We were a group of 12 people, and from walk-in to exit, the experience was not very warm or welcoming.

We were a group of 25-35 yrs, and we were a bit confused at first when entering because the sign said seat yourselves. After standing around for a few moments, we made a move to find seats, an employee approached us out of no where and his approach was a bit aggressive. He asked us for IDs, which I found interesting when the sign said to seat yourselves (mixed messaging) and I noted other patrons walking in with no carding while we were speaking to the employee (maybe they were already inside and carded?).

Then we were told to find our own seats and maybe we need to be split up. Okay thats fine. What blew my mind was there was a section completely empty, and when we asked to sit there the waitress told us the section was closed. The other alternative was for our group to split into 2-3 tables far from one another. Not really something you want to do when traveling from around the country for a cousins trip in Canmore.

I thought the situation was hilarious. Do you want our business or not? We had to pitch and convince the waitress to go and ask for permission for us to sit in this "closed" section so we can sit together. It wasn't really welcoming and I felt like we were not wanted and we were being a huge inconvenience to the staff.

All in all, bad vibe. My cousins felt like we were being received like this because we were brown. I'd like to think the people here are better than that, and it was simply a mix of bad judgment, laziness, mixed messaging.

Leaving two star because there was also some issues with food quality (broken chicken fingers that looked like someone ate before serving) and employees said some things I didn't appreciate.

Edit: I spoke to the doorman at Rose & Crown in Banff and he told me that when they convert from restaurant to full pub, they begin asking for IDs. We did arrive around that time. If instead the sign said please wait to be seated and prepare your IDs, I think a large part of the hostile vibe we felt would have never happened.

Instead when we tried to seat ourselves per sign, it's like someone chased us down for trespassing and then didn't want to offer any help until it got really ridiculous. Also if they are busy during these times, no section should be closed, or they should be on standby to open when needed (which was not offered in our case and needed some begging).

Management: Experiences are very important. Every other restaurant we been to in Banff treated us really well. I invite you to rethink how things are done from an experience standpoint.