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IT is easy to forget how far Australian hospitality has come … until you stumble across a place which still thinks it’s 1973.
We came across such a “heritage” place last weekend in a well reputed wine region which shall remain nameless, but wasn’t Bendigo. I am delighted to say Bendigo’s hospitality industry rarely fails to achieve a pretty good level of service these days.
This place was in a northern Victorian town (thinking thinking) and we had an evening to kill, so we thought we’d try this one very traditional looking, but a bit posh, pub. Leadlight, polished timber, dim lighting, white table cloths.
We knew we were in for something different when we went through the front door and were confronted by a glass-fronted mahogany booth containing a very distressed looking bloke who was absolutely undecided if there was a table for two available. Clearly most tables were empty.
Then came an even more distressed looking waitress who shot past our table in a desperate rush to be somewhere else about four or five times, apologising each time she hustled past. “Sorry. Sorry. Very busy. Be with you soon.”
After about three quarters of an hour of staring at a very short menu and a very long wine list (with some wines nudging $200 a bottle) we placed an order and sat back to watch the action as table after table were informed the scallops were “off”, there weren’t enough people “on”. This place had been taken over by Basil and Manuel.
Eventually, Mrs Whacked took matters into her own hands and went out to the public bar to order a drink to pass the while until the real wine we’d ordered appeared.
“No sav blanc,” she was told. “Sorry. Sorry. And no we don’t take cards at the bar; you’ll have to pay the bloke in the box.” A dreadlocked bloke in a T-shirt scuttled from the gloom with the wine we had much earlier ordered. “Sorry. Sorry. Very busy. Sorry.”
A second waitress then ambled casually from the kitchen. She had better dreads than Mr T-shirt and was intent on gingerly returning plates to the kitchen one or two at a time, ignoring desperate pleas from folk who dearly wanted to be diners.
As the occasional crash and clamour from the kitchen began to genuinely alarm people, and more people were told their choice was “off”, we thought we’d try to be nice and engage the odd perspiring bloke in the mahogany box: “All a bit stressful tonight, eh?”
“Yes. My first night and it’s a very big night in town, and I just don’t know…but …gasp.. perhaps. Look, umm sorry, sorry. It’s just so very busy.” Mrs Whacked was curious why I tipped him rather well. It was for the floor show. These people had put the “spit” back in “hospitality”.