Jolly Good Fellows — Restaurant in Waikato

I had high hopes for Jolly good fellows, however we were let down. We are Taupo locals and usually go to the couple of restaurants that we know are consistently good, but thought we would try Jolly good fellows for a change as it was a nice day and you cant beat the view there of the lake.

On arrival it started off promising, although we had booked an outside table there wasn't one available when we arrived. The staff were friendly and apologetic of this and offered to let us know when one became available so we could move.

An outside table did become available so we relocated. Drinks were ordered and arrived promptly. However when we ordered our meals we asked for the kids meals to come out with the entrees. By the time theirs did come out we had finished our entrees. We ended up sharing with the kids as they were hungry. They ordered the chicken tenders with fries. These came at a cost of $17.00 each. This didn't include anything else such as a kids drink or ice cream sundae and the portion was ridiculously small for the price. They received 2x chicken tenders and about 5-6 fries. If we hadn't of ordered them dessert they would have still been hungry. They are 7 and 10. I did mention this to the staff before paying and was told to leave a review as the 'owner' reads the reviews. So if your reading this I hope you make a change as charging 17 for these tiny meals is a rip off.

I ordered the beef salad. The beef was beef snitzel strips, which was stewed rather than cooked on a high heat and seared. Although the flavour's were nice, it could be improved.

For an entree I ordered the shrimp cocktail. This was nice and simple, like you'd make at home. But also a very small portion for $19.00. It was mostly salad than shrimps.

Although all the staff were friendly, the service was inconsistent. We had about 5 different waitresses so it was difficult for them to know what was going on on our table. This resulted in us not getting the kids meals with entrees, not having our table cleared within an acceptable time frame (I actually had to clear it myself), not offering a dessert menu (I also had to get this myself) and then when we went to pay there were 3 extra drinks on there that we didn't even order. They were not short staffed either, if anything, overstaffed.

Like I said, I really wanted to love this dining experience but it ended up leaving us disappointed and feeling like we...

If you are looking for hearty pub food, a stunning location and great value, this place gets one of the three spot on. The location is awesome.

It used to be a top bar, I have been every year for about 9 years. Something bad has happened based on tonight's experience. The sign said full menu available. There was indeed a full menu. But hardly any of it was available - including the only vegetarian dish. Four different options before discovering one that hadn't run out. And we're talking 6:30 pm.

Most of our party had eaten by the time the final dishes appeared. As it seems that they forgot two dishes.

The fish in the the once great fish and chips appeared to have already eaten half of the chips without putting on a gram in weight- it was a pathetic child sized portion. A $25 child portion. Totally ridiculous.

Next the porterhouse steak. About $45 and composed of a lot of gristle. Mushroom sauce was nice though.

We had a child in the party who ordered sausage and mash from the kid's menu. An adult ordered the same from the main menu. The difference was about half a sausage and $12. Three of us had it (not as first choice) and it was extremely bland with tasteless sausages.

The beef burger looked pretty good, but the Chicken burger was really poor, almost vegetarian with a tiny amount of chicken and just a nod to red onion.

When I mentioned to the maitre d' (that is how she was referred to) that we were very disappointed with the lack of availability, the wait for food, the poor value - in particular of the $25 fish and chips, she just agreed and said she'd pass it on.

This gets one star because the beer collection is awesome.

This has been an annual stop for years now, but sorry Jolly Average fellows, we...

There is NOTHING to recommend about JollyGoodFellows. It is terrible place to dine and seems a terrible place to work.

We won’t be back, and if you are looking for a job, I'd suggest looking for an employer that actually cares about their staff and patrons.

We made a reservation for 7 people for 6.30. Our food arrived at 8.10 after we chased it, 3 times. No apology from management. No acknowledgment they had missed on the service. Very poor.

After being seated no one came to take drink or food orders for 20minutes. This should have been our signal to flee.

Our kids were looking forward to going to the fun fair that was in town after dinner. Because dinner took an hour longer to arrive than it should have 5 kids missed out on the fun fair. Nice one Jolly Good Fellows.

10 minutes after ordering we were told orders were taking about an hour to serve. That is a little long but okay. What actually happened was nothing after an hour and then when we asked we were told 15 minutes more and then after 15 minutes when nothing happened we were told the food is being plated but actually still another 15 minutes after that.

All up 1 hr 50 minutes from when we arrived for our reservation until when we got the food and being strung along and lied to by the staff.

Clearly management are taking too many bookings, not looking after staff and don’t care about patrons. They should have never taken our reservation if they couldn’t provide service. Instead we ended up with hungry kids who missed out on the fun fair (the thing they most wanted to do) because a restaurant couldn't get their act together and then couldn't even take responsibility for it.

Do NOT go here unless you want to die of hunger while you wait...