Rimrock Social — Restaurant in Alberta

During our recent stay in Banff, we dined at The Larkspur—an experience that unfortunately turned out to be the worst customer service encounter we've had in recent memory. While we understand that the restaurant is technically separate from the hotel it’s located in, the connected nature of the two inevitably blended the experience, casting a shadow over our entire stay.

The Larkspur operates under a “seat yourself” policy, which seems casual and convenient in theory. In practice, however, it resulted in chaos and frustration. After seating ourselves, we found only a drinks menu on the table and waited 30 minutes before we were able to flag down a staff member just to get a food menu. Another 30 minutes passed before anyone came to take our order—and only after we complained loudly.

Given the price point of the hotel—$1000 per night—we expected a level of service that reflected the cost. Time is a luxury, especially in a destination as busy as Banff, and it felt like our time was completely disregarded. Watching multiple servers zip around, assisting other tables while pointedly ignoring ours, was both baffling and deeply frustrating. When we finally did receive service, the attitude was shockingly rude and condescending—absolutely not what you'd expect from a so-called resort or 5-star hotel experience.

On to the food: We ordered the poutine and steak frites. The steak frites were quite good—the steak was cooked well and seasoned nicely. The poutine, on the other hand, was inedibly salty. It was so aggressively seasoned that we genuinely felt it bordered on a health concern. Perhaps poutine is best left to the Quebecois, because this version missed the mark entirely. By that point, we were too exhausted and deflated to send anything back.

We also ordered a beer flight and a jasmine-based mocktail. The beer flight was simply dropped off at the table with no explanation, no tasting notes, not even a basic rundown of which beer was which—something that's standard practice at most establishments. The jasmine mocktail was, frankly, awful. It lacked balance, flavor, and depth. The dried orange slice added an unpleasant bitterness, and the vanilla syrup didn’t blend with any of the other elements in the drink.

Final thoughts: We had high hopes for The Larkspur, but the combination of poor service, disappointing food, and inattentive staff made this a deeply unpleasant experience. For an establishment charging resort-level prices, the level of hospitality was far below what one should reasonably expect. We left feeling not just disappointed, but...

We have been to this lounge several times over the past few years and overall had very good experiences both with the service and with the food. Today however we were disappointed. Although our server was pleasant the service was slow and he didn’t bring the cocktail peanuts with our initial drinks despite doing so for every other table it seemed. I ordered a B-52 coffee and they brought it to me in a basic coffee cup. The $25 burger was basically a frozen patty and Flavourless and fries were frozen and not fresh cut. We have had the burger before and it was very good. The salad was barely OK. and didn’t seem that fresh. To be fair, the wings were quite tasty, as was the salmon appetizer, Since our server was rarely around and no one asked for feedback we didn’t provide any. Still giving a three star vs two because the ambiance is so great there and the Concierge generously provided free valet parking to keep our Bikes secure on our vehicle. Hopefully IF we return things...

Good food, cocktails, and mountain views. Service on the other hand was not so good. The waitress that was helping us out I cannot complain, she was great. The host or manager on the other hand wearing a green.jacket was very unprofessional. When your job is the service industry, how you treat you customers is very important. My issue was very easy to resolve, we asked for salt and pepper for the soup which was already on the cold side, this fella never came back. The soup kept on getting colder, when I saw my waitress for salt and pepper it took her 30sec to get it. The original fella that I asked for the salt and pepper never came back, when I saw him after, he literally said that he was very busy and walked away, he also said that he made sure that our waitress got us what we wanted, which I doubt since I had to ask her for the salt and pepper. I understand being understaffed can be a problem, but do not walk away while talking and at...