The Rivers Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Gisborne

I have eaten here plenty of times before today (though only twice in recent months). I used find it quite good. The previous time wasn't too bad (apart from the lack of service), but today was pretty awful. Pros: the chips Cons: everything else. I hate doing negative reviews, but I was pretty disappointed in both the food and the service, and honest critiques can help the manager improve his/her business. I ordered sirloin steak, medium-rare. It came out lukewarm, though it was advertised as coming out sizzling on a cast-iron platter. The steak was the most unevenly cut steak I've ever seen. It was about 5cm at one end and 1cm at the other. Honestly, how do you think you are going to cook a steak like that evenly. The thin edge was dry and over-cooked. The fat end was pretty much raw. I ate maybe a third of the steak. The onion rings were overcooked. They looked much darker than the images I see in other Google reviews. The batter was quite hard due to the over cooked batter. The service is terrible (Sunday lunch). The girls, though perfectly pleasant when speaking with them, stand behind the bar and chatter away to each other. Not once did they look over to see if any of the customers needed anything. When I told the young lady at the bar about my steak, she gave a pretty standard, "Oh, sorry about your steak", and offered a discount, which wasn't much. Still cost us $83 for two meals and two drinks (beer and coke). She kept saying, "Perfect!" in a very cheerful, upbeat tone. She'd add it up: "Perfect!" I'd swipe my card: "Perfect!" I felt like saying, "Yeah, not really." lol. Yeah, I probably won't eat there again. Oh, the table we sat at is wobbly. It was rocking back and forth every time we applied pressure to our plates to cut our food. Husband praised the salad, criticised the cold plate (which makes any hot food get cold quickly), and said the fish was quite nice. Wait time was reasonable. Pub was not busy when we were there. Anyway, I wish them all the best and hope this review is helpful.

Reply to Response: Yeah, probably won't return after reading your...

Went here as a group for dinner. The server wasn't very personable and seemed to just want to go and do something else. However, an older female worker, who seemed to have been doing a bit of everything, was really nice and helpful. We didn't have to wait very long to be served which was great. The food was mediocre. One of our group ordered the 'Chicken Calypso'; the chicken seemed to be something you'd pick up in a supermarket. It was a thin crumbed chicken fillet that was overcooked with some deep fried chips and a basic salad. Another person ordered the 'Crate'; the 'meatballs' were a few tiny medallion type things that were extremely overcooked. However, the onion rings and popcorn shrimp that were included were okay. We did like the casual/relaxed feel of the place and, even when it started getting busy, the wait staff were quite prompt. Probably wouldn't eat here again but it would be a nice place for a couple of drinks on...

My wife and I just had an awesome dinner at the Rivers. It was pretty quite tonight, I think because many locals tend to stay at home while all the out of town youngsters are here for RnV.

We had the Cobb Loaf and 8 Pub Chicken Wings as an entree, both of which were excellent. The glaze on the Chicken Wings was really, really good, so, so tasty.

For the main we shared the Seafood Delight platter and it was from our perspective awesome. Oysters, Marinated and cooked mussels, scallops, prawns in a variety of ways, including some King Prawns and salmon. It was meant to have some raw fish, but they were out of that, so it had more prawns instead, which as a huge lover of prawns was a bonus to me and not a minus at all. Very reasonably priced at $60 we believe.

We were very happy with our last minute decision to go out for dinner at the Rivers tonight. Very...