The Bistro at Hillside Winery — Local services in Penticton

This is a hard review for me to leave- as I had SUCH a positive experience at the winery and with the hostess Tiana (who was amazing) We were seated upstairs and had a younger server who provided excellent customer service. She was nothing short of amazing. My husband and I were on a long over due date night after a beautiful tasting in the winery. It was too hot so we asked to move inside (mid appetizers and still waiting for our first main course dish- we were going to also order the tomahawk steak to share)….. settled our bill with the first server Who informed us the next server, Would bill us for the main as we were still waiting for it and she had transferred it over. Wonderful. We wanted to order more wine as well. We sat for 20 minutes inside without so much as a hello from our new server. Who seemed annoyed every time she walked past us. Sarah Was her name and I believe she was the assistant manager…… After sitting with an empty wine glass for about five or six minutes, I smiled at her and she looked right past me and walked by again. There was two tables She seemed to be serving as well & One was about to leave. I’ve been a high volume server for almost 20 years. I don’t think it would’ve been that difficult for her to pop by and ask if we wanted to order more wine. Two tables should not be overwhelming. If someone is overwhelmed, to the point they are rude to guests, they are in the wrong industry. Still no sign of a Walnut tart that we ordered. Finally I had to Wave at her as I would like to order more wine (I’m talking a little wave, not my arm up in the air as if to to draw attention to the fact we had zero service ) as she was going upstairs….. She Returned this with the dirtiest look I think I’ve ever gotten in a restaurant & waved me away with her hand so incredibly rudely - as if to wave us off angrily that my husband and I just got up and left. She came back down with the mushroom tart as we were leaving and I said honestly, it’s been too long, I haven’t been able To order wine, we just aren’t happy and we would like to go. She rolled her eyes at me and laughed at me, rolled her eyes again and stormed off. Not a thank you for coming. Not an apology. Nothing. The hostess helped us get our almost full case of wine we had purchased next-door and left in the cooler room. Sarah was extremely rude to her, reprimanding her loudly in front of the clients that were there. I was horrified to watch this……. Absolutely horrid experience because of Sarah. Extremely unfortunate because I’m a wine club member and we come to Penticton every year. I was looking forward to this...

So this is going to be a mixed bag

We went for lunch & got an inside table (bc it was quite warm out) right away. We came with ~1hr of lunch service ending so I appreciated that. There is plenty of tables at different levels which is a kewl feature. If you want a view, they got that. If you just want a quiet table, they got that. You want sun or shade, they got that.

Staff is enthusiastic & friendly & attentive enough but I wouldn't label it "fine dining", so if you're going there for a special occasion & expect to be pampered with over-the-top treatment, this prob isn't the place for that kind of occasion. We enjoyed our service, I'm just saying that if you're judging it on the price, it's more casual than, say, a 5* hotel dining room experience.

The food is well prepared & very well presented. However the portions are small; I ordered the pork belly scallop main & there were 2 small scallops & 5 potatoes... that's disappointing for $50. The menu lacks a bit of variety. I appreciate a small menu but a few of the starters & entrees were very similar in nature. Reading it I almost felt like I was at a vegetarian restaurant. Now that's on me bc their menu is readily available but I just felt a bit... underwhelmed, esp after seeing what I got for the one entree I was genuinely interested in. My companion had the flat iron steak which she really enjoyed. The starters were the pumpkin pierogi which was OK & the deviled eggs which were good. We ordered the bone marrow popcorn to start & it was extremely salty so be warned.

Again, if you just want a nice meal with a great view & don't care about price, portion, or exquisite food, you'll prob be...

We showed up early (12:30) to a Saturday reservation for 1pm and thankfully it was empty (2 other tables).

They sat us promptly and we had our orders in within 5 minutes, wine pairing poured quickly, and this is where everything fell apart.

We then went just shy of an hour without any servers checking in and no food.

The restaurant slowly filled up during that time, and before we received our first course we saw other tables receive food.

At around the one hour mark our first course arrived and I told the server that we've been waiting a long time for food and service; the response was that they had a rush and she hurried off; from my vantage we were there well before any rush. We felt like our concern was brushed off.

Our second course came a reasonable amount of time after the first course, but the proteins were noticeably cold, the rest of the plate was warm though.

After finishing eating we flagged down a server for a bill, and were asked how things were, where we answered honestly:

My meal was good, my wife's was fair but the wait and service was poor... Again the answer was that they got slammed.

At this point we were already behind schedule despite arriving (and being accommodated) early, so we paid and left.

It's really too bad, we were looking forward to this experience on our trip and feel that the $200+ we paid for lunch was a...