The Spare Room

Someone from this business manages this listing.

#3 of 30 Restaurants in SawtellBar, Pizza, $$ - $$$

What is Travellers’ Choice?

Tripadvisor gives a Travellers’ Choice award to accommodations, attractions and restaurants that consistently earn great reviews from travellers and are ranked within the top 10% of properties on Tripadvisor.

The Spare Room

Review

At a glance

Closes in 4 min

See all hours

Website

+61 481 761 311Improve this listing

About

Features

CUISINES

Bar, Pizza, Australian

Meal types

Dinner, After-hours, Drinks

Special Diets

Vegetarian friendly, Vegan options, Gluten free options

FEATURES

Full Bar

Gift Cards Available

Highchairs Available

Jazz Bar

Live Music

Outdoor Seating

Reservations

Seating

Serves Alcohol

Table Service

Wheelchair Accessible

Location

23 First Ave, Sawtell, New South Wales 2452 Australia

Does this restaurant offer free wifi?

Yes

Unsure

Save this restaurant

Hours

Suggest an edit

Closes in 4 min

Sunday

4:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Monday

4:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Tuesday

4:00 pm - 10:00 pm

Wednesday

4:00 pm - 11:00 pm

Thursday

4:00 pm - 11:00 pm

Friday

4:00 pm - 11:30 pm

Saturday

4:00 pm - 11:30 pm

Contribute

Write a review

Upload a photo

Ask a question

We perform checks on reviews.

Tripadvisor’s approach to reviews

Before posting, each Tripadvisor review goes through an automated tracking system, which collects information, answering the following questions: how, what, where and when. If the system detects something that potentially contradicts our community guidelines, the review is not published.

When the system detects a problem, a review may be automatically rejected, sent to the reviewer for validation, or manually reviewed by our team of content specialists, who work 24/7 to maintain the quality of the reviews on our site.

Our team checks each review posted on the site disputed by our community as not meeting our community guidelines.

Learn more about our review moderation.

4.4

196 reviews

Excellent

123

Very good

Average

Poor

Terrible

Paul H

1 contribution

Outstanding value for money. Food, wine & vibe.

Mar 2025 • couples

I never go out of my way to write reviews, but do when moved to. My wife & I are ex-restauranteurs from Noosa and moved to Coffs recently. We have struggled with the low standard of dining. We walked in off the street for dinner on a Saturday night based on the menu & vibe and were pleasantly surprised! We were met with professionalism from second one. Thank you, Riley (I hope I remembered your name correctly?). I note you recently came under new management and was shocked to find a plethora of negative reviews. We either caught you on your best night, and they caught you on your worst, or someone has a vendetta against you. Perhaps also the reviewers don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. Maybe Dominos is more their speed? Just saying… The food was 9/10 (sorry, I’m a hard marker). Well balanced flavours, cooked to perfection, thought through ingredients, well presented, and large portions. The service was 10/10. The waitress (English travelling VISA) knew everything asked of her regarding the food & wine (excellent training for a backpacker!). Given all that, the value for money overall was exceptional! I Googled to find details on the Sunday Jazz session which we are keen to come for, which I struggled to find details of (perhaps that’s a website task for IT guys?). Best of luck guys. Godspeed! We’ll see you one Sunday soon.

Written 8 March 2025

This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Debra B

Australia173 contributions

Great find for really good food.

Mar 2025 • couples

Bespoke, well attended and the food, hearty and flavoursome. We had the Burrata with the pillow bread for entree, it was very good but the pillow bread was a little undercooked but not enough to drop the rating. For the main we had the lamb shoulder which is more than enough for 2, would rather veg than the slaw but it was still good. The lamb was cooked perfectly and just melted in your mouth. They were busy and had a new waitress in our section, so it was a bit hit and miss but the general vibe was friendly, welcoming and fantastic would definitely recommend, and will go back.

