Symposium Cafe Restaurant Ajax — Restaurant in Ajax

My four sons and husband took me to the Symposium Café to celebrate Mother’s Day. We were told right off the bat that we would have a two hour wait for our food after being seated at our table and placing our order. I expected to wait in a line to get in, because they would not take reservations on Mother’s Day,, which sucks! We were a party of eight so you can imagine how important it is for us to have a reservation. My elderly mother-in-law and sister-in-law joined us as well. I ordered the California sandwich which was fine. There’s not much you can do to screw that up. I did order guacamole on the side, which they didn’t bring until I was done eating the sandwich. They didn’t charge me for it, but still, I ordered it because I wanted it in my sandwich. We had two lovely waitresses which were attentive and very sweet. The first one finished her shift before we got our food and the second girl who took over, was justice nice. None of this was their fault. We were advised that two cooks/chefs quit that very day and did not show up for work. Obviously, that is not their fault but the waitress mentioned that they were overworked and this could have something to do with it. One of my sons is an executive chef and he told me the way that you would handle this type of situation is that you would close your doors and not seat anymore new guests until you had everything under control. They just kept allowing more and more people to pour in, giving them the same spiel about having to wait a minimum of an hour and a half, to two hours, to get their food and of course this is AFTER being seated, this does not include any wait time at the door. This is completely unacceptable. We understood we were going to have a long wait and we did not complain about it. We sat down and ordered our food. Once our food finally come out, apart from a couple of soups we ordered earlier, everything else came out in a VERY staggered fashion!! One plate at a time ….it was the most bizarre thing I had ever seen. Obviously this was not the waitress‘s fault. She did not want the food to get cold so she brought each plate out as a came. I’m sure this was a problem in the kitchen. However, several of our dishes were barely warm. Try eating cold eggs Benedict. Not very appetizing!! We asked to speak to the manager and he offered to comp a couple of items, but that’s really not what we wanted. We just wanted to share our concerns. He seemed perplexed as to what to do, but he did apologize. The bottom line is, he was in control of the Restaurant and he was allowing this chaos to continue by taking in new guests. Not cool!! I have typically enjoy the symposium in the past, but this was not a good experience. It should have been a lovely Mother’s Day celebration, but it turned out to be very stressful...

This particular location has been a favourite of mine and my family for several years. We have eaten at another location, but we preferred the Ajax establishment. Today, my family and I had a rare opportunity to have lunch together, and we decided to eat here. We arrived and were seated in a timely manner. After several minutes a server came to take our drink order. At this time she advised that she was 'training', this was fine. After we received our drink order, she then returned to let us know that our 'server' was busy and she could take the order.

It was 'lunchtime' and the restaurant was not at capacity. Several tables around us were finishing and waiting to leave. Those tables were then taken care of, cleaned and new people were seated. (5-10+ minutes after we had arrived).

I then noted approximately the time we had given our food order.. The 'trainer' server did not come back by our table to update us on our order, or see if we needed anything...We still had not seen who are expected server was..And we never did.

After a few minutes, My husband and I noticed that tables that had been seated AFTER us were getting their meals. This I found unacceptable. I decided to address it. My husband became 'heated' and wanted to leave. We were willing to pay for the 2 drinks we ordered, but were told that was not necessary.

The staff explained to me that it was this servers 1st day..then my thought would be that someone should be 'shadowing' her. She advised us when we arrived that she was not our server..SO, where was OUR server!!

No apologies...just excuses!

We had been sitting at our table for over 20 minutes. Again, people had come in 10 minutes after us and orders taken and were eating.... At least 2+ tables around us....

We then left!!

When I returned home, I called to speak to the Manager. He then proceeded to tell me he watched the video and it was 21 minutes...Are you kidding me! What really pushed me, was that he said 'Your order took longer to make.' The customer's who had received their food before us ordered breakfast.

Just to clarify. Our order consisted of 2 breakfasts and 1 Chicken BLT. Chicken (from experience) does not take that long....And No, we didn't eat it.

So, people who have NOT even come into the restaurant yet, are entitled to be served before people who have been seated for over 20 minutes. Is that GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE??

Even he knew that was a 'poor excuse' He knew he was wrong for suggesting it!

Yes, we are just one voice, but this was a bad experience. And it's not one I'm planning to have again. Which is unfortunate because we did enjoy...

We’ve been enjoying having breakfast here a few times this month. It’s been enjoyable and what I really like is the options for the kids meals. Will go again!!!

** EDIT That was my review from a year ago and unfortunately it no longer is accurate. After the management changed, this place has gone so downhill. My family of 5 (3 young children 5 and under) have been going here for so long. After the management changed, we continued to give it a chance even after seeing how many poor changes and choices they’ve made but today was my last straw.

We’ve come a few times this year and every time, there a new change. We normally upgrade one of the kids meals to have sweet potato fries, and today was told they cannot do that … the apple juice given to my son was so watered down it looked like water with a small squirt of food colouring, our waitress was extremely slow, and we are normally very understanding of their jobs and if they are busy but this wasn’t the case. After we asked for our bill we also asked for a bag to put our containers in, she proceeds to go to the back, talk to her other coworkers (which was happening throughout the entire time we were there), and returns for the payment without having a bag for us.

Additionally, we ordered a slice of cake, and after having almost all of it, we noticed a spider stuck to the chocolate frosting. It was so disgusting I had to get up and walk over to her and tell her about it. She went on to ask me where it was because she couldn’t see it. Common, it was pretty obvious, I only wish I took a picture of it before giving it back. They did remove that dessert from our bill, but honestly we are not going back. The quality is the food has gone downhill. I used to love their symposium burger and now it is sooooo dry. The kids chicken tenders have gone from looking like an actual tender, to a skinny little chicken fry, and the ice cream they give the kids is not ice cream. I had to take a picture but it’s frothy and so gross, that none of my kids had more than a few spoons before pushing it away. They also only give the kids 1 crayon each, rather than a whole pack of 2/3, which is pretty standard for restaurants. I’m normally not one to complain about the little things, but all these little things have added up too much.

We’ve given this place a lot of chances, but we are definitely done with it and we know if it was under the old management, it would have still had high standards. Too bad to see this place go so badly under. I would check another symposium location...