Frigate's Waterfront Bar & Grill - Melbourne — Restaurant in Melbourne

Today was our first and last visit to Frigate’s Melbourne. We came to this restaurant with our soccer team and expected a very nice lunch. From the beginning, the manager and staff’s behavior made it very clear they were unhappy to serve us. They signed and acted as if we were a bother to move tables together for. My husband even attempted to help the waitresses move the tables and was scolded for doing so. Not a good start, but we were hungry and hopeful. I’m honestly in shock that a restaurant of this caliber cannot handle a table top of 20, but understandably this is not an easy task. If you have a big party, DO NOT COME HERE. If you have children, DO NOT COME HERE. Not only was the manager extremely rude to our children, I witnessed him scold another family with 6 children who came by boat. Any restaurant by the water should expect families to visit their establishment, but the manager made it clear he despises families with children. The poor waitresses were left to fend for themselves as the manager stood around and only helped one time to refill drinks, which he made it once again clear he was annoyed to do so. When we finally were at the end of our meal, our checks were quite the confusion. Instead of helping his employees to get everything straightened out, the manager just stood by the water staring and doing nothing. It was not until I sternly approached him about his horrific behavior did he go and help the waitresses fix the messed up checks. I do want to thank the cooking staff as their food was excellent. What made our experience absolutely horrific all stemmed from the manager. He should not be running this restaurant as his attitude trickled into all of his employees during our lunch today.

*In response to the restaurant’s deceptive response. Do not believe the lies of this manager/owner. We were never asked to leave. We begged them to fix our checks which they never correctly did. THIS IS NOT OUR FAULT. Not one of our families left without paying. If this did occur, it would have been due to the incompetence of the manager whom was supposed to help his servers with the extreme issues they were having enduring all of our meals were on our checks. We even waited for them to ADD food to our checks because we were honest and did not want to leave without paying for everything we ordered. There were even families who never received checks whom had to continue waiting to ensure they did not leave without paying. We waited over 30 minutes for our checks to be corrected. I had to approach the manager while he stared out at the water to get him to help his servers. Our children were not rolling on the ground at any time nor did they touch their tiki torches. This fabricated story is outrageous. My one year old son was crying a few times and laid down in his tantrum which is a NORMAL toddler things to do. He had waited almost an hour for lunch, and his lunch wasn’t even made correctly. Then when our one year old son was merely eating the fries since the chicken was not the correct order and he was starving, the server then came and took the fries from him and handed him “new fries” of which were scalding hot. The entire experience was awful. This response should show any family this is not an establishment you want to visit. DO NOT VISIT FRIGATES.

And to the manager or owner that responded with such lies, may God convict you and judge you for your inappropriate and...

I went to Frigates for the first time with 5 other guests. As a party of six, we wanted to make reservations, but the website indicated that they did not take reservations and that was confirmed by calling beforehand. However, when we arrived at least 50 (or more) people were seated ahead of us due to them having reservations! (More on that below). We chose a Wednesday as that didn’t seem like a busy day of the week. As we attempted to pull in, the parking lot was already pretty hectic and we found out that it is valet parking only. After finally dropping off our car, I realized that the chaos appeared to be happening mainly because of valet parking, meaning that it was just very confusing since you pull right in from US1 that is always busy and there is not time to really process what is going on. I am particular with my car and do not like to be forced to use valet parking. I do not patronize places a 2nd time due to mandatory valet parking alone. We walked up to the hostess booth and were told there would be a 30 minute wait, which was fairly reasonable. After 30 minutes, we spoke to the young hostess who then proceeded to tell us that she originally told us 30-50 minutes and it would be another 15-20. She certainly did not tell us that, and her insinuating we didn’t understand her correctly did not make us feel welcome. However, since we had already waited 30 minutes, we decided we would wait the extra 15-20 minutes. After a total of 55 minutes, the hostess approached us and said that our table was being wiped off. 15 minutes later, we began to be seated (which gave us a wait time of 1 hour and 10 minutes). The hostess told us that she would seat us at a real nice table with a water view since we’d waited so long. As we approached our table, there was a young lady employee, who had been staring at her I-pad, she interjected and told our hostess to put us at a different table. My wife indicated toward the table the hostess had originally chosen, noting that we’d like to sit there, it was a round table, set nicely and with a lovely view all around, the employee with the ipad looked at my wife and said “you’ll follow her”, pointing to the hostess who proceeded to take us to a plain rectangular table under a “tent”. It was not set nicely and only half the table had any sort of view. I commend the hostess for offering us a nice spot since we waited over an hour, but I think it was very rude the way the other employee ushered us over to this “not pretty” spot. Our waiter was Ryan and he was very friendly and knowledgeable, and handled our table very well. I ordered the fish and chips ($23) and my wife ordered the spinach and goat cheese salad ($14) with chicken ($9). The other guests at our table seemed to enjoy their meals. Luckily the food was good, but it didn’t actually make up for the long wait and confusion. I would not go again unless I was invited but I wouldn’t choose...

drove 45 minutes for a 6:45 reservation on tuesday. arrived at 6:40. Hostess told us it would be a few minutes, which was no problem at all. Then she told us that the deck was closed due to impending weather, which was understandable as well. she then told us we could sit under the canopy but it was going to be 15 minutes. what happened to our reservations? we decided to wait because we had been looking forward to this experience & coming from someone who has worked in restuaraunts I understand that not everything works out the way its supposed to. after 30 minutes we decided to opt for a seat inside as it was getting late & we were hungry after expecting to have atleast been sat at this point, & we were fed up because during this time we had walked down to the water & there was only a few people sitting outside in the area she was referring to. we let the hostess know that inside was fine, especially because we had been pacing back & forth & could see there was 5 tables opened & cleaned inside as well. she told us "okay, its gonna be about 5 minutes because I have to wait for a table to get cleaned". we were confused, but figured maybe it was due to sections or whatnot. no big deal. 15 more minutes goes by & the hostess is just sittting there on her phone. not once did she go look to see if the tables had cleared, or even acknowledged how long we had been standing there. my partner finally went up to her & said he could see there was tables inside that were clean & asked why we couldnt be sat. she merely apologizes & takes us inside to be sat, when we could have been sat outside where our reservations were. she brought us in & clearly had a attitude because we were getting antsy at the fact that she wasnt doing her job. she was not polite, in the least. already had a pretty bad taste from the lack of customer service & acknowledgement. I wish I could say it got better from here. took 10 minutes to be welcomed by server & have drink orders taken. my partner ordered the pork asada bowl, which is his go to at this establishment. it was great. I ordered the shrimp panini, it was okay at best. there was only 2 shrimp on each side & was cold. the cheese was fresh out of the fridge, not even melted. it was mostly bread. I also asked for a side of buffalo sauce & it didnt come out when our food did. my partner was halfway done with his meal before server came back to check on us. im sad because this was a really really good spot in the past, & it might have been the pick of staff on shift that night but I was really disappointed all around with the customer service, or lack thereof. I will try it again because this used to be a really great establishment, I just hope I dont make a mistake...