The Boathouse Tea Room — Restaurant in Guelph

I have been here in the past and have always enjoyed the experience. Today a friend and I went for high tea. We sat for 15 minutes before anyone came to our table and when the server did come over she told us that we may have to move to a different table and promptly walked away. We had a reservation and that’s the table we had been directed to. We ordered our tea and waited for the sandwiches. My friend pored the milk in to her tea and it was bad. She sat and waited for our server to return, she did not. My friend walked her cup and teapot to the counter and asked politely for a new cup, tea and milk. After sitting for another 10 -15 minutes our sandwiches arrived. She asked the server to check on the replacement tea. Eventually she turned up and gave my friend a pot of tea. My friend again asked for fresh milk…she waited. When the server came back with the milk my friend again had to point out she did not have a cup. The server did not seem to care about the lack of service we had received so far. I am usually very forgiving when service isn’t up to par, this was however ridiculous. The server never returned and any further needs had to be addressed by asking someone else’s server to help. The tea itself was not great. Sandwiches were dry and tasteless. It is sad that such a lovely tea shop has gone so far downhill. I understand having ‘ young staff’ but some mature supervision might be required. Sadly I will not be returning anytime soon. I hope this review is taken in to consideration by the owners. On a final not all the meals around us that were ‘ off the menu’...

( I am only reviewing the ice cream portion of the Boathouse)

I first heard about this place from a friend who lived in Guelph and would always rave about the ice cream here so I decided to give it a shot.

As mentioned above I am only covering the ice cream as I did not stay for the actual tea room dining portion.

The location is fantastic being right up against the river, they even offer kayak and canoe rentals for those wanting to try.

The icecream shop will often have a lineup that wraps around the front of the building so make sure to bring a hat if your out in the sun. But in my experience the line moved fairly quickly. When I got to the front of the line to see the flavours I was a bit disappointed to find that all the flavours were fairly bland and normal. Being connected to a tea room I expected to find a fusion of tea and icecream flavours. In the end, I ended up getting a flavour called "Everything in Grandma's Cupboard but the Sink" which was a vanilla icecream with various amount of toppings (e.g. cookie dough, brownie pieces, peanut butter). Here is a warning if you love peanut butter (which I do) you will love this flavour because apparently Grandma had alot of peanut butter.

In the end, if you want a decent and sizable portion of icecream in a cone then this is the place for you. I will give it 1 extra star for being in a beautiful location next to the river making this an ideal spot for walking on a hot summer's day with a cold icecream in hand. But, I was disappointed for the lack of imaginative flavours despite being connected...

A four-minute drive from the University of Guelph campus, the Boathouse Tea Room is a great spot for ice cream. The single scoop ($4.20) is essentially a double scoop because you can pick two flavours. The scoops are also massive, so that's all you need. I'm not even sure how they could make it any bigger if you ordered a double. They all come in waffle cones.

This is just a funny observation, but when we watched about 10 other people order their single scoops and even within our own party, it was clear that the size of the scoops is dependent on the size of the customer. And that's not even a joke. I was the smallest in my party and my scoops were the smallest by far. We watched two rather large customers order their singles after us and their scoops were double the size of mine.

Either way, you'll get plenty of ice cream. The raspberry moose tracks was delicious (and I'm not even about that raspberry life), Grammy's Cupboard, Toffee Cashew Crunch, and Betty's Blueberry Cheesecake were the best out of the bunch we tried.

The tea house also rents out canoes because it's right beside the Eramosa River and a short walk off to the side is one of the few covered bridges in Ontario, which is a cool place to check out and take pictures.

If you're in the mood for ice cream, I'd definitely recommend this place, and based on how unregulated their scoop sizes seem, if you're not that hungry, a kiddie...