ONE18 EMPIRE — Restaurant in Calgary

SO GRATEFUL - SUCCESSFUL, WONDERFUL BREAKFAST FOR 25

I was in town for an annual conference (Rotary, 15k attendees from around the world). This year, like previous years held in different Intl cities, I hosted a breakfast for ~25 of my special friends/colleagues who were attending the conference with me.

A month prior, I interviewed three restaurants. I ended up contracting with ONE18 EMPIRE because of: a) their location -- easily walkable to Stampede Park b) my trust in Marriott-linked restaurants, and c) how their manager (Angelyn Goc-Oban) collaborated with me.

I wasn't disappointed. FOOD: Wonderful private breakfast buffet. My friends commented how this was so much better than their hotel's breakfast selection. Not the typical bucket of eggs, bacon, and fruit. Chef-prepared. Bespoke. (see buffet menu pic) We were also able to order off a menu for those with special food needs. Nice!

ATMOSPHERE/VENUE: We were given a private room with three tables (Mc Tavish Room - see pics). The buffet was around the corner. The room was special because of the rolling "barn doors" that opened the room up during socializing and buffet time, but could be closed to provide intimacy while we ate and talked.

SERVICE: I arrived about 30 minutes early. Faya, our lead server met me and walked me through everything. She even brought me an early coffee. As the morning progressed, she ensured the buffet remained stocked, turned off the overhead speaker music, and helped late arrivals get seated. Wow! Faya was great.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND: I would definitely recommend ONE18 for small-group breakfasts. Angelyn is a great F&B operations manager -- who will work directly with you and also ensure a strong team member (like Faya) will take good care of your group. And, the kitchen team prepared the best breakfast buffet I've seen for a restaurant in general or for a small group.

Oh, additional note. One of our breakfast group accidently left behind a few items. The ONE18 team secured the items and worked with me to get the items back to the owner the next...

I booked this restaurant for dining on Halloween night through Open Table simply based on the location. My wife and I were attending the CPO's performance of Nightmare Before Christmas and we wanted a nice dinner before the show. ONE18 Empire is nice and close to Art Commons.

Our reservation was for 6:00pm and we arrived nearly 15 minutes early. We expected to wait but they greeted us immediately upon arrival and sat us right away. It wasn't very busy at the time so I'm sure that helped. All the staff were wearing stylish masks for Halloween. It was a nice touch and added to our Halloween experience.

We got water and menus almost immediately after sitting down and our server greeted us with the drink specials. I took her up on the Old Fashioned, it was delicious and made me feel like Don Draper!

After a short while the drinks arrived and she took our food order. We went for the calamari and hot pretzel as starters. For our mains, my wife ordered the portobello mushroom dish and I got the ribeye steak.

The food all came out as expected and we were both very impressed with our main dishes. I have to say the steak was pretty darn good! The mushroom dish was very flavourful and would be something I'd order for myself the next time. Dessert was equally awesome.

All in all, this was pretty much the perfect dining experience except for a minor mix up on our bill which was rectified quickly and easily. Our server was super friendly and efficient, giving us just the right amount of attention.

Our bill was just over $110 which was very reasonable for 2 appys, 2 mains, 2 desserts and four drinks. Very affordable and we got more than our fill for the price.

I highly recommend giving these guys a try, we'll certainly be back when looking for a nice, affordable...

Very very disappointed in the service we received yesterday. I had arranged a bachelorette brunch for my cousin. The operations manager had e-mailed me saying that the month of May had $5 mimosas. From the moment we got to the restaurant we felt ignored. It took forever for the server to get our drink orders even though the restaurant was completely dead, and when she finally did she told us that the mimosa deal was done because May is over. Last I checked it was still May. She argued with us and I showed her the email I had from Luke saying it. She finally gave in and agreed to it. It also took forever for us to get our food. They did nothing special for my cousin at all. I felt so bad. Usually restaurants go above and beyond to make a bride to be feel special. This restaurant did nothing. Not only that we had a last minute cancellation of two people, we were told the minimum spent should be $250. I understand this but after the horrible service we received you'd think that she would waive this. We were $35 short. We then decided to order three deserts to go and requested the nuts on the side due to an allergy. We paid the bill and took the desserts back and found that there was nuts all over the brownies. The only good part of the whole experience was the cookies that I had ordered from another bakery. I would never ever return to this place and recommend others...