Lakeside Bala Restaurant — Restaurant in District Municipality of Muskoka

If I could give this negative stars I would. My family & I had a horrible experience on Saturday & I would absolutely not recommend this sad excuse of an establishment to anyone. The kitchen is horrendous & beware of the owner (who is a self proclaimed fine dining worldwide expert) and his unprofessional attitude - he's the large tanned bald man not doing anything.

Long story short: We had a reservation at 6 pm & by 8 pm had not received any food yet. At that time, we asked for the drink bill and left. The owner's attitude and excuses were appalling. I want to make it extremely clear this experience had absolutely nothing to do with the server. She was fantastic and did everything she could in a server's power to make us happy. We tipped her specifically cash after charging our drinks (no tip). Everything was 100% the fault of the kitchen and owner.

Long, detailed story long: We had a reservation at 6, put in our drink and food order by I would say 6:20-6:30 (our supper order was not intensive, only 2 people got meat/fish dishes, the other 2 got app dishes as mains). Some time after the waitress offered us another complimentary basket of bread because the food was taking so long. I have extensive serving experience, so at 7:23 I asked the waitress, server to server, what is taking the food so long. She said that on Sunday the 22nd, 2 people quit, and they were just replaced Wednesday. I said so they have been learning how to flip food on the grill since Wednesday and still can't get it done? To which she giggled and replied I guess so yes. She offered us a free round of drinks. She also indicated that the table of 6 behind us had their order in first, it was getting plated and about to come out, then we would be next, about 15 more minutes. By 7:55 that table still had not gotten their food and that is when we started making moves to leave. We asked for the drink bill and the hostess, our server, another server, and the owner gathered around the server stand talking. The charged us for 1 glass of wine and 1 beer. One of the servers tried to claim our food was in the window about to come out, which was clearly a last ditch effort to get us to stay, seeing as how, remember that table of 6 that ordered before us? STILL NOT EATING. I said to the owner, I am a server, give it to me straight, what is happening in the kitchen. He then proceeded to give me some choppy, inconsistent story (which did not match the servers) about how 2 back of staff no showed for a shift on June 7th!?! I proclaimed, "A MONTH AGO?!" And then he replied "do you want to hear the story or not." I knew in that moment any back and forth discussion I wanted to have with this man, he would dismiss, deflect and rebuttal. So I let him tell his story, about how he was still apparently dealing with the fall out of this no show escapade on June 28th. With his kitchen in such crisis mode, I am not sure why he wasn't in the kitchen supporting, instead of wandering around the restaurant. shooing the bull and lollygagging about. But whatever, not my circus. I asked if he had any explanation as to why we were being told the expected wait times and turn around times of food getting served around us and why no one was still actually eating yet. He replied "I can't be aware how fast tables are and are not getting their food, I don't know anything about that." And I said "As the owner that is absolutely something you should be concerning yourself with." Turned around and left. We went to the Bala Falls Pub (served, fed deliciously, and paid in 45 minutes BTW) and when we returned to our car, we came across a group that was unlucky enough to actually get their food at Lakeside, and was walking out. They said the food was terrible and not worth it and told us to be thankful we left and didn't have to pay for the crappy food and experience. And might I add, the story the owner gave them about the wait times, didn't match the server's story or the one he told me.

If this is fine dining, then so...

First off, let me say this used to be our FAVOURITE restaurant. But after our experience last night (July 5), we will likely not be returning. We arrived for our reservation and were seated on the patio (as requested) at a table for 2 against the main building. The first thing we noticed is that the window sills were dirty and lined with green mossy mold which is disgusting to sit beside while we dine. Not to mention all of the cobwebs up under the fascia board. I appreciate that this is an outdoor patio, but some regular daily maintenance could go a long way. The views of the lake are still beautiful. Having been going quite regularly previously, we were looking forward to our favourite meals. We both went ahead and ordered steaks with "seasonal vegetables", potatoes, and red wine au jus. My husband asked for his steak medium-rare, more on the rare side. I asked for mine medium well. Our food arrived promptly and right away we were disappointed. Our seasonal vegetables were sliced carrots (as opposed to delicious fresh in-season vegetables in the past such as asparagus). And our au jus appeared to be gravy. Tasting the food led to further disappointment - our steaks were flavourless. I would be surprised if there were any seasoning on them at all. The roasted fingerling potatoes were also bland and tasteless as were the mashed potatoes. As suspected, the au jus tasted like it was packaged gravy mix. And to top it off, the centre of my steak was less cooked than my husband's medium rare steak was. After sharing our concerns with our server ( who was lovely so no issues with her), our suspicions of a new chef were confirmed. She made notes to share our feedback with management/ ownership and offered us a complimentary dessert which we politely declined. Very disappointing experience to say the least - we had come to love this restaurant for its food, ambiance and service. It's a shame that 2 of those 3 no longer meet our...

I went to lakeside bala Aug 16th, the night i purposed to my girlfriend hoping for a special night and was COMPLETLY DISAPOINTED. The only thing this restaurant has going for it is the view. We arrived at the restaurant at 6:20pm as a group of 4. There was only four tables in the whole restaurant on a Saturday night. They had 2 servers, 2 hosts and a bartender working. So more staff than tables. We ordered our food with our drinks because we were hungry and wanted to go to the concert venue after around 7:30-8. Which would give us 1 hour and 40 min to eat. We ordered 3 steaks and a pasta. As we were waiting for our food my fiance ordered another drink. Which our server completely forgot about. After one hour of waiting for our food I asked our server when it would be out. She said the steaks were taking a while and it would be out in a few minutes. We proceeded to wait another 30 minutes for our food to come out. It was 7:50!!! It took an hour and a half to cook 3 steaks and a pasta. At this point our server stopped coming to the table and the bartender was serving us. Our original server never talked to us again the whole night. We had 3 steaks, 2 were supposed to be medium, a ribeye and a new york strip which both come out well done. Zero pink! The other steak was ordered rare and it came out medium. Some pink. At this point we couldn't send it back because we had already waited an hour and a half for what we received. We were also starving watching tables that came after us get their food. The steak and vegetables also had zero seasoning what so ever. When we received the bill all we got was a sorry for you're experience. No discount for delay, missing drink or messing up every steak. $422 for what we received felt like a slap in the face. This service occurred with only a few tables in the entire restaurant. Please do not book here. I honestly don't know how this restaurant is...