Browns Socialhouse Brewery District — Restaurant in British Columbia

Before you read my complaint, please know I had to take the night to sit with the experience I had so that this review was not as harsh as it should be. Last night, Monday July 22nd, I made plans with my dear friend I have not seen in 13 years. Someone I grew up with and someone with the biggest heart of all. I came early and sat at the bar. Greeted not so quickly as most staff in the restaurant business tend to spend their nights chatting at the bar or with the bartenders. Once I was greeted I was offered a menu which I ended up ordering 1 very spicy pint size cesar. My friend was having troubles finding the place so I offered to leave my credit card and that I would return shortly. Which we did. Once my friend and I returned we sat back at the bar on the end near the bathrooms. We immediately shared laughter and had to tell our bartender that it's been 13 years and it's a reunion. As you do when you tell your server it's your birthday. My friend asked with a smile on his face, " what are your specials today and or what do you recommend I try". He is not someone to endalge in fancy drinks. Mind you, he is on vacation. We ordered two Palomas. They were delicious. He ordered a second one shortly after the first. We already had our menus and planned to spend our evening there and enjoy dinner. As I told him this place has great food, I come here often. Here's where it gets interesting. The bartender, who I strongly believe  without a doubt in my mind had the worst and most uncalled for response to us saying to one another " Lets have some drinks and eat in an hour". replied: " were not a bar, and if you have too many drinks on your bill without food we can't serve you".  This is within 15 mins of being inside the restaurant. An absolute disgrace. Her judgment in the matter was very uncalled for. I replied back to the bartender " that was a bit early to say to us". As we had only 1 and 2 drinks each. AGLC does not require you to have to say this to your customers unless they portray actions of intoxication and behaviour as such. She was rude. Her body language was rude. I asked her what was the reason for saying two times that " this is not a bar it's a restaurant". The kicker.. after we then felt the need to leave and that we were unwelcome. She then decided doing cutlery on tables was better than seeing if your customers would like anything else. She avoided us and I had to ask a rude server for our bill as we decided to take our business to the Cactus Club nearby. When she brought the bill I asked her how long she had been there for and if she knew the regulars, so and so and after all the many evenings spent at Browns drinking with them without food on our tabs just hundreds and hundreds of dollars spent over the years, why is it we were sought out. After paying our bill and STILL tipping her 15% because it's the right thing to do regardless of the horrible experience. We got up to leave and were then told by a young, immature boy / server to say " there's a bar down the road". Was the icing on the cake to never return to Browns Social Hall again.  I hope this experience teaches you to really train employees to learn proper judgment skills with AGLC protocol at hand, respect and kindness. We live in a society where judging is the easiest thing next to racism and hatred. I reached out to some of the staff that work there and they responded with " I can't believe this happened to you". I hope you file a complaint, you didn't deserve this. Thank you for the many years of enjoyment in your facility and the...

I showed up to meet 2 friends here expecting to have a nice late dinner and drinks at a sophisticated restaurant. But instead, I experienced the most horrendous service I have ever encountered at this establishment. When I arrived there was no hostess to be found so I searched the restaurant myself trying to find the guests that were already seated. My friends had already been served drinks. They flagged down the waitress so I could order my drink too. She asked for 2 pieces of ID. Being 35, I never get asked for 1 piece of ID, let alone 2. I only had 1 piece of ID (my drivers licence) so she refused to serve me. This was weird because she had not asked either of the my friends for theirs. She then went on to say she could not serve them anymore alcohol unless they showed her 2 pieces as well. Lucky for them, they both had 2 pieces. I ordered a coke since she would not serve me alcohol. It came back a very light watery color and had no taste. When I told her she said they had to change the machine so I ended up getting an iced water instead. We ordered a couple more drinks, yam fries, blackened chicken fettuccine and salad which all took forever to come. We all kept wondering what was taking so long when the restaurant was not busy at all. We all ordered hot wings. We were not served moist towelettes or napkins to wipe our hands. When we were done eating, we requested some wet wipes, which she said they didn’t have. What kind of restaurant serves saucy hot wings without wipes? She said she could bring a bowl of water instead to cleanse our fingers with. We sat there for 10 mins with saucy fingers waiting for her to bring the bowls of water. She failed to bring them. We all ended up going to the restrooms to wash our hands instead. She finally brought the water bowls half an hour later when we were ready to leave. We requested the bill and the machine, but she only brought us the bill. We asked for the machine again and it never came. We were so fed up of waiting that we finally just went to the front to pay, and what do we see? Our server wasn’t serving us because she was too busy on Facebook on her phone. Seriously? This is the only time I’ve ever not left a tip. None of us are ever...

We knew heading into Brown’s what we should be expecting. We order the same thing at their other locations. However, because I’m 38 weeks pregnant and had to go immediately to RCH last night, we quickly stopped into Brown’s to get some food in us because we didn’t know when we would get to eat next.

I did let the servers know we were going to be heading to the hospital immediately after.

Instead of getting a burger each like usual, we decided to split one (I didn’t want to over eat in case I was going to be induced).

No, don’t get me wrong, the flavours of the food were excellent. However, the burger patty itself seemed thinner than normal. And the poutine curds or cold.

I did get a small cowboy salad, but it seemed to be a little chintzy with some of the ingredients. When the server asked if I wanted to add protein, I thought actually that would be a good idea so I added chicken. I was completely choked to see that we paid $6.75 for an incredibly small (five slices of a thin, 3 ounce chicken breast). But hey, that’s what you get for not eating at home.

What particularly frustrated my husband was that we decided to also order beverages. He ordered a beer and I ordered a non-alcoholic drink. His beer came and sat for 15 minutes while we waited for my drink so we could toast to potentially the last night of being a family of three. The food came and my drink never did. By the time we were done our food, my drink still wasn’t there so he sent his beer back because at this point now we had to get to the hospital.

We are exhausted, we have a 2 1/2 year-old and never get the opportunity to go out anymore so it was just a disappointing experience.

The atmosphere got three stars because there were a lot of flies inside the restaurant and they kept trying to land on our food.

When you already have to pay for parking, and then you have an experience like this, it just reinforces staying at home. I’m the only one that cooks so I just wanted a break.😮‍💨

Oh, then I’d also like to ask is it customary that the server automatically tips themselves 35%+?

Because we were shocked that $18 was automatically factored into the bill. My husband did rectify that by tipping $10...