and thanks to my shitty waiter I got really pissed off by the end of the night. So I'm posting the letter I sent to them about him which is more or less a play by play of my night. I don't see myself going back :C
Hello Pickle Barrel Vaughan Mills,
I want to let you know about my first experience at a Pickle Barrel, which was at your establishment at Vaughan Mills, on the evening of Saturday January 30th 2010. I was apart of a party of 12 for a friends surprise birthday which was reserved weeks in advance under "Larissa" (she let you know that we would be paying in separate bill in advance as well, this plays an important role in the story of my experience). We were seated at the bankete tables right by the external door (which by the way is kind of a chilly spot) where we could see the full scape of the beautiful interior. I really love the look of the place and the light fixtures are especially lovely (my favorite ones look like hanging birds of paradise in the little booth) but it is a little loud. Understandably of course because it was so full. The birthday girl was late, which is too bad because our waiter was so eager to start taking our orders.
Our waiter is named Quinton, he is tall and not particularly articulate or loud, and the only reason why I know his name is because I finally got the chance to read his name tag while I was waiting for him to register my bill (but that is for the end of this recount) on the count of him not introducing himself. Now, Quinton tells us that he is not going to do separate bills because "that would kill him" and that he knows this is the best way to do things, he then decides for us that he will split the bill into two so six people on each side of the table can work it out with each other. None of us can quite understand this but we go along with it anyway because we just want to enjoy ourselves and have a nice dinner without any issues (really people are afraid of their waiters or waitresses doing something to defile our food). So he mumbles something about soup of the day that no one could hear, especially not the people on the other side of the tale and takes our orders. His method was questionable, he simply asked something along the lines of "who wants to order?" and managed to miss a couple people so we had to really yell to get him to come back. On a side note, the menus are lovely, very cute and nicely designed (I got a laugh out of the bar menu being at the very front), and the variety as well as healthy choices are nice.
Appetizers came, they were so nice, Quinton neglected to ask if any one needed refills or new drinks. The food was well displayed and I had a pomegranate smoothie which was really delicious. some time later Quinton came back to clear our plates and managed to neglect to take a few plates from the same people he neglected before. Another while after that Quinton saw fit to take our dinner orders. He again forgot the old plates, but his strategy for taking orders made more sense as he asked everybody what they would like for dinner. He again did not ask anyone if they would like refills. You only ask for drinks at the same time as your food in fast food places, in a nice restaurant your waiter usually asks after they have taken orders (well the ones who care do).
Dinner took some time but the restaurant was busy so that is totally understandable, no harm because it gave us more time to talk with each other (not that anyone could refresh themselves because we had all finished our waters by then). When we received dinner that was a disorganized mess, there were two other waiters bringing out food with Quinton but there seemed to be a lack of communication as to what was going where, almost like Quinton did not bother to even try to remember where what food was going or let either of his co-workers know where to send anything. I have worked in a restaurant before, and if I forgot or was not told where what food was going it really bugged me to see disappointed faces, and when you know exactly where food is going the impression on peoples faces really make their experience good which made mine good with them. The people whose appetizer plates were ignored were still there with nowhere to go so we had to juggle them ourselves. Some orders were forgotten for a bit and brought over I guess when Quinton saw fit, I say this because the last thing to come much later than anything else was an order of onion soup (which belonged to the guest of honor on top of that). When I eat at restaurants and my waiter knows where things are going I really want to tip him, so you can imagine how I was feeling about my anonymous waiter at the time. To the chef on the other hand, I personally really enjoyed my dinner, I had the shitake mushroom chicken pene and it was really nice, my only thought is that the sauce could be a little thicker because I came close to wearing it a couple times.
I am a very slow eater, I mean very slow, by the time I am two thirds way through my meal is when most waitresses have come around three or so times to see how things are. Quinton did not come by until about ten minutes after I had finished with time to play around with the leftovers on my plate. We were expected to wrap our own take home boxes, which has never happened to me in a restaurant. He took our plates and neglected a few people again (it was honestly the same guy every time who was sitting to my right) he ordered the maple salmon. To get a dessert menu we had to seriously badger Quinton, its as if he was ignoring us, by this time the restaurant was getting clear. Logically speaking when a place gets less busy service gets better but ours just got so much worse. Eventually Quinton came around with a dessert menu and eventually he came back to take our orders. Now we had a cake waiting to bring out as a final surprise to the birthday girl but like Quinton seriously took his dear sweet time bringing around coffee and dessert. We handed him the old dinner plates as he left, the machiato to the girl on my left who is a barrista was disgraceful (there was no foam where there should be but someone obviously tried to dress up the sad excuse for a nice coffee), however nice touch with the little biscotti. There weren't enough plates or any forks to serve the cake with at first so we had to wait for Quinton to come back to get some more.
At 9:25 we were ready to get our bill and go, I did not get out until 5 after 10, and I was the first to leave because my father had been waiting for me for that whole half an hour. It is one thing to make me wait but to make my father wait is flat out disrespectful. The reason why we had to wait so excessively long is all thanks to Quintons better way of organizing the bill. Firstly Quinton came out with one large bill, and then asked us to separate with 1 and 2 beside each item what belonged to who so he could split it into two. This alone took him a long time, and what I cannot understand is if he was going to split it up into two why not take the extra 5 minutes and split the bill into 12 (we had thee couple so it would only have been six anyway) but no, and then he comes back with the bills all mixed up anyway. My smoothie, espresso and pasta were on two different bills. So my father had to wait longer while Quinton fumbled around with the machine like it was his first day (I asked him, he has been there a while). Can you believe waiting half an hour to pay and leave? That is wrong. And, I am so incredibly offended at the fact that I had to pay a gratuity tip, FORCED to tip the worst service I have ever received from someone over the age of 15. Tips are earned by deserving people, they are NOT a right. Quinton never once apologized for his tardiness and was extremely rude right up until the end of the night. What offends me even further is that I honestly believe that he thought he could take advantage of us because we are students. It is the only thing I can think of because I cannot believe that such a nice restaurant could possibly hire and keep an employee like Quinton.
I do not believe I will ever be returning and if anyone asks me all I will be able to tell them is what I know from experience. If I ran a restaurant I would seriously reconsider Quinton as my employee. Thank you however to your chef for such great pasta.
sincerely,
Miss A. Paglia
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