Rivoli Cinemas & Gold Class

The Riv is my go-​to cinema, particularly for Gold Class where the food and service are consistently good. The rooftop bar is great spot to hang out on a nice day and the historic character of this place really adds to it’s charm. Not just your average cinema.

Great service:
Went through order to ensure everything was correct.
Ensured all food ordered was still in stock.
Very polite and friendly.

The cinema itself is lovely, and would choose every time to head here (or Balwyn Palace) over the shopping centre multiplexes, even if I’m seeing ‘Super X-​Batmen 7: Rise of the Hunger-​Wizards’ instead of the arthouse selection they offer, which also sets them apart from their Village-​siblings in Doncaster and Crown.
Love the huge theaters they have, and also am a regular at the small Gold Class ones, which is the only reason this is a 4 and not a 5 star Unilocal:
For what you pay for any gold class food menu, you are bound to be disappointed in quality and quantity (and hotness too, when that counts) of most dishes. This isn’t an indictment just on the Riv, but all Village Gold Classes, as we’ve found this wherever we go.
Fool me once, okay I’ll try again.
Fool me twice; maybe I’ll just stick to the wedges.
Fool me three times; stuff that, let’s just order some drinks. (Actually dessert usually isn’t too bad either).
For something that sells itself on a premium experience, they really need to work on their food as it feels like they are taking advantage of people who they think will splurge the once and might not return (so who cares what they think!?), rather than fostering repeat customers.
Aside from that, long live The Riv!

Wow, this place is much nicer than Crown! The service when we walked into Gold class was awesome. Our chairs were recliney and I just love pressing the button on the table and ordering food right at our seats. I don’t think I’ll get tired of watching movies this way! Ace.

Conveniently located on Camberwell Road in Hawthorn East, The Rivoli shows a wide range of films for all the family. The layout is art deco, and the cinemas themselves are quite grand with roomy comfortable seating. There is a roof top upstairs for you to sit and enjoy a pre film drink, which is OK, but needs a sail to provide shade on a hot day.
There are bar options available in the foyer, so feel free to bring a wine or beer in with your pop corn or choc top. Gold Class option is available if you want more room, larger seating space and waiter to seat service for drink and food top ups.
Ticket prices are a little expensive, going up to $ 19.50 for adults.
All in all though, I like this cinema. It’s no Cinema Nova, but it’s a nice place all the same.

Every year, we book one of the theatres at the Rivoli and invite our clients to see a movie. In actual fact, this is the only time that I visit this cinema. I’ve got to admit that I am not a fan of Village. Hoyts Melbourne Central is my preferred cinema hands down.
Rivoli in Camberwell is not bad. It’s quite likeable actually as you’ll feel like you’re in a different time as soon as you walk through the door. It feels 1980s to me, the layout and the décor look like it.
I’m not a fan of their theatres (at least the one that we always book)… As soon as the movie start, it should be total darkness, pitch black in fact with the only lighting coming from the screen. Well it’s not at the Rivoli, they let the lamps on the walls on so you could almost see everyone when you had a look around. It’s also not noise proof I found. The doors were closed but we could hear people laughing outside from time to time, which was a bit annoying.
All of that aside, the movie was seriously good — some great acting especially from Daniel Day-​Lewis.
If you guys get a chance, go see Lincoln… It’s good!

