Happy Lamb Hot Pot, Calgary — Restaurant in Calgary

You know, you find a place that you go back time and time again. I really enjoyed going here from time to time. Food was good. Service was great and friendly. The whole experience was awesome. But the old saying goes; You’re a victim of your own success. What I mean by that is me and my roommates went here for like the fifth time. I can understand wait times during peak moments. I am a very patient person. This put my patience to the limits; I arrived at the restaurant at 6:35pm noticed that there were a lot of other patrons waiting. I was instructed to put my name on the wait list - so I did just that. I was #118. Standing for a while. I then heard a number being called out !!!Number 102!!! - so yeah it will be a while sure. Again I’m patient. Told my roomies to go get some bubble tea while I wait. Around 7:30pm (at this point I’m waiting just under a hour) Numbers being called out sporadically. 109-112-107-99-115. A couple of other families were getting quite agitated listening to the numbers called out randomly which they went up to the desk and say WTF? Their excuse….ohh we are seating large groups 8-10+ (who came in AFTER those smaller groups who signed in the same way I did) - I did notice these tables pushed together to make room for the larger groups. So there was absolutely no excuse for them to bypass the smaller groups due to the tables can be separated. So us 2-5 people groups were being bypassed. So I called them out by saying “So Us 3 party groups are hindering our place in line to those who are in larger groups who came in after us” Coming up to 815pm I keep hearing numbers being called out. 113-120-119-116. At this point my abundance of patience has been reduced to near zero. I was about to be one of those Karen’s and start complaining. The moment I was about to I looked at my watch; at 8:28 our number was FINALLY called out. I mentioned to the wait staff who escorted us to our table was to really reevaluate their booking process how it is unfair. I waited because I really like the experience and food.

Well the food - it used to be absolutely amazing and delicious. Not any more. I took some shrimp. Yeah - absolutely not fresh at all. It had that odour to it that it was starting to go bad. I wasn’t going to take my chances. I gathered the shrimp, put it on one of the small plates. I mentioned that to the wait staff about what the shrimp was like. After I said my little bit, they grabbed the plate and walked away - no apology, no excuses, and absolutely zero accountability of someone could get sick.

So I just shrugged my shoulders and moved on other food seemed good. I grabbed some crab sticks. Some of the crab sticks still had a plastic liner around - barely visible until it falls off after being in the hot pot. Good thing I noticed. Rest of the food was good but my taste was soured due to the wait experience, the way that staff member handled the shrimp, the crab sticks

I went up to pay for our bill. There was absolutely zero friendliness when our bill came up. They printed the bill and slapped it on the counter with zero care and ZERO appreciation for me and my roommates PAYING $110!! waiting for ONE HOUR AND 30 minutes!!! There was no thank you for coming to their establishment. Zero appreciation for us waiting soo long.

All in all the experience this time felt like we were a herd of sheep with a number painted. Made us wait and witnessed their seating procedures that made ZERO sense. As well as mediocre food. Left a very small and unremarkable experience this time.

Earlier in this review I mentioned a saying “you’re a victim of your own success.” Meaning they are getting soo popular. Multiple locations throughout North America. But the bigger and popular you get, the more you ignore the finer points of why the business is success.

I will not...

Honestly if it were possible to rate the cashier’s services 0 stars I would honestly.

My friends and I came to eat and celebrate a birthday of our friend, we ordered and enjoyed our time together as a group. The servers were great, however, after cutting the cake and making sure we thanked them for their service, we had to go pay. The cashier right off the bat seemed hella sketched out, and when he told us that our total was $35.70 per person I was extremely worried!!!! How is it $28 per person for dinner time became $35.70 !!???!

When my boyfriend decided to pay for our friend (birthday person) as well and wasn’t able to tip due to the fact that we’re still students, the cashier loudly said “oh you didn’t enjoyed our service, I feel bad now” which indicated that he was trying to publicly announce that we couldn’t tip him for the service??!!! (My boyfriend didn’t tip due to the fact that our other friends were gonna tip anyways and to be fair he had to pay double amount to begin with since he paid for our friend’s bill as well (birthday person)). After hearing that I personally confronted him saying “excuse me?!” Which he then mumbled “never mind”. The audacity to loudly announce that we apparently “didn’t enjoyed their service” just because my boyfriend didn’t tip (but our friends did!!!!). He also didn’t apologize for what he said by the way, not even that, he even made a mistake on our bill!!!!!!!

