The Feathers Hotel - BURNSIDE

I love the Place Next Door and have been eating there for years. Great staff and location. However since the renovation it has gone downhill. Staff are great and do their best but perhaps due to its popularity Sunday's are now often over crowded, noisy and unpleasant. Recently for some odd reason they want you to pay AFTER your meal and not before. This causes confusion because the kitchen do not always get the correct orders and like today mine was forgotten. When it finally arrived after everyone else had finished their meal - the quality was very ordinary. I actually felt quite ill after eating it. The place has become expensive, crowded and the meals very very average quality. If you in the area on a week day before lunch it may be OK. As for Sunday's however try the other restaurants nearby and give the Place Next Door a miss for a few months. One day they may go back to the quality and service of past days.

4 friends meeting for our regular luncheon catch up and decided to try here as it has recently been renovated. It was very busy but we had booked. Seated and given menus promptly. Took quite some time to take our drink and food orders. Waited an hour for our drinks, although we were given water! Waited nearly 2 hours for our meal, after asking 3 times where it was! We were offered free drinks for our wait, but had to wait until we had finished our meal, and reminded them of their offer of a free drink! Menu is interesting and unusual, did not seem to flow. I settled for a breakfast meal which was average. Two friends enjoyed their fish and chips. My other friend ordered sweet potato fries and a prawn on betel leaf dish. They were served 10 minutes apart so she didn't enjoy them together, but commented that they were OK. We went on to have dessert and this also was ok. We will not return. Although the food was "ok" in no way did it make up for the extremely slow service. Not sure if this was the fault of the kitchen or the waitresses!

Unfortunately we had a terrible shock tonight, when dining with family at the pavilion. The serve sizes were tiny and prices inflated! I suppose they needed to pay for their recent renovations! Very disappointed and will not be going back again. I feel very bad recommending this to my family.

Let me say first of all, we are long term clients of the Feathers; loved the old bar in the hotel and greatly looking forward to it reopening today! HOWEVER a consistent theme in most of the TripAdvisor reviews for the Pavilion (and before, when it was TPND) is that the service is average or poor. Food is usually OK but it falls down on service. We have found over time that unlike the staff in the rest of the hotel who are warm and engaging, the personal service in the Pavilion is consistently poor to average. Management needs to train the staff or get new ones who practice good customer service- smile, greet the customer immediately, give the customer your undivided attention. It's simple really, but we guess that you've either got it or you haven't. Another irritating feature- for goodness sake, let customers order their drinks from the counter if they want to!

We have dined at this café many times before and always have enjoyed the eating experience. On entry yesterday there has been a significant facelift, which looked great. It was quite warm inside as well (freezing outside) and the décor was light and inviting. I had a short timeframe to eat and so chose the Caesar salad with chicken. I was happy to pay over $20 expecting to have a great feed as in the past. Sadly on arrival the meal was somewhat uninviting in presentation. Tasted quite ordinary. Our friend had a salmon salad, again uninviting and small in serve size. Very disappointing, come on guys, I know you can do better! On the positive other party members had the Pie of the day, which looked a treat and I am told was superb. I was suitably envious.I am sure this Café is up to the challenge, it has always been a fabulous place to eat. Perhaps a minor hiccup of the day. But that hasn't deterred us, we will be back to this great venue.