Written 2 March 2025

Roboz_8

Brisbane87 contributions

Kept the best until last

June 2024 • friends

The spaghettini, garlic, cherry tomatoes,, chilli, parsley with prawns added was delicious. The flourless torte with vanilla bean ice cream was heavenly. Perfectly paired live jazz and an excellent Italian pinot grigio. The staff were friendly helpful and welcoming. We will be back when next visiting Coffs Harbour.

Written 16 June 2024

jennene g

2 contributions

Not good

Sept 2022 • business

There was a 40 min wait for cocktails and selection of beer was minimal so we ordered a G&T. There was 4 large ice cubes in the glass and didn’t taste of gin. The wait for the food was excruciating it was so noisy the waiter just smiled and moved on. We ordered an $80 bottle of wine and when they decanted it thy left a fair bit in the bottle.

Written 10 September 2022

Trishym

3 contributions

Terrible pizzas

July 2022 • none

We had read and been told that the pizzas here were really good so booked for dinner. Unfortunately the pizzas we ordered were very disappointing - honestly we've had better Dominos pizzas. Toppings were scant - my roast veg pizza had very little actual roast veg on it and the beetroot cubes seemed like they were out of a tin. The service was nice. I don't like complaining but I think on this occasion, it was quite a lot of money for a very ordinary meal. Would have appreciated a few more Australian red wine options, too.

Written 29 July 2022

Philippa V

1 contribution

GIVE FOOD A MISS but atmosphere & drinks list is good

Nov 2024 • friends

Atmosphere & drinks list is good but GIVE THE FOOD A MISS!! Used to be regular customers, food used to be good but won’t be back. New menu so restricted so we all ordered Prawn Pasta $38.50 !! “ Locally made fusilli with zucchini, eastern king prawns and crustacean oil”. No oil holding dish together & prawns not what they said - salty & old, probably not king prawns. Couldn’t eat it! At least we ordered focaccia & could eat that. Worst part was arrogance of manager who couldn’t accept feedback from 3 dinners with same comment. Said 1 dinner ate half so couldn’t be bad - really!! He was just hungry!! No offer of replacing the dish. Just a disgusting experience- come on Spare Room, get back to your roots, do good food & service.

Written 29 November 2024

Gulliver0002013

Coffs Harbour109 contributions

Dont waste your time at the Spare Room

Dec 2024 • family

This restaurant has recently changed ownership. The food over many years has been tasty and affordable. Since the ownership change the food has gone downhill and the restaurant has lost its appeal. Really bad value! There are better restaurants in Sawtell. Dont waste your time at this one

Written 10 December 2024

Gulliver0002013

Coffs Harbour109 contributions

Lost its charm

Oct 2021 • friends

We visited The Spare Room regularly, but it has lost its charm with poor value meals and costly drinks. The seafood linguini had only 4 prawns and now costs $34. Bad value! Our group had pizzas which were burnt and partly soggy. We wont be supporting this restaurant any more. What a pity!

Written 9 October 2021

Jeff G

Greater Sydney11 contributions

Great food, great service, great night.

Dec 2023 • couples

We usually have a night at The Spare Room each Christmas when visiting Sawtell and it never disappoints. Shared entrees to start, the Anchovy Toast was amazing. The best anchovies served from the tin, with ricotta and pickled shallots. Yum!!! And a mushroom pizza shared for main. Very reasonably priced and awesome service.

Written 6 January 2024

Steve Beer

Brisbane10 contributions

Forgettable

Mar 2020 • none

There is nothing like a great local restaurant - and Spare Room is nothing like a great local restaurant ! After having to chase up our long awaited order, my “medium” steak arrived over- cooked and almost cold, whilst my wife’s seafood linguine was similarly tepid. The waitress apologised, putting the poor food down to the fact that that the restaurant was “ really busy”. If a restaurant can only cope when they are not busy, something needs fixing.

