The Cork and Cast — Restaurant in Charlottetown

My wife and i went to PEI for her 50th Birthday party and had some friends and family there for her party. I spoke to someone who charged a $15 dollar fee to bring a cake into the restaurant and i accepted because we really wanted to try this place. When we arrived at The Cork and Cast the first thing the women bartender who i am pretty sure is part owner said was "is that a cake, you know that is a fee to bring in here" without wven saying HI first then i asked one person who sat us if i could put the cake in the fridge (as the restaurant has no AC at all, you see a heat pump but not sure it is working as it was HOT in there), the women seating us said i will be right back and she came back 20 minuets later to say they can (a little too late now), the restaurant was not busy at all either. Thank god we had a great server who went above and beyond for us. As for the food I got the Lobster Roll and i will say that was average at best, the roll with sides was $40 and it was just lobster in a roll, no mayo or anything, it said garlic butter i thought but they must put that on like it is liquid gold or something. I am from Halifax, Nova Scotia and know what a lobster roll should taste and be like and this was sub-par at best...my wife had the sliders which she liked with no sides. For the two sliders, lobster roll and a drink each with the 15 dollar fee to bring a 50th birthday cake in for a table of 8 people who all spent great money it was $155 for just my tab, which i do not mind paying for great food and service and though out server was outstanding the condescending tone and comment of the bartender saying is that a cake, you know that is a fee, to even making us pay to bring a cake in to make someone's day special when you are making close to $800 bucks off the table is insane. I will not be back. But i am giving the service a 4 out of 5 because the server we finally got was AMAZING....but the rest of the staff i dealt with did not make us...

Several other restaurants on the same street give the Cork and Cast a run for its money, but it does reasonably well for what it attempts. The playlist seemed to be running off of someone's phone who was also part of a group chat, so the volume kept changing levels, but it also seemed to be moving between speakers as if someone was repeatedly bumping up against the audio cables. It was a bit distracting, but definitely not a dealbreaker. If you're sitting on the far right and happen to be the sort of person who absentmindedly looks at TVs, the ones over the bar are lined up perfectly so anyone at the high tops in the middle of the room are almost within your line of sight, and they might think you're staring at them, even if you're not. I'm pretty sure the group of bridesmaids thought I was eyeballing them because I'm not used to ambient TVs in the background.

Cocktails were fine, not bad, just standard, and the beer selection was brief but adequate.

It was interesting that almost all of the sides were some variation of potatoes, so when one of them that's clearly mashed potatoes says "garlicky mash", know that they've named it that because it's VERY MUCH slanted towards the garlic. I like garlic, but this seemed to have the proportion of garlic to potato backwards. The waiter also offered salt, and while we trusted the chefs and not having tasted the food yet, we declined. I wish we hadn't, because it's what would have brought the flavor out of most of the things we ordered. The burger I got was cooked perfectly, but it had a ball of cheese fastened to the top of the bun with a toothpick, and the implication was that it went inside of the burger. Unfortunately, it was a completely different temperature than anything else on the burger, so it didn't spread well. It ended up being a ball of flavor directly in the middle of the burger, and nowhere else. The presentation seems to have won out...

My husband, daughter, and I all enjoyed the Cork and Cast a lot, great atmosphere and we had an amazing server who was also one of the owners, Rachel, so lots of nice conversation with her. The food was really high quality, with attention to detail evident in each dish.

We all ordered the lunch special. Their corn chowder was gluten free! What a treat for me as was the GF parmesan crostini that accompanied it. A beautiful half sandwich with chicken breast and goat cheese along with a salad followed the soup. Again - everything fresh and top-notch, including the garden salad, which was not your run-of-the-mill few pieces of iceberg lettuce with a slice of tomato and cucumber; this one had onions, peppers, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers and a lovely balsamic vinaigrette. They also had gluten-free bread for the sandwich, which was good quality for me and the non GF bread looked lovely soft and amazing as well. The sandwich had fresh pickled onion on it to cut through the richness of the goat cheese. Nice touch! Very well done all the way around. We all finished our plates with nary...