a month ago
Saturday October 5 2024
2:22pm
It was my day off and the weather was perfect. I parked my vehicle out front on mainland street and realized it was only $2/hour. It's a great start so far.
I came to the front of Yaletown brewing at the hostess stand. Was told I can head to the bar area or restaurant area. I've always been a bar side guy so I entered left. It was completely empty with a table of 6 in the middle of the bar and a couple who sat next to me. I saw a server who came out to bring food to the tables. She knew I was sitting alone with no menu. I am a patient person but I was shocked at how the beginning of my service was.
I sat for 30 mins alone with no proper acknowledgment and no menu. I finally decided to get up and approach the bartender about the style of service here. Is it self serve or will I be getting a server in my section. He replied back with an apology saying, we don't have servers starting until 3pm. Also the hostess should have told me that it's a self ordering bar. All the bars run like that locally.
No I disagree. Not every bar runs like that. Tell me that at a mid tier or higher end bar. A corporate bar. Trying to compromise and understand I ordered a beer to start and asked for a happy hour menu. It would have been nice to be acknowledged with a hello . It just felt awkward and uncomfortable.
The bartender also wanted me to pay for my beer up front. It felt like he thought I was going to dine and dash. I didn't even mind tipping 2 dollars on top of my 5 dollar beer. Most people wouldn't have in a situation with no acknowledgment or menu. Anyhow. It was my day off and i still gave it another chance.
I didn't want to escalate the situation, only to express my disappointment of proper hospitality. You're leaving the customer wondering what's wrong and frustration is building.
Finally my squad comes. I told my buddies what happened. They all replied, he charged you up front cause he wanted the tip before the server started. It wasn't because he thought you were a dine and dasher. Fair enough but we will never really know what he was thinking. Maybe he's having a bad day. Maybe he's got issues. Or maybe the boss pissed him off. It felt like I was profiled. I dunno.
Anyhow. I see the lovely server come to start her shift. She came to our table and provided excellent service throughout our stay. She had great energy and a beautiful smile.
Alright, the grey clouds are out of the way. Yaletown brewery bounced back. We are very happy!
We all started off with bountiful glasses of $5 beers that lead to 2 pitchers of beers. Wonderful flavors btw. Then we ordered the kale and garlic pizza. Wow, really enjoyed this pizza. It was thin, plenty of toppings and REAL delicious. I highly recommend this one for $15. The fish tacos didn't cheap out. They were fat and overfilling and real tasty. We got them to add 1 more taco. The fries are good, no complaints.
We were having such a great time the boys asked our server if the white caps game or the UFC fight will be playing on their screens? She said it depends if the owner is wanting to show them. We haven't been shy to pay for the viewing at restaurants. Wish we could've just stayed the whole time cause the food and drinks are amazing and things really turned around. But instead didn't want to get into anymore confrontation. We decided to buy front row seats at the whitecaps game last minute. Also got a table for ufc fight.
Spent $225 on happy hour with the boys.
Happily gave 22% gratitude.
It would have been nice to stay there the whole time instead cause we got amazing parking spots too. That was a $1200 night on restaurant hoping before the whitecaps front row game tickets.
It was almost a 5 star rating. I think the boys and I will give it another chance some other time in the future and hopefully we would have the perfect experience. But it was still a great day with a fantastic redemption from your 3 o'clock bar side server. Thank you.
Oh btw, as we were leaving I made sure to tip the bar tender again for no hard feelings, just in case.