The Gumboot Restaurant — Restaurant in Area D (Roberts Creek)

Spoiler alert: this is a story of disappointment and regret.

I first came to The Gumboot restaurant around 12 years ago, and have fond memories of a cute place with great food and a wonderful community atmosphere. I visit the Sunshine Coast often, but since I was staying in Roberts Creek for the first time in a while—with my parents visiting on vacation from the UK—I thought they'd really like it too. We decided to stop for brunch this morning (Saturday 7th September), and everyone was hungrily looking forward to it!

Sadly, that was as good as it ever got.

We were happy to see it wasn't too busy—not even half full—so it was easy to get a table. Right from the start, the servers weren't very friendly. Had we arrived at an inconvenient time? Should we come back when they were in a better mood? I'm not sure, and got a pretty unfriendly vibe the whole time. I get more personable and engaging service in Vancouver. I still hoped it would get better.

We ordered in good time and got our drinks pretty quick. My girlfriend and I both liked the sound of the omelette of the day—mushroom and cheddar, which we both had with a side of bacon. The bacon is house-cured by a local butcher, so I thought this would be a great thing to add for $3.

I made better omelettes when I was learning to cook in my early teens. This was like a hockey puck; under-seasoned and like rubber. The mushrooms were tasteless and the cheese was non-existent. There was a mountain of potatoes; maybe to disguise the fact this plate was so bad. They weren’t even that good. I looked forward at least to the 'Gumboot multigrain bread'... a specialty, I thought. Nope. The driest and most tasteless bread I've eaten. It's what I expect gluten-free bread to taste like. The really bad kind. Butter could not save it. As for that bacon, I got two fairly small pieces, and it was underwhelming.

Back to the service; I sat for five minutes while my rubber omelette got cold, trying to catch anyone's eye so I could get some hot sauce. Nothing had been brought to the table with our food; when that came I'd asked for a coffee refill when they had a moment. I watched that server fill the coffee at another table and not bother coming to us. Eventually I went to the counter and asked for my hot sauce, and my coffee refill again.

We mentioned how bad this food was to our server, who seemed genuinely shocked. Maybe she should be more familiar with what comes out of the kitchen here.

It's good for The Gumboot that they have zero competition in Roberts Creek. They wouldn't stand a chance if they did. They're resting on past glories, but the halo of romance will only last so long. I was expecting a great return after years away, but left truly disappointed. We got the omelettes comped, which saved that server's tip.

Sorry Gumboot, but I won't be...

One of the worst dining experiences I’ve had to date.

When we first arrived, the host offered outdoors seating. We asked to be seated inside, the host told us that it would be a 25 minute wait to be seated at a table. She did however offer to seat us at the bar and inform us when a table would be made available. Even though we noticed that a perfectly good table was available we agreed to this as we thought that the table may have been reserved as it had yet to be bussed.

After sitting at the bar for about 15 minutes or so (by then it had been 5 minutes since we placed our order), we were moved to a table. The table we first noticed had been bussed and was unoccupied. No reserved sign was placed on it, leaving us wondering why that was not offered in the first place.

20 minutes after we had ordered we started to wonder why the order was taking so long. However we did not say anything as we wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt - they were somewhat busy with a number of other diners that had started clearing. Meanwhile the tables that were occupied were receiving their orders while the table we first noticed, was still unoccupied.

A server (not the one who took our order) must have noticed our frustration as they passed by, letting us know that our food was on the way. I then set a timer for an additional 10 minutes. The timer went off and our food had not arrived. Other tables had been served and were continuing to be served.

By then our patience had worn out. We went to the bar to settle our drinks tab explaining to the host why we were leaving. She asked us who served us and went to check the ticket list. Having done that, she came back to us letting us know that she couldn’t find the ticket in question. We thanked her for her service, settled the tab for our drinks and left.

While the servers were polite, the duration of the wait was abysmal. We would not have gone to this establishment in the first place had it not been suggested to us, and we will not be returning.

Hopefully, this review will at least provide whoever is reading this an idea of our experience and what may be in store as well as how much there...

Often thought of trying the Gumboot. Went there own a Wednesday night with a lady for our first outing. Really looking forward to a nice quiet dinner with a good bottle of wine and conversation. What a let down... To our total surprise they had a band there playing louder than a Vancouver Downtown night club on New Years Eve. The music was so loud that no one in the entire restaurant was able to talk to one another. Even shouting at each other had little effect. Just to be sure that no area of the entire restaurant was quiet, they have speakers located everywhere that were blasting away at us. The music was nothing special. All people could do was just sit and look at each other. Between songs there was a only very very small mount of polite applause. We wished we hadn't stayed and almost left twice. The couple at the table beside us were celebrating their 31st anniversary. They also were very disappointed having expected a nice quiet and intimate dinner. The food was okay - maybe 2.5-out-of-5. Our server was very nice. However, even she apologized several times for the loud music. Even she had to shout. We were unable to see anyone enjoying themselves and certainly no one really enjoying the thundering music. What a wasted evening. Neither of us will ever go there again and if asked, I will do my part to let others know what they will be faced with. Too bad - could otherwise be a good spot. If you are thinking of going, call ahead to see if you will be faced with a live band and/or...