Lakeview Restaurant — Restaurant in Harrison Hot Springs

We showed up at 1230 hoping for a late breakfast /brunch. Upon arrival we stood around for 5 or more minutes waiting for someone to seat us but nobody came. We were astonished as servers passed by us avoiding eye contact and left us feeling unwelcome. Eventually we approached one of the workers and asked if we should seat our selves. We were told to wait and she would clean a table off for us. After tending to a few other customers she came back to wipe off a table for us, and we were seated. Service was incredibly slow, even though the resteraunt was at probably 40% capacity. When we were finally able to place our orders ( sandwhiches and a bowl of soup ) it took 37 minutes for us to receive only half our order. After waiting another 10 minutes for sandwhich no.2 we noticed our server bringing out the full order of the table behind us who was sat about 20 minutes after us.. of course this was surprising to see so my partner asked our server why they were being served before us when they arrived much after us. The server said the kitchen forgot the second sandwhich all together. When it did finally arrive I was sadly disappointed. The food was tasteless and had 0 flavor. The bread was stale, and my french fries had a hidden surprise at the bottom... some kind of animal fur. When the server came back to remove our plates I told her about the fur. Her response was that it must have come from a dog on the street... even though it was at the bottom of the pile of fries making it seemingly impossible to have been from the street. I explained this to her and she said she would see what she could do. 10 minutes later another lady came to our table with visible annoyance and said they would deduct the cost of an order of fries from our bill. If you're going there expecting good service or good food you'll be sadly disappointed. Customer service was non existent and the food was by far one of the worst lunches we've had in a long time. Skip this one, and visit one of the other options...

There's a lot to unpack here. We were in Harrison for 3 days and we ate breakfast here every morning. The food was good enough to come back. And the early bird is a good deal. My wife ordered oatmeal all 3 days and each day it was served and presented differently and was a different size. On the third day, she was literally served 3 mouthfuls of oatmeal in a small bowl with 3 creamos on the side. This was 6$ and menu stated milk and brown sugar!!!! There was no way I was paying for that. I sent it back. When we first arrived on the 3rd day, we were told that "it would be 10 minutes before I can help you" by the server. We sat down anyways. There were 4 other tables. We made 5. So this server could not handle more tables. She told every couple and new guest that walked up, she couldn't help them for 10 to 15 minutes. 95% of potential guests went next door. She is sending her 18% grat and the owners money directly to another business. Try saying "I'm a little backed up right now, please come in however and I will be with you shortly". It was really bad and as an owner I would have been LIVID. Pancakes are 6.45$ EACH for a single pancake. They advertise a stack of pancakes on their signage. A stack of 5 pancakes. Do the math, that's a 35$ stack of pancakes. Flour and water. Someone has to call these places out on this stuff. It's atrocious. I have worked in kitchens and restaurants for 29 years. I currently work breakfast in a busy downtown Vancouver hotel and we don't gouge and charge like this. FURTHEMORE, my wife is a vegetarian and I'm 99% sure that her "toast" every morning was not done in a toaster but on a flat top in bacon fact or at the very least cross contaminated with meat juices on the flattop. This place needs some leadership and guidance...

Food was tasty enough; I had the cod burger and upgraded to poutine, but the poutine was forgotten about until the meal arrived at the table.... Which leads me to the main point of this review:

The service was abysmal, bordering on non-existent. Coffee (or coffee-flavored water) was served to us (group of 4) with just a mug and spoon, and the table quickly became a mess as we gave up on trying to find a proper place to set aside our empty creamers and coffee spoons.

The two or three girls working on the floor didn't have too many tables each, and in theory should've been able to handle it. They were wasting time chatting and were not in a hurry at all, despite the fact that their guests needed table maintenance (out of water, coffee, finished meals/empty dirty plates just sitting there). By the end of our visit we had no idea who our server was anymore, because the girl that was originally serving us just stopped paying any attention to us, so we had to get the attention of the other waitress to ask for our bill.

Being hospitality industry professionals (chef/restaurant owner, cook & managers) we were simultaneously amused, and upset, watching & experiencing everything play out in this restaurant.

A thank you to the young cooks in the kitchen, you did pretty good with what you have to work with. It's too bad the front of house staff...