The Bendigo Club — Restaurant in Victoria

A lovely function room, but the food and service were a disaster! Last weekend an Australia-wide charity (of which I’m a member) held a High Tea, with a guest speaker and a fashion parade. Bendigo was chosen, from all of Victoria, as the region for the function to be held, but The Bendigo Club let us down badly. I’m not sure if the catering staff understand what a High Tea is, but could I offer the following suggestions: If lunch is scheduled for 12.15pm on the program, commencing the service at 12.45pm is not acceptable. With a High Tea, all of the food should be served at once and not plate by plate over an hour and a half period. We expected mixed platters served to the tables and not a plate of scones, half hour wait, plate of sandwiches, half hour wait, plate of cakes, etc. One waitress is not enough for 120 guests. The poor girl was run off her feet and apologising profusely. You need knives to cut scones – not spoons. If you don’t have enough jam for the scones, honey is not an appropriate substitute. Scones, honey and cream doesn’t quite cut it. Finger sandwiches need to be made well in advance so they hold together and not made while everyone is waiting for their lunch. This High Tea was an embarrassment to the 40 Bendigo members and disappointing to the 80 people who had travelled from around Victoria and NSW. One lady hit the nail on the head with her comment that “It was like something out of Fawlty Towers! You could write a...

Whilst I found the service at the Club excellent, I was thoroughly disappointed by the Mother’s Day Function held there, this month, where an overpriced menu for a lacklustre meal left me feeling queasy in the stomach in more ways than one. Fish is a risky choice at the best of times and leaving patrons with only a choice of swapping meals amongst the table, on a set menu, is prone to disaster where you risk food going cold and being over-handled. The salmon was oily and pretentious in its offerings of side dishes where the coriander no-one wants anyway, made the cous-cous inedible. I am told that previous years offered live music and entertainment which had apparently this year dwindled down to a raffle, which just felt like a ploy for more money when I’d already felt like I’d given too much. The Club in itself is not totally hopeless (although running toilets and broken paper dispensers on the floor are never any comfort when you’re already concerned about hygiene) but I would highly suggest simplifying their menu to a heartier à la carte option where everybody gets what they paid for, as I certainly didn’t on...

One star is way too high for this place. Came for dinner on Saturday night, of the four things we ordered on the menu three of them were unavailable. Of the alternate meals we ordered two were steak meals both done medium, first one came medium, second came out well done, WTF! We thought this is where disappointment would end there, but no, of the six items on the desert menu three were available. That was enough for us, we were out. Leaving disappointed and without desert. We felt for the pleasant staff, they kept apologising because there was a menu change coming. It obviously that management weren’t doing their job and left the staff to pick up the pieces. We won’t be back, will...