Bloom Bistro & Bar — Restaurant in Barrie

A disappointing experience from start to finish. Don't plan to visit here on any sort of holiday, unless you have hours to wait.

I messaged the restaurant through Facebook (because their website contact form wasn't working) letting them know I had trouble getting their website to email me the 2 for 1 bloom special coupon advertised on their website. I was informed that they are no longer honoring this deal, even though it's still up on their website as of the time of this review 05/12/2024.

I called a week in advance to make a reservation for Mother's Day, and the woman I spoke with at that time told me "ok, I've taken down your name, but you won't really need a reservation". I found this hard to believe since it would most likely be busy day, and turns out I was right.

Our party showed up for our reservation at 11am to a jam packed restaurant (as we expected since it was Mother's day), and I had to chase down two different servers before we could be seated 25 mins later at 11:25am, even though we had a reservation for 11am. We had to seat ourselves, and our order wasn't taken until 20 minutes later at 11:45am.

A young girl came by with our cutlery about 45 mins later at 12:30pm, but by 12:45pm (an hour and 20 mins after being seated) we still had seen no sign of our order. Our server seemed to always be in the kitchen most of the time, and only checked in on us once during this hour when we were finally able to ask for water. We had troubles tracking her down to find out what was going on.

After waiting 1.5 hrs for our food, I finally went up to the bar and asked to speak with the owner to find out what was going on, and just as I was speaking with her our server came out with our orders, except our server brought us the wrong orders. We had to send it back and then wait for the correct ones to be brought out. It turns out the table beside us was also brought the wrong orders by the same server we had.

I expressed our dissatisfaction to the owner with having to wait almost 1.5 hrs for our meals even after making a reservation, and the owner told me at that time "we don't take reservations", which I told her was not what I was told over the phone (nor the several other parties who had been waiting who also made reservations).

When we finally got our (correct) orders, the food was quite lovely and well prepared, although a little cold, and the presentation was quite nice, but it really shouldn't have taken 1.5 hrs, we only ordered bacon and eggs and homefries.

It also took quite a while to get our bill, which we finally got at 1:25pm (2.5hrs after arriving). The restaurant did waive the cost for our 2 drinks though, which we appreciated.

The atmosphere of the restaurant was lovely, with a beautiful Mother's Day wall display, and walls filled with lovely artwork from local artists, which we had plenty of time to view during our almost 3 hr visit. Our table had flowers, and everything from the tables and chairs to the menus, plates and silverware all felt very elegant. I would say the atmosphere was the highlight of our visit.

The washrooms need more attention (especially on busy days) as there was no toilet paper available in the handicapped bathroom, which we informed our server about.

This was our fist time visiting, as we wanted to support a local business, but I'm not sure that we will be returning after this experience. The restaurant was not at all prepared for the volume of customers they received on a day like Mother's Day, they absolutely need more staff helping in the kitchen. The wait staff also needs to be more attentive to their customers and check in on them more.

I would have rated the meal 4 stars out of 5, but since we got the wrong order I rated it a 3.

Atmosphere gets 5 stars, as it is really quite a lovely venue.

Service unfortunately gets 1 star, as there was just so many issues.

If you plan to visit, come during a non-peak time, and don't come on a holiday. We saw several people get up and leave after not getting their food 60 mins...

I belong to ladies group and we meet up for breakfast every Thursday at 9.30am. We have been to many breakfast restaurants each week over the last 18months and have to say this is the WORST for having to wait for our orders of food. We have been to Bloom Bistro 3 times now and I don't think we will be attending again. We were a large party granted but coffee orders were not taken until we had been sitting for 20mins it seemed there was inly one server taking the orders. Coffee order was very slow in fact took half an hour to get coffee/tea order taken. Our food order was also very slow to be taken. I ordered 2 eggs over easy with bacon and no toast. Orders of food started coming out around 10.35am. By 11am I decided that it wasn't worth the wait. I paid for my coffee and cancelled my food which still wasn't out. 3 of our group also left before their food was served. My friend is diabetic and had to ask server if her food could be bought out as she was starting to feel lightheaded. We had been there an hou already. The biggest complaint I have is that the owner/proprietor came out of kitchen alone and ate a sandwich/breakfast with coffee at a table at far end of restaurant approx 10.20am whilst knowing full well that our group had no food. Shame on you. After I had paid for coffee I asked him why if he knew the cook was struggling to fulfill orders he had sat down himself with a plateful of food. He was was very defensive and said I was rude for asking. If this place is yo be a success they really need to rethink their approach. The Bloom Bistro has a lovely menu but too extensive that is their downfall. No cutlery on table so even when coffe/tea came you couldn't stir it if you had milk/sugar. If you are going to advertise breakfast then patrons expect quick service. They obviously don't employ enough staff. The place was not even full. 2 other tables of 2 were served way before us even though they came in after us. The poor girl taking the orders you were great. She was very concerned about how long we had waited. So if you are planning a breakfast at Bloom Bistro don't expect to have food...

First off, we came in and no one greeted us. Had to help ourselves to the bar for the menu. The owner came out of the kitchen to which then I asked if we can sit anywhere and she directed us to an empty table which still hasn’t been cleaned (saying somebody was already cleaning it). We stood awkwardly for a few minutes beside the unclean table and just sat down eventually while the lady server was still settling the bill from another table beside us. Finally somebody came to clean our table and took our orders. Our drinks arrived quickly but my hot chocolate didn’t come with a stirring spoon so I burned my tongue a little bit trying to sip on the melting whipped cream. After nearly an hour, we had almost finished our drinks and I asked for some water. Still no food. After 15 minutes, still no water. I beckoned for the waitress and reminded her about the water and also asked about our order. It didn’t take her 2 seconds to answer they lost our order but it is now being plated. My partner and I are now slowly losing interest over the food. The owner comes out and apologizes profusely and offers us food on the house, got a muffin and an order of potato fritters which we were thankful for. After maybe another 15 minutes the food is finally in front of us but I have now lost my appetite. The home fries were okay but the rest of our orders were delicious. Owner kept checking how we were and kept offering anything “on the house” but we were happy with what we had. They gave us a further discount during payment time which I really appreciated. If it weren’t for the kindness and apologies, I would’ve given one star. Maybe next time the server should be more attentive and have better presence of mind when serving customers. And we could’ve appreciated being informed of the order mishap rather than wondering what has happened (we could’ve taken our food to go because we were still travelling back to Toronto). All in all, it was an okay experience. May come...