Reader's Garden Cafe — Restaurant in Calgary

We went to the cafe as we heard some great reviews from friends.

Everything seemed fine. We did take a while to order because we had to settle the kids down.

We received our food and everything looked great. One of our guest had their eggs overcooked and it was handled efficiently and we got our eggs done perfectly.

Then half-way through the meal, we found a long piece of hair in our guest meal. She was eating her croquet madam when a long piece of hair was tangled up in her food, in her mouth. It was rather long and she had to literally dig it out of her mouth. To which she completely lost her appetite and we waved a server over to show them the hair.

It was just taken away and we felt like it was an extreme bother. They were short staff and nobody came over to acknowledge anything. Obviously at this point, our guest had no interest in a new meal.

I saw the server grabbed the hair from our guests hand and placed it on the plate. She walked and placed the plate on the table near the back. After which we proceeded to serve guests rolled up napkins with her unwashed hands. Followed by running plates of food.

I understand they may have been busy, wishing hands and sanitizing is an important step.

We were also told that nobody else that was cooking had long hair. It seemed they were trying to say that it was our hair. Our guest’s hair was a short layered cut. He sat next to my partner which was a clean cut men’s hair. I sat on the other side of the table which was no where near her meal.

I was definitely disappointed with...

It was our second time in this cafe and I think we won’t be going back anymore.

About the upsides first - very nice location, historical building and very beautiful garden. Very nice atmosphere. But the food is mediocre and the service is not very good. Today at around 11 am we went there with my wife to get some coffee and desert. I was working on my laptop and my wife was reading a book. Coffee was and food was just ok, not bad, 3/5.

But we did not feel welcome there because of the older guy’s service(is he the owner? I’m not sure). Somewhere around 30 minutes in we were brought a receipt without asking for one which seemed a little hostile. We decided not to worry, pay and just stay a little more. But then in around 10 minutes the guy came over and asked us to leave because the table we were occupying was supposedly needed for a reservation. It seems to be nonsensical. Because

1. no one told us the table was reserved
2. there were other free tables and no one offered us to go to another table.
3. there were older ladies sitting beside us, they were sitting with empty coffee mugs and just chatting. They were there before we came and stayed after we left, so it’s not like the place was busy. In the end it seems the issue was my laptop and my wife’s book(?) I don’t see any other reasons

The bottom line is, I got a feeling that if you are not a boomer then you are not welcome. Do not recommend.

Ps. The other waiter who helped us, Sabrina,...

We rented out this space for our wedding reception and dinner after an intimate ceremony at the garden. Helmut, the manager, was communicative and accommodating. The food was quite good. It was very convenient to have the reception so close to the ceremony space in the garden. And it helped to rent the bridal room above the cafe for the day to get ready and keep our personal items. I’d recommend to anyone looking for a simple and convenient wedding reception space after a ceremony at RRG. I’m only docking one star because at the end of the night we had to race out, along with our guests at 11pm as we were told our cars would be locked in if we didn’t get out before then. Something that obviously should have been communicated more clearly before the day of our wedding, much less 15 minutes until 11. Previously we’d been told that we could stay until 11, and not that we’d be locked in if we didn’t leave before 11. Obviously just a communication breakdown, but it caused an abrupt and hasty end to our otherwise very relaxed and joyous day. If you book a wedding reception here, just make sure to contact the park to confirm when the gate gets locked, and any other...