Wholly Smoked — Restaurant in North Island

Review Title: Extremely Disappointing Family Dining Experience at Wholly Smoked Rotorua

Our family of four (two adults and two children) booked a 5:30pm table at Wholly Smoked Rotorua expecting a relaxed evening of barbecue-style dining and smoked meats. Unfortunately, what we experienced was one of the worst restaurant visits we have had in Rotorua.

We were seated promptly and given menus, but after placing both our drink and food orders we sat waiting for over an hour with no service, no updates, and no meals arriving. When we finally asked, the waitress told us our food would be “five minutes away.” After the long delay, meals eventually came out – but one was completely wrong. A steak that was ordered medium came out well-done and was taken back to the kitchen to be “remade,” with another promise of “five minutes.” We waited an additional twenty minutes, during which time our children were exhausted and still hungry.

By 7pm – ninety minutes after arriving – one child had not been served at all. When the replacement meal finally came out, we had already asked for the bill and decided to leave. To make matters worse, the EFTPOS machine failed three times, making even paying a frustrating ordeal.

Despite the positive online reviews we had read before visiting, our experience at Wholly Smoked Rotorua was extremely poor. Slow service, incorrect meals, excessive delays, and disorganisation completely ruined what should have been a simple family dinner. For a restaurant that markets itself around quality smoked meats and family-friendly dining, this was a letdown in every respect.

Rotorua has many excellent restaurants, cafes, and takeaways that actually deliver on good service and value – sadly, Wholly Smoked Rotorua is not one of them. If you are looking for barbecue, smoked meats, or a family-friendly restaurant in Rotorua, I would strongly recommend trying elsewhere.

⭐ One star – very disappointing and not...

Visited here as a family of four on a very busy cold and rainy night - 5/01/23. I don’t know if this place is short staffed or what but it took over 45 minutes to get our food in the meanwhile 3 lots of patrons had walked out due to waiting too long for the food to be served, waiting too long for the menu to be given to them and one lot received badly cooked food to which I saw the wait staff be rather rude and uncaring about so don’t blame them for walking out. These males that work here have no people skills but the sole female staff was ok. Our food was decent enough ( meat platter , kid burger, kid pizza ) however we were short of serviettes and it would’ve been nice to have been offered some tomato sauce but it was too hard to find a staff member to ask and by this stage we had waited so long we were starving. It was also very cold and other patrons also complained about this to the staff but it fell on deaf ears. The one tiny heater was only on halfway and was doing absolutely nothing to keep anyone or anything warm. There was a roller blind they could’ve put down to keep warmth in but it was left up exposing the patrons to the cold and rainy elements. As we left there we overheard a disagreement between the staff ( male) and a patron about them being served the wrong items and again the customer service was questionable. Sadly we wouldn’t come here again primarily due to the customer service, ( friendly service goes a long way) there are so many other places to go to in the area will try one of...

Absolutely terrible!

My Wife and I were seated outside on a very cold evening next to a patio heater that wasn't going, apart from a strong a smell of LPG.

Ordered the Bruschetta for an entree, pork ribs for the main to share between us and a drink each.

We were first presented with three pieces of soggy white bread with a slimy green paste, loaded with cheap store bought olives. The drinks came with this and were nice enough. So my wife ordered a second which never came.

The waiter immediately brought out a rib dish and plonked both of our plates in-front of my wife. This was inedible, the pork was crunchy, dry, had no flavor and tasted awful. We've never before sent a dish back but felt we absolutely couldn't eat it.

The waitress was apologetic about it but we learned quickly that the adjacent table also ordered the same dish and had sent it back for the same reason. We declined having anything else.

My wife went up to pay and was presented with a bill for everything including the dish we had sent back and the second drink which never came, then from behind the counter another waiter had seen this and promptly opened the drink she had previously ordered 20 minutes prior.

They then told my wife that she would have to pay for it and it wasn't until she said that she absolutely wouldn't that they waived it with no apology given.

Overall a terrible experience and we wouldn't recommend this...