Our ACTUAL correct total 5 PEOPLE AYCE during dinner service ($139.95) + 2 favour soup base Large ($9.99) + 3 pops ($4.50) + 2 ice tea ($3.00) Subtotal is $157.44 Tax(5%) = $7.87 AMOUNT = $165.31

VS the ORIGINAL amount = $172.8

But because I started to ask more about to why it’s so expensive, he gave in and confessed and blamed his coworkers for making a mistake on our bill…. Our total originally was $172.8, yes some may argue that it’s not much of a difference from our ACTUAL CORRECT TOTAL, keep in mind our friends did in fact tip for the great service that we had, before the public humiliation..

But the point is, is that we came to the restaurant and enjoyed the service wanting the truth and loyalty to the customers, not publicly humiliate STUDENTS (uni/college) for not being able to tip!!???????!!!!! It’s already hard enough with loans and bills that we have to pay, but for the cashier to demand us to tip them… I honestly don’t appreciate that at all. My friends tip them at least $5 - $10 in total, and it wasn’t more because after that public humiliation I did chose NOT to tip because of after all of that humiliation??!!! We did not deserved that treatment from the cashier!!!

I understand how hard it is to work in the industry especially being a waitress/waiter/cashier. Heck I’ve been in the industry for 5 years servicing and making sure customers are satisfied no matter what, but no matter what I would have NEVER EVER complained and PUBLICLY announced that a customer didn’t tip because they didn’t enjoy our service!!???! We would’ve recorded the whole situation, but wasn’t able to get the chance to do so… just so disappointed and frustrated!

I really do hope that the owners and the managers read this and understand that this is outrageous to have the audacity to pull something like this on your customers!!??!!! I hope the management and the service changes for the better after this incident. But honestly, my family, friends, and I will never be coming back to support this business again. After experiencing that… that was very frustrating and really disappointing.

Thank you to those who was amazing tonight, however, the person who was on cashier… very disappointed. We all hope you change for the better and for the good. Don’t ever try to publicly embarrass customers because they’re not able to tip for your service, you never know what the customers are...

Gross, nasty, dirty, appalling, that sums it all up for me. My wife and I use to love this place and after the buffet style change that literally makes everyone in the restaurant have to walk around and get their own drinks and food it has become to much for me. What happened to the service industry? It's absolutely horrible now at this place. We were seated at an disgustingly dirty table and had to ask for the seats to be cleaned because it had dirty nasty food on it from the previous customers and even the floor under the table had food all over it which got all over my new shoes which I had to clean when I got home. I wear $300 Diesel jeans and was seated at a table that could've ruined my jeans from the lack of cleanliness and almost getting oil from the previous hot pot on my clothing. Theirs literally no service anymore from the waiters and waitresses yet they all want a tip and the table I was seated at had so much traffic from customers walking back and forth getting their own food and drinks that it was not an enjoyable time whatsoever at all and at least 200 people walked back and fourth past my table the entire time I was dinning. I've never experienced such an atrocity at this place or any other restaurants ever in my entire life and I have been here a lot and really enjoyed it before but now it's not fun with all the dundums running around trying to get shrimp and pop. This place is not very clean and is quite dirty and gross now with having everyone touching everything at the areas to get raw uncooked food and drinks. The amount of people getting drinks and standing at the fountain pop machine just tasting every drink they can and touching their used plastic cups against the dispensing parts of the machines in itself is enough for me to never come back let alone all the people touching the same tongs to get food to take back to their table is insane. I seen a lady walking back to her table with food in one hand and her other hand wiping snot off her nose with her shirt, disgusting. Other people constantly touching their faces and then grabbing tongs to get chicken wings or buns. People sneezing and coughing and then getting food, how does the City of Calgary allow this to be ok. The amount of people touching themselves and then the getting food is appalling and disgusting. People sneezing and coughing and then handling food that everyone else has to handle is beyond disgusting. This place is going to be a nightmare for everyone during the flu seasons and if there's an outbreak of COVID again I would highly recommend staying away from this place. My wife and I have decided to never return and that we will make our own hotpot at home now and stay far far far away from this nasty dirty gross restaurant that offers no table service. Half the experience is having a waiter dine on you and bring you drinks and food and the other half is enjoying the food and drinks. I couldn't imagine going to a place like the keg and having everyone cook their own steaks and get their own drinks from the bar, that in itself would be a horrible experience. Whoever thought of making this place a free for all is out of their mind and you are seriously looking for trouble by getting humans sick by doing so. Humans by nature are not very smart and the nature of this is a horrible experience. I will take my $100 elsewhere and never return. No need to reply to my review with a stupid message that won't change anything to begin with. Seriously one of the nastiest dinning experiences of my life and you cannot take that or delete that experience from my brain like a social media post. Would I recommend...