Pub on Wharf — Restaurant in South Island

I’ve seen that many others have left one star reviews about how rude the security guard is outside but the owners don’t seem to care very much.

Tonight my wife and I went to get some food and despite me having the appropriate ID, he refused to let my wife in. While I totally understand that this a law that the establishment continues reference as being beyond their control to enforce, the way one goes about enforcing such a rule speaks a lot of the quality of the people running the business.

When the guard told us she couldn’t enter I tried to see if it was ok for us to still eat because neither of us drink for religious reasons which he curtly interrupted, refusing. I then calmly asked if it would be ok for us to eat outside and not enter the premises as there were other families eating outside with children and he turned around slammed the door behind him shut, and pointed to a sign raising his voice saying “IF YOU ARE ACCOMPANIED BY A PARENT”.

I later went inside to talk to the staff to see if there was anyway for us to get some food takeaway so that we could still eat, and the staff I was talking to suggested I try all the same possibilities that the security guard had abruptly denied. The staff member was very nice and when I said I had already tried his suggestions consoled me and said he was really sorry.

It’s clear that this security guard has some sort of power problem as mentioned by multiple other reviews. We would’ve loved to eat there tonight and did everything we could to do so, but he did his utmost to drive business away and did so in an extremely rude and confrontational manner.

I can’t support a business owner who seems to clearly want to ignore what customers are saying about a security guard actively being...

I’m not one to usually write a review however our experience at this pub was a very strange one. My girlfriend and I (both 21) went to this pub for drinks NYE and had a great time, and because of this we returned the following night to have dinner. We left very disappointed to say the least. We experienced many weird things/issues that could’ve been avoided throughout the night. It began with finding a table, we walked in and most tables were full however we noticed an empty booth. We walked over to the booth and we were stopped by a staff member who told us she was just placing a customer at the booth, which we were fine with, but after this she just walked away instead of trying to help us find another free table. Once we found a table ourselves my partner went to the bar to find menus, she asked where the menus were, and instead of dignifiying her with a simple response, he instead just used his eyes to look at the menus and then look back at her, which was quite rude. The next strange thing was when my partner went to order our dinner of two chicken parmigiana and one side of vegetables (no alcoholic drinks) and was asked to show some ID. We asked why we needed to show ID for dinner and were told it was a “licensed premises”. Throughout the night we observed many families and parents with teenage children order alcohol and were not asked to show ID? We are very perplexed at why we had to prove our age to eat dinner. This service was disappointing because the food was actually quite good, but we still wouldn’t return again after...

Quite a disappointing experience after all the 5 stars! If you want a beer, this is probably a good place. For a meal? Try somewhere else.

We started with garlic bread. Wasn't bad - a bit overcooked so was quite dry, but not bad.

For mains my Wife had the Beef Wellington and I had the Pappardelle Napolitana, with some onion rings on the side.

To their credit the beef in the Beef Wellington was very tender. But there was way too much pastry - it was made like a patty. But not bad none the less.

The Napolitana was plain old horrible. This is probably the worst pasta I have ever eaten out. The sauce was obviously just bottle sauce from the supermarket (and not good sauce), the noodles probably came from the same supermarket. The highlight was the Artichoke halves in the pasta which weren't overcooked...but not flavoured in anyway. Honestly, all those Uni students in Dunedin making the papers for trashing apartments probably cook better for themselves than this.

The onion rings. How do you get those wrong? I suspect they also came from the frozen section of the same supermarket.

Sorry guys, it seems like a nice place, the beer was good, but your food is atrocious. I wish I could say otherwise. I guess it was my mistake for expecting something half decent from a pub (even though most pubs I go to have pretty decent food. Not fancy, but decent).

The 2 stars are for tender beef. Otherwise I struggle to...