Lakes Sports & Community Club — Restaurant in Victoria

What a hideous experience. I have never felt so awful in a hospitality venue than here. It was my first time in Lakes Entrance and I saw this place and thought I'd call ahead to see if I could get a booking. I called, the bistro answered and told me they could squeeze us in at 5:30. Since we were around the corner, we went in early. The lady at the reception greeted us and I told her I'd just called - to which she couldn't find the booking but said okay to us for dinner anyway and wrote us down for a table. We checked in and did everything right. To pass the time we started playing an arcade machine they had near the bar, which is where the experience took a really confronting turn. I saw two staff walking towards us, the one who greeted us and another - they asked me what happened and how I ended up there. They told me they'd received a call from a man about 10 minutes ago, who asked for a table but they couldn't seat him, then the same man called back 5 minutes later and asked for a walk in, in which they asked me, a woman, if I was that man caller. I responded to that with that I had called ahead, spoke to the bistro, etc. Showed them I called and the website I went to. Then the bar lady yells out that it couldn't have been them because they answer the phones, and this went on for a few minutes. I'm standing there humiliated and confused and starting to get really uncomfortable, feeling bailed up by the staff members and questioned AFTER they'd allowed us in.

We left immediately after the staff left us alone.

I work in hospitality and would NEVER treat patrons the way I was treated at this establishment. I will never be going here again for the way the staff made me feel, I just wanted to buy a nice meal for my family and instead was left feeling shamed and embarrassed. Horrible service and sadly, a horrible experience for my first time in...

We went here as a large group with a table of littlies as well. Service was ordinary as they continually mixed up orders (even tho we ordered our meals by giving our names) and tried to give us food that we had not ordered, twice, (we were all already eating) and staff kept hovering to swipe your plates, finished or not. Those that ordered Asian food loved it, others that had ordered Western food had all sorts of issues. Their garlic bread is a joke, although the kids were very hungry and just ate it, sliced white bread flavoured with garlic and smoothered with cheap looking melted cheese! My porterhouse steak was cooked to perfection but the rest of the plate was not up to scratch, most had pumpkin, l didn't, potato was meant to be scalloped and was chopped too little (10c piece size and smaller) and had no creamy seasoned sauce with it, it was just floating in melted butter! The peas & carrot were, l guessed, frozen and no taste at all, cauliflower was not bad, but, the mushroom sauce was like nothing l had ever experienced in my life, it was a thick WHITE sauce type of base and no taste at all with four finely sliced pieces of, mushroom looking shapes (didn't taste like it) in a gravy jug. Extremely bland. What a joke. If they do not know how to cook Australian food, do not serve an extremely poor version of what they think it should be, please. I will try to avoid this place in future as the bowls club was...

December 2022:

Great and very filling meals. There is two different menus and there is more on the Asian menu. I think Mondays is Western menu only, while Tuesday is Asian menu only. Other days has both menus.

I ordered the Hokkien Noodles while my Pop ordered Sweet and Sour Chicken. They were great meals.

December 2024 (update):

It seems like the ownership or chefs have changed because I've noticed that prices have changed and choices for both Western and Asian have altered. Hokkien Noodles have become a regular while Pad Thai is a special. No one was there for ID check so we served ourselves (straightforward process).

Meals have declined in quality since I remember that I enjoyed my Hokkien Noodles. The beef was dry and the noodles were good but nothing to write home about.

Staff were friendly enough but since it was a Sunday Lunch I ate there, there was only one or two cooks and one waiter. Some other staff did a few other roles too. Very short in staff but its changed heaps. Specials were displayed digitally.

$22.50 for Hokkien Noodles were reasonably priced until the quality disappointed me when comparing to 2 years ago.

Seems like that Lakes Entrance is losing quality in its Hospitality. Off to the Bowls club for if I don't feel like a Parma, otherwise its Lake...