The Rivoli is a reflection on Camberwell as a whole, expensive, hollow and mediocre. The same beige brush that taints the rest of the suburb hasn’t skipped over the Rivoli. I love the décor and ambience of the Rivoli and it’s my local but i feel that the movie going experience is lacking and here is why.
We paid a small fortune for weekend tickets to see a movie in one of their Gold Class Cinemas. The customer service was ok, firstly our waiter forgot our order three times, forgivable because he was delightfully friendly, he then took us into the theater only to realise he was sitting us in the wrong cinema, again forgivable. The look on his supervisors face upon our return and the nasty mouth she used to chew him out were not so forgivable. Sweetie if your going to bollock your staff, wait until you are somewhere private.
Upon being seated in the correct cinema, my chair broke and i spent the rest of the movie skewed to the right, my wife’s chair skewed to the left.
Food, I hadn’t paid $ 17 for a plate of packet wedges with Hoi Sin and Aioli before, but I have now. They were cooked well and the sauces we delicious, for the price i expected a bucket of wedges, i recieved a 8 cm x 12 cm plate which was ¹⁄₃ occupied by ramekins for the sauce. My Pat and Sticks Icecream Sandwich was delicious, but i can buy them from most retail outlets for $ 5, i still paid, and i paid $ 9 for the privilege of a little bowl of sickly sweet caramel sauce. My friends had chicken wings and popcorn, the popcorn was stale and the chicken wins had been re-​thermalised. Why can’t Gold class use the same fresh popcorn as the rest of the cinema? We’re paying a premium and getting a lesser product for the money.
Coffee, delivered stone cold, not «i want a hot late and this is cold» stone cold, more like, this has been boiled to hell and left on a counter to cool and separate into milky disappointment and unclean espresso machine dregs cold. I had ordered a short mac, apparently that instruction was lost on the way to the bar.
Image quality
We go to the movies to be entertained, to experience better than we can at home, to be blown away by the colour depth, clarity and richness of the cinema screen. When the curtain lifter i noticed the seem of the screen where it looked like it had been patched together making a noticeable cross that popped up whenever the screen went white or bright. The projector struggled to keep up during camera pans, pixelated or jittered because it couldn’t handle the refresh rate, at one point during a slow detailed pan the screen jumped so ferociously that i felt motion sickness coming on.
Sound
Cheap. The speakers were muddy, unclear and had been blown out. You could hear what was being said, but there was again as with the screen no depth or clarity. The Subwoofers were extended beyond there capabilities during action scenes that their failure distracted from the action of the film. Like when you turn your car radio up really loud and it sounds terrible. The sound was left wanting for authority, just because your speakers can go loud doesn’t mean they are sound good.
Village provides this Gold Class experience at a premium and as such has a duty to provide a holistically premium experience, as it stands i feel like we have been suckered into some sort of tourist trap and been fleeced of our money.
Four of us went to the movies last night and spent $ 175 on tickets and $ 150 on food. I feel that if we had stayed home, bought some delicious snacks and watched a movie rented from iTunes we would have had a better night in than what we got going out and for cheaper.
Summary
Fun night out, great company and comfortable but broken seats. FOH staff lovely and tried very hard. Manager, needs to be more discreet. Food, needs to be better quality, better presented and lower priced or significantly better value. Image quality, a real let down, we go to the movies for the big screen and this big screen was broken and cheap. Sound quality; cheap and tinny, you could get better at home for under $ 4000 with a top end television from JB HiFi.
Village promotes this as a premium experience and then cuts very noticeable corners. The cracks in the veneer are very deep, they are reliant on their marketing and promotions and the fact the regular cinema experience is so bad. We have been to several Harry Potter premiers in Cinema One, by half way through the film people were sweating and feeling very uncomfortable from the lack of air conditioning.
This review has been a long time coming after multiple visits over many years I have finally had enough of being led along the Garden path and ripped off so badly for a sub par experience.

My love affair with the Rivoli has survived many makeovers and overhauls. My first visit was when I was eight to see The Witches. Back then it was a dark cinema reminiscent of traditional movie houses (complete with balcony) Fast forward twenty years and the Rivoli is part of Village Cinema’s complete with newly opened Gold Class Lounge and cinemas. Their rooftop bar is also a great place to grab a drink before or after your movie.
Despite the new developments the Rivoli retains art deco furnishings and old world feel. The cinema screens are hidden by a curtain and the seats are very comfortable (great for those three hour movies.)
This large art deco cinema complex shows are range of popular movies with particular emphasis on art house releases and world cinema. For the price of a movie ticket these days you want more from your movie going experience and the Rivoli is one of the best. They are also host many Melbourne Movie Premier’s so if red carpets are more your speed then watch their website for details.

Last birthday I had the pleasure of receiving a truckload of village movie passes. I love cinema, but I do NOT love village. That’s why rediscovering the Rivoli was an absolute blessing and it has now become one of my favourite cinemas in Melbourne (you know, besides the Astor, Cinema Nova, Kino, The Yarraville Sun…)
There’s something about Rivoli that brings you back to the golden age. Maybe it’s the gold-​striped uniform the poor saps are forced to wear at box office. More probable is that it has been beautifully restored as one of the oldest theatres in Melbourne. Cinema 1 is as grand as they get, with huge velvet draped curtains, old-​fashioned spacious seating, and wonderful ceiling detail.
A new addition is the rooftop bar, which during the summer is a great place to get a drink before or after the film. The Rivoli doesn’t show too many of the new blockbusters; it’s more an art house theatre (though I use the term art house quite loosely). If you have a village card I very much recommend visiting the Rivoli to use it.

Rivoli Cinemas has achieved a great balance between cinema as old-​world glamour destination, and cinema as a fun way to spend an afternoon. In a beautifully restored building, one can’t help but feel treated to the experience as they ascend the stairs to the various screens.
The best screen is, of course, the main one. It’s huge and designed like a giant theatre. Very lush and a brilliant place to see premieres or special event screenings (I saw Australian première of The Producers many years ago. We got free champagne).
Most of the experience is very like one you would have at any Village Cinema. Same popcorn, same food deals, same tickets. Rivoli is more likely to screen arthouse movies, though, or gorgeous British ones to take your mum to. It is quite lovely.