The Rio — Restaurant in Sydney

Disappointed.

The staff were very friendly. Very approachable. Good atmosphere. Nice drinks. Terrible table service. Food was not nice.

My wife and I visited last night for the first time with 4 friends. We had planned to order extensively off the tapas menu for dinner and enjoy a few drinks so we booked a table.

My wife and I arrived at 6:35, which was before our friends so we decided to order 2 cocktails. I approached the bar to order them and I was politely asked to please take a seat as they would come to our table to take all our orders tonight. I sat back down and not long after that our order was taken.

Approximately 15 minutes later our friends arrived, and we still had not received our drinks. Their drink orders were taken and then all 6 drinks, including our original order were brought to our table close to 20 minutes after that. By this stage my wife and I had been waiting about 35 minutes for our drinks.

We then ordered food - 1x Dipping board (3 dips), 1x Spanakopita (= 6 pieces) and 3x Dumplings (= 12 pieces). We were told by the person that seemed to be in charge everything was freshly made and that there would be 6 spanakopita in the serve and it would be right for our group. When the 12 dumplings were brought to our table on the 3 trays we asked the chap which ones were which, and he replied "uuummmm, I don't know", and just stood there, then walked away. When our spanakopita was brought to our table there were only 5 on the tray. We mentioned this to the same chap and he said there were only 5 per order. We explained to him that the other man had told us there were 6 per order, and he said he would follow this up and get back to us. If an extra charge was applicable for the 6th spanakopita we would not have had an issue paying, but there were 6 of us and we had been told there were 6 in the order.

By that stage we were finishing our drinks, and we had also finished the dips and the dumplings which unfortunately were rubbery and dry. We had decided not to touch the spanakopita until the young man came back to us.

We continued chatting and time flew by....but the follow up regarding the food never eventuated, nor were we approached for any further drink orders.

Based on this, we begrudgingly ate the 5 spanakopita and we made the decision to leave and grab dinner elsewhere. We noticed there was an extra fee for additional bread, which we assumed was for the flat bread that came with the dips. We thought this was a little exorbitant, especially as the dips were very, very small, and there were 8 pieces of flat bread for the 6 of us, but we just paid and left. This was just after 8:30.

We decided to have dinner at Andiamo Trattoria, and then headed up to Vernon's Bar for drinks. We ordered 6 drinks including 4 cocktails, and had them sitting in front of us within 10 minutes.

We were especially disappointed with The Rio as we'd all made a bit of a journey to get there. Table service, after being told not to come to the bar, was dreadful.

My wife and I, and one of the other couples would like to return to sample more drinks and see some live music, however we most likely may not consider ordering any food. The 3rd couple said they'd never return to The Rio.

This was a first visit and we are all aware that sometimes things don't go quite to plan on a given night, there could be a shortage of staff, new staff, stock is not delivered, etc, but considering the nice atmosphere, drinks were nice, good playlist, nice lighting and staff were friendly, my wife and I will give it another go for drinks perhaps when the...

I have frequented The Rio a lot and have never had any issues, I actually really enjoyed going and sitting outdoors and enjoying a cocktail - until last Sunday. We were double charged on our bill, for a round of drinks already paid for. When I discovered the issue, I went into the venue thinking it would be easy to get a refund for $36. I was wrong. Despite having proof and transactions, I was told none of the staff could provide me a refund and I would need to text a number and get onto the owner who will be able to provide me a refund. So I did. I got no response until 10pm Monday. On Tuesday morning there was back and forth, providing of details/proof we were double charged, and gave my bank account details. I was told the refund would processed that day. Never happened. Thursday I actually CALL and speak to someone (I believe his name was Tom) and was told the owner “forgot” and the refund would be processed that day. Never happened. Now it’s Friday, I have repeatedly called only for it to go through to voicemail, I have texted asking for an ETA and nothing. This has to be the worst customer service I have ever received. And all for $36. However, it is my money and I want it back because I never should have paid it in the first place. I have been understanding and I appreciate everyone is busy, but it shouldn’t be this difficult to reimburse a customer when it was your staff who made the mistake in the first place. If this is not fixed by Sunday I will have to move forward with contacting the appropriate government body in making...

Highly disappointed to try out this local that we have been meaning to visit. I love living in Summer Hill as it is a community, so I was sad to see this place was clearly not about striking up a chat and lacked personality.

It was a Friday afternoon and my partner and I were keen to have a drink and debrief for the week. The bar wasn't busy. Our first experience was off putting as when we walked in all 5 staff behind the bar ceased conversation and stared at us. There was no welcome; I had to ask if we could sit out the back - only then were we were told by the friendly bigger guy to take a menu as we headed out back.

Upon ordering a glass of riesling I was made to feel like an absolute idiot for not realising it was only by the bottle. I mistakenly asked if he was sure as I didn't realise I'd read it wrong, to which I got the response "100%" (cue exasperated delivery). Would it have killed him to say "Sorry, riesling is only by the bottle but we have two other wines which are ..."? I then had to read the menu myself while they stared.

The bartender had major sass and didn't even have the courtesy of looking away from his screen. To top that off, he had forgotten the beer I ordered to begin with and finally looked at me with such disdain to ask for me to repeat myself.

We ended up elsewhere that night and had a great time. The place is cute and while our drinks were tasy, I wouldn't be venturing back here anytime soon unless the...