the SG said he would not like them to try and come back anyways...I would love for the venue owners to do a look into how much business they have lost due to a few SG's and see what comes out of that. In a time where Sydney is trying to get Night Life up and running and turning Sydney back to a international city I think there needs to be a change in the style of SG companies/SG staff to ensure Hospitality will hopefully once...