GPO Bendigo — Restaurant in Victoria

I have been to GPO a few times now over the past 5 years and I have to say the food has certainly changed, but not for the better. Firstly, the good things; service was extremely good. We had a very good waitress who was training up a new staff member and she knew her stuff, knew how to look after customers and had an instinct for knowing when something wasn't quite right. She is a great asset to the venue. The atmosphere was nice, not too noisy but still a good buzz about the place. We were there for dinner at 6pm and once seated and checking out the menu we went for the $79 feast option which is very good value. But......the food here used to be sublime, of amazing quality and, probably because of that, more expensive yet worth every penny. My steak came out overcooked, it was patently obvious even just looking at it that it wasn't rare to medium, it was medium going on well done. The quality of the meat was average, not the best and not the worst but there was no care or love given to the meat and it was quite boring to eat. My wife had the seafood paella, the seafood in the dish was well cooked, tasted nice and had a good variety, but, the rice was very stodgy and obviously was from a larger pan which was then portioned up as the night went on. The meals came out so quick, seriously, that is never a good sign. Usually that means each dish is pre-cooked or part cooked and then finished off when the orders come in. My wife had lamb ribs which were ok, but they came out within 2 minutes of ordering. As soon as they were finished our main course came out very quick again. We had been advised by a barman at a local pub that 'their food does come out very quick', but we didn't think it would be so quick as it was. So, based on my previous experiences at GPO and this one, the food needs to be better, rather than going for a quick in/eat/get out approach the restaurant should consider going back to the quality standards it a...

Fairly disappointing experience dining here on Saturday night. $41 steak ordered medium and came out blue and inedible. Highlighted the issue to a waitress bringing our drinks who said she would let our server know. We waited at least 10 minutes before he bothered to come over and check. I explained everyone else has finished eating now so I didn't want a redo I just didn't want to pay for it. He said he would have to go and ask his manager. We waited 30 minutes with our dirty plates in front of us, with many servers walking past empty handed and not bothering to clear our table. After 30 minutes he came back and advised I wouldn't have to pay for it-which I appreciated -however he still didn't clear the plates, offer dessert or more drinks. We ended up leaving to go elsewhere, with dirty plates still all over our table.

Additionally, we asked for table water three times that never arrived. After the first round of cocktail jugs, no fresh glasses were offered so my friends were forced to use the same glasses for rounds of different drinks.

I fully understand that mistakes are made, I worked in hospitality for many years and understand the service industry. However it is how you make up for these mistakes with good service and going above and beyond for the rest of the evening that makes the difference. Had this happened at GPO, I would never have written this review, however I felt that we were avoided and given no semblance of service for the rest of the evening which is unacceptable given the extremely high...

We were very disappointed with this experience as we booked the Hens package (Bottomless Brunch) for 3 hours in a private area (a choice of three areas). We booked this a couple of months prior and we were told we had a private room to ourselves, however we did not. We were only told one week prior that we would be allocated a balcony area away from the guests, which once arrived we found this was a very small rectangle area, located a short distance above regular dining booking. This would not have been such an issue if we had not pre-booked entertainment with a speaker, which they were aware of from our first call. During the entire show were were continually told to turn the music down. This was very off putting and honestly ruined the whole experience for us. This was also embarrassing because we did not want to disturb other guests in the dining area that were also probably wanting to enjoy a Saturday night out and enjoy nice meals and drinks. We understand it can be stressful working in a busy, fast paced environment, however each time we approached the bar we were either turned away or were met with blunt and extremely rude staff, very disrespectful. Although the customer service was appalling, we enjoyed the food aspect of the night. We want to commend the Chef’s as the food was delightful and enough to feed everyone. Also, the variety in the tapas and nibble food was amazing and even the options when the desserts arrived...