National Westhills — Restaurant in Calgary

My friend and I decided to go to out for dinner on a very hot +30 Saturday early evening. We were greeted and seated immediately. Our server Indigo came over for our drink/food order. We gave our drink order, but we still hadn’t decided on our food. We got our drinks they were served in tiny glasses, the drinks we’re mediocre and the water was warm. Our server took back the water jug and brought us a fresh “cold one”, but it was also warm. We ordered our food. The gentleman who brought out our food was pleasant. The Caeser Salad was okay had a kind of a anchoive after taste, the pizza was hot and tasted ok. Really wasn’t a meal to write home about. We did not see our server again until we were done our food and had sat for 20 minutes waiting for her. We started to get up to go get our bill from the front desk when she suddenly appeared out of nowhere. What happened next is what absolutely made me disgusted. We had been collecting gift cards that we wanted to use towards the entire meal. The server gave my friend the machine to add the tip, then swiped our first gift card, then handed the machine back to my friend to enter another tip! Can you believe that she actually wanted a second tip on the remaining balance after the tip was already added to the entire bill in the first place. My friend said we are not paying a second tip so she swiped the second gift card and stupidly tried to pull the same BS by handing over the machine again for a now third tip which of course we said no. Finally she got the point and finished the last gift card. I was paying the remaining bill and when she handed me the machine she said please finishing entering the amount I looked at her and said I do not know where you learned your customer service but if I acted the way you have requesting a tip at each new balance I would have no accounting clients left. I am appalled at your behaviour. It is nothing to use your brains and just swipe all three cards without handing the machine back until the remaining balance needs to be paid without the tip option. Instead you made your self look extremely selfish. We decided that we would...

I like to leave good reviews when I've had a great experience. That is not the case this time. I hope this feedback will help make improvements. It was my first time in this location, and I was not impressed at all. We all work in the industry at a very busy pub in the area. I made a reservation for brunch on Sunday. The service was really slow. It took 15 minutes to get drinks for the first round. Some of us staggered in later, and we ordered right away, knowing that it would take longer. I ordered a virgin Caesar, very weird that it doesn't come with a lime, bean, or celery. Just because it's a virgin doesn't mean it shouldn't get anything. One of us ordered a sangria, and it tasted so bad she had to send it back.

The service was very mediocre. A smile goes a long way. I don't know, maybe Sunday mornings some people are tired and not in the best moods. The second round of drinks were non existent. Most of us would have ordered more drinks if the server had anticipated the next round. Sunday funday would have continued here, but everyone decided to go somewhere else to continue drinking.

Now for the food. This was my first time ever eating at National, and the brunch items were all bad except for the Avocado bowl. One of us said it was good. I ordered the big breakfast, which was not big at all. The worst part of it was the hashbrowns. They were totally burned and had no flavor. The only decent part was the bacon. I thought for $19 I would leave full but was thoroughly disappointed. Some of us had the eggs benedict and were disappointed as well. Very little hollandaise sauce and flavorless.

Lastly the ambiance felt like Denny's. It was so bright and it didn't feel like the other Nationals.

All in all, it was not a great experience. There really isn't any reason to come back when there are so many other great options out there. We did all leave more than 20% because we understand the industry...

This was our first time back here since the pandemic began, and things seem to have gone downhill in the past few years. We'd never had complaints before, but now we have no desire to go back. Service: Aside from a front-of-house manager, every worker in the place seemed extremely young. Like high school young. Our server was shy and soft-spoken and offered nothing by way of banter, which ran contrary to what we expect from a place like National; usually the servers are outgoing and like to joke around. It felt awkward. We had our toddler with us, but we had to ask for a high chair after we were seated -- usually hosts ask if we want one or simply assume we do and bring it to the table when they seat us. There was also a surprising amount of garbage on the floor under our table and the table next to us. Price point: Prices for many menu items seemed simply outrageous: $18 for hummus and pita? Chick peas are cheap! $11 for tater tots? They probably come from Costco! Food: We had looked forward to getting fish and chips, which used to be our standby, but apparently it's no longer on the menu. Despite the price, we got the tater tots for our kid, who liked them well enough, but I tried the truffle dip that came with them and found it pretty disgusting. The wagyu beef dip tasted fine but was very light on beef and just very small. The bread wasn't crusty enough to stand up to the au jus. The side caesar salad also looked small and just sad, like it came out of a bag, and it tasted the way it looked. The Thai beef bowl tasted pretty good, but it was also very small, and the bowl it was served in might've looked nice, but it had this nails-on-chalkboard scraping effect whenever I used my fork. We were all hungry again an hour later. We'd been looking forward to a meal out at a dependable restaurant, but we left feeling disappointed. Just an...