Tea Gardens Hotel

The dining room is upstairs & is not available on the balcony, but that’s fine cos there are many smokers / vapers. There is a good selection of beer on tap. Wednesday is steak night & it is very good. Ordered rump & got a good size piece of steak that was tender, yet cooked to the right level of pink ( medium ). The Beef & Guiness pie is an open pie that is rather tasty. The meat was tender and the gravy with bits of peas and carrots was sweet ( but not overly). The bowl was covered with flaky pastry. We all chose mash over chips & the mash was good, not dry or lumpy.

Don’t waste you time 4 staff behind the bar upstairs none of them interested in serving all too busy on their phones and then give attitude when finally taking orders. Ruined the whole experience making it uncomfortable for everyone who approached them to order. I can only imagine how much money they are loosing the business everyday.

Great pub, food is very good for a pub and I love how many tv’s and vantage points they have to watch major sporting events within close proximity to the bar. Great music on a Friday and Saturday night and love their sausage sizzle for charity. Only disappointed with their level of service with their female bar staff on the ground floor. Whenever ordering a Guinness from an predominantly Irish pub, you hope it doesn’t get ignored and take 14 minutes (I timed the bar staff on four separate occasions) for the staff to stop conversing with themselves behind the bar and realise they completely forgot about the drinks they were pouring. To the point whenever I ordered a Guinness I would stand at the bar front and centre to get their attention to ensure I got my drink and wasn’t ignored.

I arrived just after 4pm, It was a Wednesday. I saw the ‘Pints for Schooner prices’ all over the walls, which enticed me more. I ordered a pint of Newtowner and was charged almost $12.50. This seemed very high, so I asked, ‘Is this the normal price of a schooner?’ The bartender realised very quickly that there was something wrong and apologised, to her credit. It seems some beers don’t have a schooner price as such, even though the advert on the wall doesn’t mention any exclusions. I didn’t really understand this. Anyway, she called a Manager, who overrode the amount and charged me seven dollars. All good. About 45 minutes later, I went back to the bar to order another beer and some food. This time, I clarified that the XPA pint I was ordering would be charged at a schooner price. I was assured, yes. An amount just over $11 appeared on the terminal. I asked, was this a schooner price, as it appeared quite high. I was told yes. I accepted this. Then, I ordered the $10 cheese burger, as it was still happy hour was still quite away before State of Origin was due to kickoff. $20 appeared on the cash register. I kind of gave up at this point, and shrugged my shoulders. The bartender again was very apologetic, and rectified the problem. In summary, it just seemed like the Tea Gardens were trying to rip me off and charge me normal prices at every move I made. Not a pleasurable experience.

I like this place, as a Chinese I love the atmosphere on the first floor and the convenient of QR code order. Beer was great, eggplant was delicious, however Rump steak could be better, not enough juice a little bit dry and more sauce would be better, but overall not bad I like the Salad too.