Boston Pizza — Restaurant in Burlington

I feel very sad writing this review. We've been frequenting this South Service Rd location of Boston Pizza for several months now and it had quickly become a favourite. The servers have always been kind, the food is great, and we've had a great experience at every visit .... until now.

This evening (Wed, 18 Oct 2023), my husband, myself and our seven-year-old child went to Boston Pizza at about 6:30 PM. It was a little crowded and the receptionist (a lovely lady with purple hair) apologetically said that she could clean up a booth on the bar-side in 5 minutes compared to a 15-minute wait to be seated in the dining area. We opted for the bar-side seating, which was a first for us.

There was only one bartender/server in the area and we anticipated some waiting time. What we didn't expect was all that happened after we were seated.

A group of 7-8 young men arrived after us and were also seated in the bar area. The server went to take their order first. He then proceeded to attend to another group of clients (3 women) who were already dining there before we came. Yet another customer at the bar asked him for the bill, and the server responded to him promptly.

He kept ignoring us, and then my husband went up to the bar and asked him if he/someone would come to take our order as we had been waiting for a while. He just shrugged and said OK and turned away from my husband and continued to putter around behind the bar.

A few minutes later, the lady with the purple hair came around to clean another bar-side booth and we reached out to her and asked if someone could please take our order. She went up to the bartender to convey our request, but that too had no effect.

Obviously, we were not going to keep sitting there only to get ignored all evening, not to mention we also had our young child with us who was waiting patiently this entire time. We got up and left.

Before leaving, we informed the purple-haired lady when she came back to the reception that the bartender's behaviour was not cool at all. Ignoring us, serving customers who came after we did, attending to other customers while completely avoiding our booth.

The only difference between the other people in the area and us was our skin colour. Everyone else was white, and we were the only brown people there. Is that why his behaviour towards us was so discriminatory? I don't know. But I'd be foolish to ignore this possibility of discrimination and the very obvious fact that he didn't want to serve us, whatever his reason or bias may be.

It's a shame because we've never had such an experience at this location before. Needless to say, we're not coming back. If the manager is reading this, I'd urge you to train that employee of yours in inclusivity and basic decency when it comes to serving clients.

Even my 7-year-old had enough empathy to later suggest that "the man was probably having a bad day and that's why he was being mean to us." This is far more decency and kindness than that grown-up man showed us today.

We thank you for all the lovely experiences we've had at this location previously. Too bad that it takes years to build trust and a good relationship but only seconds...

What to try?

Generally the pastas are good here at Boston pizza, especially on Tuesdays when it's half price but I haven't been to a Boston pizza in awhile and today was my first time in a long time. I ordered the garlic shrimp spaghetti and I thought it was okay. The spaghetti texture tasted over cooked and the basil pesto was somewhat bland with the spaghetti because it tasted separate. The service was not that great either. We had a big party so we'll order drinks and jugs of waters but the drinks ended up coming first before we had to remind them about the jug of water. But only the jug of water came. There were no glasses served so we had to remind them again. It took them awhile to get us our glasses and by the time the glasses came, there wasn't enough glasses to go around the table. So we had to ask again. There were no utensils at the table when the food came so we had to remind them to bring us utensils. It was just constant back and forth with the servers to get us what we need. Perhaps there were too many ppl at the restaurant that they didn't cater to our needs in time, but it should be important to bring us the right amount of we need if they were to bring us the things we needed.

Last tip?

Check the table first and see what you have and need and ask for those first before ordering drinks or food. Ask for...

I visited this location for lunch. The restaurant was absolutely dead. Our server, Sophie was nice and polite and this review is not about her service. Although it is about the food.

Despite Sophie being on the ball and attentive to our table; the kitchen service was quite slow for a quiet restaurant.

I ordered the cactus chips and half were properly fried and crispy. The other half were mushy and soft. Thankfully this appetizer was free as I had a promo code.

I also ordered a small pizza (which was $23.77 plus tax!) and the first pizza came out rock hard. I expressed my concerns to Sophie and she apologized and offered to replace the pizza.

The second pizza came out and where it was slightly better, it was still pretty hard. When I brought up my concerns again, they blamed it on the dough.

I've had store bought frozen pizzas that have tasted better than the pizza I had at this location.

It's sad to say as I've had many pizzas from Boston Pizza before that were amazing. This particular location just couldn't live up to the standard of pizza that a Boston Pizza should be providing.

I'm not saying I'll never visit a Boston Pizza again. I just wouldn't visit this particular...