The Friendly Society — Restaurant in Centre Wellington

Our dinner at The Friendly society was in interesting event. We had reservations (thank goodness, as the town was packed for their Christmas Market event), so we showed up about 5 minutes early for our reservation. The hostess told us our table wasn’t; ready yet and asked if we would mind waiting a few minutes for the current guests to leave.

No problem, I said, “do you have an area where we can wait?” The hostess said you can wait over there, waving her hand towards her left, adding that if we wished, we should feel free to rad one of their books. I was expecting that they had an actual waiting area, but it was just the space at the bottom of the stairs, and they had a few cookbooks on a low dividing wall that you could browse through.

After about 5 minutes, the hostess came over to us and asked if she could help us. Clearly, she had forgotten speaking to us 5 minutes earlier and mistook us for a couple who had just wandered in off the street, looking for someplace to eat. We reminded her that we had reservations, and she said, in a bit of a surprised voice “okay, I will show you to your table”.

We were seated and the server presented us with both the dinner and drinks menus.

My wife ordered a spiked eggnog and I ordered a local craft beer, both of which were delivered quickly. For our meal, my wife ordered a roasted Reuben sandwich, while I order the soup de jour and the Chicken Tawook, which I have never had before, but was curious about. The soup arrived promptly and was delicious. It was a mushroom cream soup and tasted like it had bit of wild mushrooms in it.

After I finished my soup (or at least most of it, as my wife had a bit after tasting it), our entrees were brought out. My wife’s Reuben was a bit salty (which is to expected in any sandwich loaded with sorned beef), but had only a little sauerkraut, and virtually no dressing, short of what was thinly applied to the toasted bread, much like you might apply butter to your toast.

My Chicken Tawook was nice and flavourful and came with a several triangles of crispy flatbread and a small bowl of Toum sauce, which was delicious.

After clearing away our plates, our asked if we were interested in desert. They had 3 choices, 2 of which were cheesecakes. Since he had eaten cheesecake for dessert the night before, we both chose the “Chunky Chocolate Mountain Cake”.

When it arrived, we were surprised by how thin the slices were. I would have to guess they were 1/16 slices from an 8” round cake. It was a very rich cake, marbled with both dark and light chocolate mousse, surrounded by an outer layer of chocolate cake. I am still not sure why they called it “chunky”.

When the bill arrived, we were shocked to see that the cake cost $15/slice. Obviously, we should have paid more attention to the menu when we arrived.

In terms of value, I would have preferred to pay $15 for the soup, (which was a steal for only $6), and less for the cake, although guess it is hard to justify charging $15 for a bowl of soup de jour.

I had a cocktail with dessert, so dinner for 2, with a soup appetizer, two mains, three drinks and two deserts, came to a total of...

Got take out last week for dinner. It was our first time. They are one of the few restaurants in the area open a bit later and does not require reservations. They have indoor seating as well as an outdoor patio.

Ordering was done via telephone call and we were given a pick up time about 45min later. Not bad considering they were very busy at the time. Staff are friendly and pleasant on the phone and in person.

We ordered:

SPRING PEA SOUP (GLUTEN-FREE, VEGETARIAN) $8 Leek, basil, sour cream, mint, parsley. It is chunkier than I like but tasty.

SHRIMP COCKTAIL (GLUTEN-FREE) Dijonaise, lemon, fresh horseradish, cocktail sauce. $16 Large plump delicious shrimp with two dips. So good. 😋😋Would recommend as an appetizer if you like shrimp.

BARBECUE PLATTER
Whiskey-glazed side ribs, fried chicken, sweet roasted yam, coleslaw, pickles, choice of frites or house salad (we added Caesar salad for an extra $3)
$28 Both the ribs and chicken is fall off the bone tender. We upgraded the side dish to Caesar salad which is also good.

SPICY TUNA POKE BOWL (VEGETARIAN AVAILABLE, GLUTEN-FREE)$21 Seared sesame-crusted yellowfin tuna, mayo, pickled cucumber, scallion, cabbage, edamame, carrot, sriracha, sesame seed, quinoa. Unfortunately when we got home and opened the container, we discovered the restaurant forgot to include the yellowfin tuna slices so it was really just a salad. It is an absolutely delicious salad though! 😄

We called the restaurant and spoke to Avery and explained the seared tuna was missing from the poke bowl. She apologized for the error and and after speaking with the manager, went ABOVE AND BEYOND to make things right and ensure we had a great experience.

Would definitely return and recommend this restaurant to all our friends. If I could give more than 5 stars I would! If you are in Elora, or even in the general vicinity you should absolutely give them a try!

Thank you @The Friendly Society! You made a lasting impression and lived up...

Edit: Shortly after I posted this review Rebecca from the Friendly Society reached out to me, apologizing for the experience. She was incredibly kind and helpful, and assured me that she was taking steps to address my concerns. She even comp’d my meal and sent me a gift card to use for my next visit.

It’s clear that this was an outlying experience and I am extremely impressed and appreciative of Rebecca’s response. I will most certainly return and will make an updated review. I have amended my review to give them 5 stars for their amazing response.

—

(Party of 2) Had reservations, was on time and seated, waited a while to even be seen by a server and who then left after giving us water before we could get a drink order in. After that the next time we saw her we ordered our food (a burger and a house salad).

In the hour that followed, another group came in (4) after us who ordered, and were finished their meal by the time ours even arrived!! All in the same section, and at this point we even saw a woman sitting on her own asking how much longer it would be to be seen and the waitress said sorry just a sec! And walked away. The woman then left because it was taking too long.

By the time our food arrived the burger was extremely dry and tough (my bf joked that the whole time the burger must have been sitting on the grill). However the sauce was good he said, just needed more of it. My salad was good, the dressing was nice. The blueberry cocktail he also got was good.

I was so disappointed. The cost of this place was so not worth it. Even our table had food bits on it, the water jug had calcium buildup, and my glass had something weird floating in it.

I’m not expecting fine dining, but at these prices ($30 for a burger), I expect better. The wait was absolutely ridiculous and the server did not even apologize.

Will not...