Church & State Wines - Victoria — Attraction in Central Saanich

Absolutely APPALLING experience. If I could give negative stars I would.

I had a 4:45 PM reservation on Sunday for myself and four visiting family members. We were running a bit late—arrived at 4:57—and tried calling multiple times to let them know, but no one picked up. When we walked in, we were immediately told they were closed. I explained we had a reservation and had tried calling, only to be told they cancel reservations after 15 minutes. When I pointed out it hadn't yet been 15 minutes and that we tried calling multiple times but their phone went to voicemail, the staff dismissively claimed the phone "never rang". (You'll notice every time you call this establishment the phone is never answered.)

Even more baffling, they told us it was TOO LATE regardless, because the CHEF had already LEFT! The entire interaction was shockingly rude and dismissive. The young woman at the front told us flat-out to leave, and when I said, “We live in the neighborhood and won’t be coming back after this,” an older man responded with, “Bye, you can leave.”

I have never been treated so poorly at a restaurant, especially one I had previously enjoyed. I had a lovely lunch here once and wanted to support a local business by bringing family visiting from out of town. Instead, I was left completely embarrassed and angry. This was supposed to be a highlight of our day. Instead, it completely ruined the evening. My family and I all agree that we have never been treated so rudely with zero provocation - it honestly seems like no one at this establishment wants customers.

The staff clearly have no interest in hospitality and should not be in this industry. I had even been considering becoming a winery member as I have enjoyed many of their wines—but after this experience, I would never support this establishment again. A total disappointment, especially since Brentwood Bay is so lacking in restaurants. I had really hoped this would be a new favourite of ours, especially since we live down the street. But I am completely repulsed by how people can innocently be...

My wife and I love going to wineries for tasting, we love the engagement with the staff and learning from their experience and knowledge. If you feel you are coming for that experience, think again. I booked a tasting session off their web site and all we were presented was a menu of pre-selected flights, you are stuck getting what they want you to have. Basically 4 1oz pours for $20. My wife and I chose a different path and went with the flight of 3-3oz wines still pre selected but we went with it. Merlot, Mertiage and Syrah. For $28 dollars. Additionally we ordered a cheese plate. The wines came with a simple slip of paper, zero staff interaction or product knowledge to pass along. Our cheese tray arrived and after eating a couple pieces of cheese my wife went to eat the strawberry and noticed it was rotten. I was about to eat the radish and noticed the radish had gone brown. We set aside the balance of the plate and waited for the server to come for a check in. We were nearly done our wine when she popped by to see how everything was going. (It was not busy there were three other tables being served). When we showed her she took it right away to the manager. A few minutes later they sent the server back out to apologize and removed it from our bill. Suddenly our server started cleaning up and presented me with a bill and the credit card machine ( I still had wine in my glass). She did not ask if we wanted to purchase anything else, like a bottle or two of wine. It seemed as they weren’t interested in additional sales. In so far as the wine, the three we sampled were good, but did not leave us wanting to take some home. Nice basic good drinking red wine. We did not try the bistro so we cannot speak about the food. We had friends recently try the bistro and they had a good experience. So over-all if you are looking for someplace to enjoy a decent wine without a staff interaction experience this place will provide you that. Very beautiful...

A date night ruined by being ignored. My fiancé and I planned a date night at this winery , wanting to support local and take in some of the picturesque views ,and sample some of their wines . We reserved a table for 6 pm and arrived a little early . Upon our arrival , we were greeted warmly by what we presumed was the maitre'd . We took a table on the outside deck overlooking the beautiful view of the vineyard and mountains in the distance. We were brought some water and menu and wine list and then proceeded to sit there for about 20 minutes, totally ignored like we weren't even there..we found this funny because it wasn't very busy. There was a waiter who looked like he didn't want to be there serving tables of other diners in our section, but not even response to us or any acknowledgement that we were there. This made us feel quite uncomfortable . While we waited some time for any acknowledgement ,a family in the next section a few tables over were seated and served pretty much immediately , making us feel very overlooked , like there was something wrong with us. We just looked at each other and decided enough and got up and left...still being ignored upon our departure....just as well as we found a quaint , warm and inviting romantic little gem , at Deep Cove , where the service was great and we were made to feel most welcome ...also there was soft music playing that made the ambiance most pleasant...there was no background music of any kind at Church and State, which made the venue feel cold and uninviting...at least we felt that way. So now we have found a local winery that we will be going back to...funny how things work out sometimes . Thank you for reading...we don't feel good about saying negative things but our experience compelled us to write...