The Metung Hotel — Restaurant in Victoria

Racist staff………

This is a little overdue, as I don’t normally resort to social media, but this incident was the worst dining experience of my life, and I had to share it. Just to set the scene…….. Recently we purchased a property in Metung. On the last long weekend, the whole family decided to spend the weekend in our new holiday home for my 50th birthday. This included my 77 year old mother. Both the Saturday and Sunday night we had dinner at Metung Hotel. Both nights were very busy, I suspect because it was a long weekend. On the Sunday night, we had made a reservation in the Bistro. We bought a round of drinks from the bar, and we went to purchase another round of drinks, probably an hour later. On the second round of drinks, we were served by a woman, named Rachel (I believe). When we were purchasing these drinks, we asked a question relating to the drinks and then proceeded to our table. Shortly after, Rachel came over confronting us and making smug remarks towards us. She was very aggressive. Within 5 minutes, Rachel came over again and was pouring whatever was in the glasses she was holding onto our personal belongings. Again she was very aggressive in her approach and was very argumentative. I asked the person (Steve) who was standing at the door what her name was, as I was completely horrified at her behaviour. He said Rachel, and I then asked who the Manager was and he pointed at another lady. Then Rachel came over again, claiming she was the Manager, and what did we want. All I asked was who the Manager was, we did not request the Manager to come over. She went directly for my brother. She was again argumentative, aggressive, pointing her hand at my family members, and hovering over my 77 year old mother. She was actually harassing us. She was causing a scene, it was embarrassing, everyone was looking. I don’t know what she was trying to prove but she was on a mission and had targeted us. There is no doubt in my mind she was racist and that she targeted us because we are ethnic. Then, she came over again for the 4th time, with Steve threatening us. Her exact words - “you put any of this on social media, we will sue you”. Even Steve was rude when we asked who the Manager was, his response - “bugger off, I am busy”. I cannot believe the level of service received by these staff members. By that stage, our night was ruined. We asked for our money back, as all we wanted to do was leave. I guess no surprise, they wouldn’t give us our money back. I barely touched my food when it arrived. We didn’t end up celebrating my 50th birthday as planned, as it was ruined by this woman Rachel.

I have photos and videos of her appalling behaviour, multiple versions in fact from various patrons. If she doesn’t want people resorting to social media, perhaps she shouldn’t behave poorly.

We asked her 1 question about the drinks, and she went on a rampage. Nothing untoward was said to her, to behave in the way that she did. She should never have come to our table at all, let alone 4 times. As patrons, we have every right to ask any questions relating to the drinks, the food, the tables, chairs, what shape and form things are served, etc. And as wait or service staff, it is their job to assist.

But wait there’s more……. The following week, I decided to contact the owner, to share my bad experience, as I don’t normally resort to social media. I ended up finding out that the owner was David Strange. I few emails went back and forth, and I got hold of David, but he was reluctant to speak to me. His reponse was - “I dont want to call you if you have a complain please put it in writing” All I wanted to do was share my bad experience, so he is aware of how his staff are behaving. Now it is evident to me why his staff are behaving in the manner that they are. He doesn’t want to know about it. He initially told me - “our Bistro staff are all good people and we never get complaints about their work ethic”. If you think you never get complaints, you are oblivious to what is happening...

We came here to have a trip around the Gippsland lakes, just for a break we decided to come to the Metung hotel. We sat down, started ordering. The view was pretty good, although it doesn’t change he fact that we waited 2 hours and 15mins for our food. The longest time I’ve ever waited, we saw people receiving their food when we arrived first. It’s like they forgot us. I went up to the kitchen to tell them if they could hurry up, ‘nicely’ and 10 minutes later they came out with my brothers hot chips, which were not hot, they were cold chips, and the chips were pretty bad. I can do better in my air fryer. We asked to have another bowl. 5 minutes later the chips ame out, hot, good. And then it took them 20 mins to prepare our food. I ordered the fish and chips. My brother ordered the parma. My dad ordered the octopus thingys, and my mum ordered the seafood platter. For the price of around $30-$35 I was expecting salad, around 6 bit of fish, and a decent amount of chips, with a nice seafood sauce! But no, no salad, no sauce, just oily chips, but the fish was alright! The Parma was extremely dry and the cheese was rubbery. As I said about the chips oily and soft. Onto the squid, it tasted alright, but the aftertaste tasted like my great grandads toes. It was so oily, like almost 10mls of oil would be in each bite. And the chips, not good. Now onto the seafood platter. SEAFOOD PLATTER? 2 prawns was the only bit of seafood, with a sauce in an oyster shell, the rest was chips and salad. Like what? Seafood platter? You gotta do better. I don’t know how this hotel has 4.2 stars. Please don’t take my opinion seriously if you do agree...

To start, the second we entered this restaurant it didn’t feel welcoming. A few of the staff were friendly but there was this negative vibe in all of them like they didn’t enjoy being here. We had to walk ourselves to our table. We made a reservation and we arrived with sticky tables and no water or glasses being offered to us, we had to get it ourselves. The food options are good but limited and we were told an hour for our mains to arrive which they ended up arriving 2 hours later after ordering. I was quite disappointed in the service. The area the restaurant is in has no reception or the ability for free wifi which was quite annoying. For food, we ordered the cheesy garlic bread for our starter. While the food was nicely presented and tasty they didn’t offer us side plates and there was seven of us which obviously made it messy. For our second starter we didn’t end up getting it for 50 minutes after we ordered. I was very disappointed and hungry because in almost an hour we didn’t have our starters after reminding the staff two times wondering where the food was. But they did come over apologising for this delay which was nice of the staff. These are all small and common mistakes but when there are so many of these mistakes it starts to become a bit of a problem and a un enjoyable place to dine at. The only reason why i rated this 2 stars instead of 1 is just because the food was very enjoyable and had amazing taste. But overall this restaurant has a lot of work to if they want to compete around other restaurants...