The Dam Denmark — Restaurant in Western Australia

We had a most unfortunate experience here.

We arrived on Wednesday 7/26 at 12:52pm. There were six cars in the car park and MAYBE four tables max.

I ordered the barra, my wife the marron, our eldest son the wagu beef burger. All four little kids got the kids quesadilla and a soft drink. My wife and I got a glass of wine and the white bean dip. We were also going to get two kids ice cream sundaes. Our meal alone would have been $250-300.

Note again, we arrived at 12:52, kids meals, the bean dip and wine came right out.

No sign of our mains. Kids finished their meals and soft drinks. Still no food.

Our youngest started melting down so my wife went outside with him, then I went outside with him.

Still no sign of our food.

My wife asked four times and copped attitude from the waiter that it was “in the system” and “there was nothing he could do.”

When she said “this is taking so long we are going to have to get the food to go”. His reply? “I don’t care”.

I walked back in with my youngest son and called the waiter over and said this is no way to serve a meal - where half the table gets their food and finishes it and the rest hasn’t even come out. Give me the bill, take our meals off the bill and we are leaving.

It wasn’t a cheap place either and it’s a very nice restaurant. Barra was $42, marron $32, wagu burger $28. Nice, but not cheap.

I got the bill sorted and we walked out. We left them with over $100 of meals they would have to throw out or give to staff.

And the winery gift shop was also lovely. We would have easily spent $400-500 there across the meal and wine to go plus olive oils, a perfume my wife had already wanted etc.

The waiter also refused to actually speak to the kitchen, simply saying over and over “it’s in the system.”

We watched tables who arrived after us get their food (including the same mains we ordered) and leave while we sat and waited.

We arrived at 12:52pm. We walked out at 2:23pm without our food.

We then drove to a takeaway place near our house that got 4.9/5.0 on Google and spent $40 on a massive burger for our son, his own giant box of chips, and my wife and I shared a seafood box for two. I stopped in and picked up some lovely local wine (wine we would have bought at The Dam) and enjoyed our own lunch at our AirBnb.

I don’t see the point in paying premium dollars for a nice setting only to receive bad service, attitude and never actually getting your food.

Give this place a miss. There are plenty of other more deserving Denmark businesses worth...

The Dam Came In for lunch on the 23rd at 11am. Stunning venue, plenty of tables outside overlooking the dam. Rain hail or shine this is a perfectly laid out venue. Its also a distillery as they make their own Gin, Vodka and Fruit Seltzer out of heavily guarded Cannabis as you drive in the main gate.

We got greeted at the front door by 1 lady and then she apologised and be with us in a sec. A man later appeared and asked if we were here for lunch, agreed and said table for 4 no booking. Although we checked in using the safewa app he didnt ask for proof of being fully vaccinated. I thought maybe later once we had ordered.

Seated in a booth which was perfect for the 4 of us (3 adults 1 toddler) we got given water and menus.

We looked over the menu and it was very limited. 7 entrees, 4 mains, 2 desserts and a kids menu. Our initial thoughts were this venue maybe too fancy for us. We all settled on the Wagyu Beef Burger and fries.

As we sat there for what seemed like for ever waiting for someone to come back to serve us we promptly ordered our burgers and kids fried rice as my son had gluten and wheat intolerances.

The Wagyu burger was fantastic, I left nothing on the plate. The bun was soft and fresh, meat and sauce juice and the pickles, yumm! The fried rice was a difference on the menu for a kids meal. Although between the usual nuggets and quesadillas it was clearly a last minute option on the menu as it clearly looked like a side dish.

Getting up to pay the bill we were a little shocked, $127 for 3 main meals, kids rice, side of chips and 3 drinks. Looking back at the menu the items seemed reasonably priced, maybe we were just used to city prices.

Overall The Dam in Denmark is a really nice venue, no expense spared on the layout or interior. The bar was full stocked and shelves lined with their house spirits which were available for purchase. Lovely bathrooms and a really good atmosphere. The only feedback I could give is for the 5/6 staff they had running around the service was sub par. Definitely not a family friendly venue in terms of menu was but with space outside for the kids to run around whilst the parents overlooked with a wine and some share plates its definitely a venue to stop by after a day of wine tasting. Menu 6/10 Service 4/10 Following Government procedures...

We really love the atmosphere and the concept of The Dam and what it brings to the area, and have been regular visitors over the past year. We are proud to show it off to our friends and family when they visit and we go there for our own special occasions as it's such a nice place. Over the past year we have been repeatedly let down by the service levels and after our visit last weekend have decided enough is enough. We booked a late lunch at 2:30 as this was the only time left available. Understandable as iit was a weekend day in the school holiday period. Whilst it was late for lunch we thought this might be a bit quieter and we could get fed and o with our day hosting our visitors. It was a full house when we arrived. My read of the room gave me the inkling there were a number of tables full of diners who'd been waiting a long time. My intuition proved to be correct as we waited 25 minutes after being seated to have our order taken. From there, it didn't get any better. Drinks arrived after another 10 minutes, but they were well and truly empty by the time our meals arrived 40 minutes later - 1hr 5 mins after sitting down. Well, four meals at least arrived then, one of the meals was not ready and we waited another ten long minutes for that to arrive. Over the entire period after the first order was taken, no wait staff came to our table to take more drink orders, to check how we were going, or to explain when we could expect our meals to arrive. By 4:00pm we had all our orders and were ready to start lunch. We felt sorry for the serving staff who brought the meals out, collected our plates and collected our payment on checkout. This was the only time we saw them. They were clearly embarrassed. For such a beautiful facility it's a real shame that the low numbers of staff are letting the whole experience down for so many people. I know its hard to get hospitalitystaff but this is not tve case with other places in the area where serviceis excellent. It saddens me to say after being let down like this too many times now we won't bring visitors to The Dam and we will go somewhere else for our special occasions. I can only hope this feedback gets through to someone who can make a difference as The Dam is too nice a place for so many people to have consistently poor service...