Written 5 March 2020

Lynne A

Melbourne106 contributions

A great place to chill, drink some nice wine & listen to the Live Jazz Band

June 2021 • none

Saw all the great reviews of this restaurant, walked down past the night before on our way to another restaurant we were trying….looked at all the food on the tables being eaten…thought how good they looked, especially the pizzas, which really stood out. Went tonight for a walk to see if it was open, as a lot were not given the current circumstances and exact location. I was greeted by the waitress, who was so down to earth, friendly and extremely helpful, as they were closing early and orders had to be in by 7.30pm it was now 7.15pm, explained I had not bought my glasses and couldn’t pre-order and had to rush back and get my Husband moving, but she quickly wrote down her mobile number and name, said “go home, jump on line and look at our menu and ring me with your order. I’ll make sure you get it when you arrive back here. Did that, was really fantastic, as I thought we would be eating omelette at home tonight and through this service we were able to pre-order and have the food at the table for when we arrived…We were not disappointed, the pizzas are the best and I like the choice of add ons if you are so inclined…in fact I could say it is the best pizza I have had in a long time and Ive tried many all over the world. A good wine list choice and we had a lovely bottle of Teusner “The Dog Strangler” 2018 Mataro,(Mourvèdre) to match. We were the last to leave, Staff politely said they had to start clean up & re-set. I went out to pay and met the Owner, who I found delightful and very friendly, chatted a while and enjoyed it, the ‘whole experience’. Think it will be a regular hang out for us, once we move up here permanently in 18 months.

Written 27 June 2021

Roscoe R

161 contributions

Don’t get starry eyed

Feb 2020 • couples

Very restaurant has a bad night, unfortunately it was on my night! Of 3 couples, 2 couples arrived early and ordered drinks at the bar whilst awaiting our table, which was available before our drinks. The bar said they’d deliver the drinks for us. Then the 3rd couple arrived, ordered drinks which arrived promptly, the bar had forgotten our earlier order. Of those drinks 2 arrived incorrect, the other 2 forgotten. We then ordered 2 bottles of wine, were delivered 2 glasses of wine for 6 people! Meals ordered, 5 were very good, mine, Linguine Seafood, was really ordinary. The seafood appeared to be 200g from a pack of frozen Marinara Mix with 4 extra mussels. The dish appeared to have been microwaved to melt the Parmesan, causing the linguine to dry and the Parmesan euro congeal to a hard mass. 2 Piccolo coffees were ordered, 2 Espresso delivered. When the bill arrived we were charged for the mistake 2 glasses of wine! Just a night of errors, please pick up your game!

Written 1 February 2020

undiscoveredwoman

Sawtell71 contributions

Great place, great pizza, great atmosphere!

Jan 2023 • friends

We really enjoyed our pizzas and desserts, service was polite and prompt. Only downside was paying an extra $1.03 for using eftpos card…I will use cash in future (hopefully there is no fee for that!!).

Written 5 February 2023

Kathie B

Brisbane468 contributions

Wonderful Fare at The Spare

May 2023 • couples

Whilst staying in Sawtell for two nights we dined here on the first night and found the food delicious! So when we discovered there was to be jazz music the next night we returned. We had a another great night of food with entertainment. Such a lovely restaurant in the heart of Sawtell. Fantastic food and really great service. I enjoyed scallops and a delicious salad and my husband salmon on the first night. Pizza was our second night choice and the zucchini chips were yum. By the way dessert was rather special also!!

Written 10 May 2023

CasandraTP

Sydney4472 contributions

Jazz and dinner

Sept 2022 • couples

From the minute we entered we had a warm welcome. Came on a Sunday night and they had a jazz band playing. There was a $10 per person cover charge but the band was worth it. The pizzas are large enough to share. We had a Meat Lovers / Mushroom pizza with a preference for the mushroom side. Note these are more European so not like a dominoes where it is smothered with toppings. We also shared the Mixed Grain Salad which was fabulous and really complimented the pizzas. There is a minimal menu but what they have is great. The wine list was reasonably priced. All in all a lovely place to eat and listen to some great jazz music.