Central Social Hall — Restaurant in Edmonton

Went here for a client dinner a couple weeks ago, and needless to say was not impressed. I had phoned to confirm if they were taking reservations, because on the website it says they're coming soon. Well I figured I would ask, as websites don't always get updated right away. The person answered the phone advised that they were, took down my name and phone number, and said we were good to go. We get to the restaurant and turns out, no record of the reservation. So now it's 6pm on a Friday night and of course it is completely packed. Hence why I called to make a reservation. If I had known they couldn't accommodate it, then I would've booked elsewhere. There were three people all standing around the front desk, didn't appear to be a manager in sight. Very disorganized. First they told me they weren't taking reservations, but then they said they had a few people's names down, including one that was kind of close to my name, but didn't even bother to see if that was actually supposed to be me or not. One of the people at the front actually tell me that they start taking reservations tomorrow. I could care less, that doesn't help me now. (FYI their website still doesn't say they're open for reservations.) So we got to wait, and when we were finally taken to our table, we could see there were reserved signs on tables. This was very frustrating, and not a good start to the night, especially as I had clients with me.

Now comes the actual table experience. We go to order a bottle of wine, and they're out of it. Try again with another bottle, and they're out of that too! Third time was the charm with the next bottle we tried. My boyfriend's family has been in the restaurant and hospitality business for over 30 years, so he knows all the ins and outs of the business. It's not great when you've just opened and you already can't have proper stock. We all ordered, and honestly none of us enjoyed the food. Two of us didn't even bother to finish our meals. It lacked any flavor.

I pay our bill and then we decide to get another round of drinks. It took 25 mins to get these drinks. I was the only one that got a craft cocktail. The rest were either highballs or a glass of wine. There is no reason why it should have taken that long to get our drinks.

The only pluses of the evening were that my drink was actually very tasty, and our server was nice.

I was so excited for Central Social Hall to open in Ellerslie, because we definitely need some new restaurants, but it will probably be a long time before I go back, if ever. There are a lot of kinks to...

I’m sure this will come as a surprise, because I sure was unpleasantly surprised with the quality of this place.

I came for lunch today, first off when I walked in, it said to seat yourself. I walked passed 4 waitresses cleaning up a big mess of a tray that had clearly been dropped prior to my arrival. That’s not a big deal. I sat myself at the bar, and remember I said I walked in the front doors passed these waitresses, and they saw me. It took 10 full minutes to get any service. I ordered a Backyard Burger with fries, and an espresso martini. I want to say that with this order, I was definitely not expecting it to be SO bad I had to write a google review.

Espresso martini : WORST most bitter drink I’ve ever had. Absolutely disgusting. It was definitely not made correctly. It tasted like cold brew and vodka.

Burger: Desert dry to the point of the meat crumbling. It was also cold. It was charred and WAY overcooked. Actually only ate half because I didn’t want to be hungry, but it was smothered in mustard as well. Very unpleasant to eat

Fries: I have shown a picture of them, if you look closely I snapped a bunch of them in half to demonstrate how hard they were. They were like hickory sticks. Also intolerable. And cold.

The disappointing part is there were max 4 separate small groups (2-3) and me. That means there could have been extremely quick service. It took half an hour for my burger and fries to come out, which honestly tracks because of how overcooked everything was.

So disappointing. Go literally ANYWHERE else (if you’re specifically craving a burger) I’m sure the rest of the food is okay! I should have ordered the steak sandwich....

EDIT: after posting my review, I was contacted by the GM, Neil. We exchanged a couple of emails back-and-forth, and he invited me in for dinner so that he had the opportunity to show us what Central Social Hall (and the food) was all about. Very wise business move, Neil! Your spot is 7 minutes away from where we live, and you have definitely created repeat customers out of us. We were very impressed, both with the food/atmosphere, but more importantly, by the way this ‘complaint’ was handled. Bravo, Neil, and a special thank you to our awesome server Paige-everyone that was working was friendly, efficient, and good at their jobs. We had a great time, and we will definitely be back!

Original review:

We ordered take out on Saturday and were super excited to check you guys out since you’re relatively new to the area. Maybe it was a one-off, but our order was waaay less than impressive. I was really stoked to try the donuts based on the description/photo, but I’m not entirely sure what happened to our order-what we received were over fried balls of dry, plain dough. The dip was a very runny, almost flavourless vanilla pudding. Definitely regretted not trying the mason jar Keylime pie instead. Not a huge Google reviewer, but I wanted to give some feedback regarding our take-out experience. We still intend to come in and try out brunch in person, fingers crossed for a...