Muskoka Natural Food Market — Restaurant in District Municipality of Muskoka

We drove about 30 minutes to go this market. We arrived 30 minutes before they closed. We were immediately impressed by the atmosphere - store was clean and well stocked -- seemed like a funky, trendy place!

We then noticed we felt a bit uncomfortable - there was a sortoff pretentious, snobby feeling - none of the staff even looked at us or smiled. The patrons seemed like they were members of some elitist club.

We ignored this factor and proceeded to put items in our cart. We went to the deli counter where at least 5, if not 6 people were working - my daughter was excited to try a smoothie. Two people (club members) were getting salads to go and it took so long it was really awkward. Still - we waited - my daughter (a new vegan) wanted that smoothie. At this point it was 6:45 (big clock on wall) (they close at 7). Finally the endless salad transaction was over and the woman working there said "i will be with you in a minute" and she darted off.

fine.....we are hopeful we will be served and are trying to be patient.

Then another woman suddenly appears to say "sorry we are closed". I say "actually, that woman is looking after us". she then says, "i cannot manage all of this right now...." I say, "that woman over there said she would look after us". (like what does this have to do with her?). So the original woman comes back saying "we are closed". I say "you can't make a smoothie?". she says (unapologetically) "no".

At this point it was only 6:50. We felt dismissed, disregarded and did not feel reasonable to tell a customer you are closed when your posted hours are until 7:00 pm.

I ask my daughter if she still wants to purchase these items. She says yes....we head to the cash. A not friendly woman is ringing in our items when another customer walks in. She stops him to say "we are closed". I look at the clock 6:53. He doesn't care and walks in anyway.

As we are checking out a woman at a till beside us is counting change so loudly - she is throwing the money in the till. The few things cost $34. I get that prices are higher for specialty food but --- seems really high.

We left - discouraged - thought we found a good place to shop when what we found was a snobby, elitist, customer hating vegan market.

Here is how it should be done.

At 7:00 pm - lock doors and have a staff member stand there to let people out. Serve all the people left in the store who invested time.

Bad service and being hip doesn't mean...

So I have to say that I LOVE this place. It’s always a must go-to place on my way up to Huntsville from Toronto. The food is consistently fresh and delicious, and the only reason I’m giving it 4 stars instead of 5 is because my last visit was a little bit disappointing. I always order the BBQ tofu wrap ( highly recommend) and it’s usually jam packed with tofu cubes and an array of vegetables. This time, it was considerably smaller than when I’ve ordered it before, with far less tofu and mostly spring mix. Still yummy, but I was kind of bummed :-( I also ordered a brownie which was again, delicious but considerably smaller than the other squares on the tray. In fact, the brownies I saw were kind of all different sizes. I just hope that they’ll keep a better eye on portions, and maintain consistency with the generous offerings they’ve served up in the past. I’ll definitely be back again, optimistic that maybe my last visit was just bad luck.

Also, their chocolate pie is to DIE for and they didn’t have any when I was there last. Not really a fair criticism because I know they change out their baked goods. I’m just...

So; we saw a gluten free section with freshly baked goods including a cheese bagel.

The bagel looked flat. Almost like a cheese bun. But hey it's Gluten free so we tried it.

First off. The bagel didn't taste good at all. The only salvageable portion of the bagel was the cheddar product portion on top of the so called bagel.

At the cash my wife put the items on the countef and was met with a sigh from the cashier. Shr cashed us out anx on the way out she gave us "cut eye" and walked away.

There were "vegan" brownies for sale with chocolate chips on top and the chips were literally turning white. They also had cookies at the front near the cash which were rock hard and a "spirulina" energy ball that you could use as a baseball that it was so hard.

Maybe the whole place was having a bad day. . . .

Right now:

Poor quality. Poor service.

We'll see you again someday and see what...