Fionn MacCool's — Restaurant in Ajax

Honestly the worst service Ive ever had from emily. Went for happy hour for my friends birthday. It was about 330 in the afternoon. There was literally 0 tables in the restaurant just some people sitting at the bar. We first stood at the door for 10+ minutes. The server finally comes over doesn't say hello just walks up staring at us doesn't say a word just silent. Had to ask can we sit down? And she goes oh ya sure. We sit and ordered waters to start while we looked over menus we had to get ourself because she didn't bring us any. She brings back waters 15 minutes later in dirty cups. Brought it to her attention she apologized brought another one .. in another dirty cup. At this point I just gave up on water. We ordered 4 Bailey's espresso martinis at the same time as our food. Our food took about 30 mins ( which for quesos and wings is ridiculous especially when we were the only table there🤣) food arrived still no drinks. We made a point to ask our server if our drinks were coming .. umm ya we're still making them ... For 45 minutes now? She then comes to our table 10 minutes later with 4 more waters and proceeds to stare at us blankly for 2 minutes just silent and then was like wait what did you order again .... She definitely was not sober. I don't think she even knew where she was she was so clueless. Like I actually felt bad for her because she was so lost in space. After an hour and a half of shitty service and waiting an hour for a drink we just wanted our bills and to leave... She could not figure out how to arrange the bills at all .. we paired up 2 and 2 and she could not figure it out. Tried charging us 14 for the martinis that in the menu say 11 but what we received was not what was even advertised in the menu. When we pointed it out "idk maybe the tax is like added to it. Then she took an additional 30 minutes to rearrange the bills and kept running and hiding in the back. At this point we asked for the manager because she literally had no idea what she was doing and could not figure it out. Comes back we also notice the poutine charge was 8 each when in the menu it says 3.50 and she was like I don't know that's just the charge. The manager never came over and she could not figure it out to a point we had to get up and go over to the till and ask her we would like to see the manager. She snaps back well idk what you want me to tell you he's not here. She proceeds to hide in the back right in front of the entrance to the kitchen talking shit about us to the kitchen and other servers. The owner finally arrived to where he couldn't even figure out the bill and had to call me over to the POS to help them ( as I mentioned I am and manager in food service ) . He was nice but just kept saying oh she's usually not like this I've never had complaints about her.. but then proceeded 2 minutes to say he hasn't owned this place long and hasn't really seen her work much. I told him straight up people have bad days I get it but she was definitely not sober. I have been a manager for 10 plus years and I have never seen anything like this in my entire professional life. I have seen bad servers before but this one took the cake. I still can't believe we even paid for our bills the service was absolutely atrocious. Like sorry you have to do your job and just getting us basic things is troubling for you .. Emily needs to choose a different profession because...

I don't normally write reviews...but in this case I thought I should.

The positive - our server was quite nice, and decent. The restaurant looks very nice since reopening. The pint of Guinness I had was good also.

My issues:

1. My daughter's Shirley Temple had a long black hair in the drink that she fished out The server replaced it. Not so bad on its own.

2. My son ordered the kids fish and chips, but they ordered him a full size. No issue there - they counted it as a kids meal, which was nice. So it worked out ok for him.

3. My wife and I ordered the Steak and Guinness stew. We have ordered this many times at the Bowmanville location, and it has always been good, with a decent amount of steak. Not these ones. Each of ours had 1 small cube of steak hidden in the gravy, with a few slices of mushrooms, covered in mash potato drizzle. The meal was more liquid than solid, with no more than a piece of meat no larger than a small marble. The salad on the side of each was soggy and tasted like it had been sitting pre made for hours. I mentioned it to the server in a pleasant way, as it's something we've enjoyed before. She said she would mention to the management and chef, and that the meat was shredded in. There was no meat shredded in.

4. My daughter bit to the middle of her burger....it was pink. Undercooked. We mentioned this too to the server. She felt bad.

One issue can be overlooked. But there were several. In one sitting.

In the end, our server comp'd our drinks for us. Which was nice. We paid for the gravy and mash potato soup ×2. We tipped our server still. It wasn't her fault. Maybe poor management decisions.

It's a shame. We were looking forward to going regularly, but I don't think we will ever go...

If I could go back in time and choose to go elsewhere, I would. And when we entered the establishment and noticed that there was only one family dining, we should have turned back.

We were a party of three, and our order was not complicated by any means. A beverage order of two cokes took almost 15 minutes to arrive at the table by the waitress, and a glass of Molson Canadian, another 10 minutes. Our food also arrived approximately 40 minutes later, which makes no sense as again, there was just us and one other family who was already served. The one guests order of mini Yorkshire puddings had an extra source of protein added by gnats that were dead in the cheese melted on top. Another members poutine was cooked before we even arrived, and then just refried and doused with so much salt that after three bites, it was inedible. The last members burger was extremely dry and their lattice fries were barely crisp and required ketchup to cover the taste of disappointment. Cutlery was also provided approximately 10 minutes after the food was brought via the manager (?) who literally ran to our table when he noticed we were not eating.

The waitresses were also no where to be found, and we only saw them when we were seated, when the drinks and food were brought and when it was time to pay the bill. And the one thought that the reason why the salt poutine wasn’t eaten because it was too “filling”. Perhaps if they tended to us sooner, they could have rectified the situation.

If any of you are planning on eating here and think that you’ll be served quickly because barely anyone is in there, take it as a sign to turn around and go to the McDonald’s across the street. At least there, you get fresh quality food and prompt service for...