Burning Kiln Winery — Attraction in Ontario

DON’T do business with them, waste your time and hard earned money. They will “forget” many things such as your deposit receipt when you book the venue. I had to email and ask for it and it took them over 5 business days to respond. We also had to ask them to include everything in the invoice with tax included. On top of that they forgot to add the deposit as part of that total.

Ashley (the event manager ) conveniently all forgot this as well as sending the contract, forgot to include half the things in the contract we discussed , forgot to mention the deposit total and if it was non-refundable. They will forget many to tell you about some hidden fees. You have to remind them on about your getting contract with in a reasonable time.

If you dare ask them to follow up with them you with 5 business days and every two leading up the month of event,then they will blame their that they short staff and tell you they won’t have time for you answer your emails. They also said that my standards where to high. When you work in events, things ALWAYS come up last minute so it's not unreasonable at all to expect someone to be answering your questions and managing the event.

It’s not like my fiancé and I were down right mean. We said "We ask that going forward since we booked with you, we want to hear from you a with in 5 business days and every two days in the last month of the event." When you book a venue you want them to work with you. Yes my event wasn’t going to be until August 2020 but when you take on a client you NEED to let them know what the contract is, what’s refundable and answer their questions and work with them to plan our your services as promised.

My "standards" are industry standards.I never signed the contract agreeing to a non refundable deposit so I asked for it back. Go it back. I would never normally send money to someone with out a contract. Originally thought they sent one. When I double checked we had a contract from all their competitors and partners we spoke with, but not them. Otherwise, I would have never sent over the money. Even though I missed this one thing, they should have been on it and not have taken the money.

They can’t meet the standard business and legal standards. So save your time and book elsewhere.

We told them we are moving on to another venue and since the never mentioned the deposit wasn’t refundable and didn’t sign a contract it means they have to automatically give it back to us. They were not happy. I get it you’re loosing business but they weren’t working with us and the were being extremely unprofessional. I would never do this to a client of mine.

Anyways, they didn’t want to refund my money the way I paid (which they legally have to). They then wanted my credit card for the refund and I refused because I paid via e-transfer. I also didn’t want a charge to magically appear after we fired them.

Then when they finally decided to send my money back the way I paid, they gave me the wrong password. I had to get them to send me another e-transfer with a new password. They treated me like I was an inconveniencing them. Then they finally had the the right password and after a lot of unprofessionalism from JoAnn (book keeper) and Ashley, my fiancé and I were so happy we weren’t spending our money there.

We were very shocked the venue turned out to be this bad especially, when all their partners including the owner’ cousin that owns the Blue Elephant restaurant near by, where all professional, quick to respond and wished us nothing but the best. And they also all sent us their fees, and requirements for booking a venue ahead of time or had it on their website. So of course we are going to recommend all of them.

As I said before, save your money and book elsewhere. It appears this isn't the only problem that they have at this venue, since I have found other bad reviews, but it's a very costly one if you pay the full amount of money. Thank god I only put down a deposit and...

Unfortunately we did not get to experience much of this winery. The grounds look lovely but we did not go into the tasting room because the experience with the hostess/supervisor on the patio really turned us off. From reading the other reviews now, I see the restaurant is independent of the winery and many others had the same problem we did. The winery might want to find themselves a new restaurant provider.

When we arrived, I went to the patio to ask for a table for 4. The day before I had checked their website and it says they do not take reservations for parties of fewer than 6. The hostess said they did not have any tables available for the entire night (it was 4:30). There was no offer made to be put on a wait list. I followed up politely, “Your website says reservations are not accepted and seating is first come first served, so can we wait for a table?” There were several smaller tables that looked like they just needed to be cleaned and perhaps people were waiting on the grounds to be seated? She was SO RUDE! She began her reply with “not that I have to explain myself to you, but….” all of our tables are RESERVED! I was embarrassed to have been spoken to like this in front of so many others, especially since I had simply asked a question politely. I was quite taken aback by her response, consequently, we left without exploring any of the winery and I doubt we will be back. Maybe she was having a bad day, but not the best way to handle guests, and a poor explanation of why we couldn’t wait for a table. We were more than willing to spend money in the tasting room while waiting. At the very least, the website needs to be changed— either you take reservations...

Special evening out with friends last night. Made a reservation for 7pm and was seated at a dirty, unmade table right at the food truck, so basically the worst table on the patio. Server was pleasant however and took drink and appetizer order right away but informed us the pizza oven was broken which was why we had come. Disappointing. Chardonnay at $17.00 per glass was warm when served. Appetizers were both ice cold (peach naan and cauliflower bites) but still yummy in spite. Servers seemed disorganized and on their phones standing at food truck all night giggling. At one point my husband had to wave her down to get another beer in spite of her passing our table 3 times looking at our empty glasses and not asking. She then said we better order our food as it was going to be at least a half hour wait in spite of only 4 tables full on patio. Food took half an hour as promised. When food was served one of the servers actually said "that's the last food of the night, I'm out of here!" and then forgot my dinner. Had to wait another 5 minutes for my grilled cheese which had raw red onion in it and not the caramelized onion as advertised. Veggie burger was horrible. Husband's beef dip gravy was so thick it was inedible. Overall this was a complete embarrassment. What the heck? Burning Kiln get your act together. You are a winery first and foremost and there was zero attempt to pair wine with anything or inform anyone about it!! I actually had to apologize to our friends for the horrible experience. Will never go back. Should have read the 50 other awful reviews before booking but was actually basing my reservation on the wonderful pre-Covid experience we used to...