McDonald's — Restaurant in Victoria

The Good, The Bad, and The Awkward As a long-time customer, mostly stopping in for coffee, I’ve found Bairnsdale McDonald's to be a mixed bag. When it’s good, it’s great—friendly service, solid coffee, and quick turnaround. But when it’s off, it really misses. I’ve had the occasional burnt-milk disaster and a few barely-warm cups, though that hasn’t happened for a few years.

Most of the café staff are genuinely lovely—friendly, efficient, if they’re not rushed off their feet . There's an English lady (Maria) who works in the café section, and she deserves a special mention. Always friendly, always professional—she has that genuine charm that stands out, even on a busy day. It’s staff like her who lift the whole place and make you feel like a valued customer, not just another order in the queue. A bit of consistency like that goes a long way, especially in a place with high staff churn. Some of the long-term staff have moved on, and with them went some of the reliability and consistency.

Then there’s the drive-thru. Right on the main street, it creates an awkward bottleneck where nobody seems to know who should go first. No showdowns (yet), but it’s only a matter of time. If I could change one thing about this McDonald's, it would be that drive-thru design—because let’s be honest, the coffee can, at rare times, be hit-or-miss, but the real gamble is navigating that queue.

That said, the café food is usually great, the renovations have improved the atmosphere, and wait times are reasonable outside peak hours. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a great coffee. If not—well, you’ll have a...

Very disappointing experience. If you order hotcakes make sure to ask if they have the syrup before paying because they don't take the hotcakes off the menu when they've run out of syrup. They accept your order and tell you after they bring the food to your table. If you try to return the hotcakes and request a refund the staff get angry with you. You're told all the other diners didn't mind eating their pancakes minus the syrup and they'll begrudgingly offer to refund you the cost of the syrup which is 60 cents. I eventually spoke to the owner who refunded the cost of our entire breakfast, but when we go out for a relaxing experience we don't expect to encounter any unnecessary dramas. This is actually the second drama. Last time our order wasn't brought to the table. It sat in a bag on the counter for 20 minutes before we asked where it was. By then our ice cream had melted into the burgers and chips because it had been shoved into the same bag. Staff didn't offer to replace our meal and they were reluctant to refund our money. I know McDonald's isn't the Hilton but I do expect to receive some customer "service" as well as the advertised meals we ordered and paid for. We won't be returning for a third drama and I've removed my previous five star review because it's no...

The staff are friendly and easy to deal with. Extremely pleasant extremely polite- especially the lady who takes orders early in the morning from the first window. Really polite.

The customer service is exceptional. Two stars for the personality of the staff.

However. The amount of times this store stuffs up orders is just.... Insane. And the reason why I can't give three more stars to get to five. It is almost guarenteed that once a week something will be the wrong item. Once a week again something will be missing entirely from your order.

And often it's things that you wonder how they could forget. You've order a Big Mac meal with chicken nuggets as a side. Sure... You could forget the chicken nuggets. But how do you possibly forget the chips that come with everty single meal?

The people here make me want to give the store more but the fact this store has cost me probably a few hundred dollars in missing items over the years.... I just can't.

I know they're trying to rectify this with the screen at the window where you pay... But it's not our ordering that's the issue... It's at the front end.

Look forward to this...