Birchwood Restaurant — Restaurant in Invermere

Honestly a very cute place! I'll never go back, but if forced to go back, I would NOT SIT IN THE ATRIUM for a few reasons.

I was seated outside in the atrium area at 5:30pm on a very windy chilly night.

First gripe was sitting in the ATRIUM: The reality is that if you are in the atrium, you should express that you have concerns about being seated there and then inquire about what their policy is to ensure the "coziness" of the atrium as they represent. During my dining experience, one of the groups in the ATRIUM had a person in their party of seven decided to turn off the space heaters in the atrium, without the consideration of asking other diners. Their group was broken into two tables, one of adults comprising 2 parent couples, and the other table was their three young adult children. It was pretty obvious that the father got tired of listening to his children whinging so decided to do his own thing and turn off the space heaters. The frustrating part was that the Birchwood staff didn't inquire about the other patron's well being. This might not have been so noticeable, but the staff made every effort to shut the door separating the atrium from the indoor dining simply accentuating that the indoor guests didn't appreciate the coldness blowing on them either.

Second gripe: the plating of the FOOD in the Atrium. The fondue was presented in a slightly large ceramic creme brûlée dish. Unfortunately when sitting in the atrium without the warmth of space heaters, the cheese fondue coagulates into a non-warm sludge, thus losing all appeal. The accompanying apricot chutney was lovely - as it's not supposed to be warm. I would suggest is that they make the fondue portion larger and present it in a fondue pot so that you can actually have it as a dinner, and plate it on something with some significant warmth when serving the dish in the ATRIUM. The lamb shank was great, but they plated it on only slightly warmed china, which is probably perfect when sitting indoors, but similar to the issue as above, the china gets cold rapidly, and now you are force to eat the lamb quickly because it too loses it's warmth as does the gravy and vegetables. I would suggest plating the lamb on a warm cast iron oval dish when dining in the ATRIUM.

Being forced to eat quickly is not really fun when you are at a mouth-brothel. Oh well, Food is to be enjoyed, not rushed, not to be only appealing on delivery but during the entire experience.

I learned once again that a restaurant which openly articulates a 90-minute table maximum is simply not worth the experience. Why be rushed when your conversation is delightful? Why be rushed when the food is simply too good to rush through? Why not enjoy every bite as opposed to simply stuffing your mouth. Never again!

Hoping both you and the Birchwood enjoy the review and make the appropriate choices.

Update to review below based on the owners response:

You make a lot of assumptions in your response that was two weeks delayed from my comments.

As a proprietor of a service establishment YOU should simply apologize and say we would like to make it up to you, please give us another chance. I know you can't control everything.

What you have demonstrated in your response is simply your lack of empathy for your customer and a lack of respect for their input. This alone makes me believe that you always think you are correct and that you can do NO WRONG!

You've done one thing in your response and solidified my resolve to never go back to your establishment, regardless of the inside or...

Food is still good, but service has declined. We've been dining at Birchwood 1-2x per year for the past 10 years. We've always enjoyed the food and very warm, welcoming service. That was not the case this past weekend. From the minute the manager greeted us, the vibe was off. Curt, hurried service - like we were an inconvenience especially after we asked for the heater on the patio to be turned on. We were offered "another option" of sitting inside and later told that everyone else on the patio was comfortable (as if a survey was taken and I didn't observe ppl shivering), which was interesting because the manager lit the two heaters furthest from us first. From the first interaction, we felt our server was rushing us to order drinks and food on an 8:00 reservation. When a dish arrived without the requested modification, the manager said "I'm just the deliverer. I'll send it back to the kitchen." Obviously, we knew she didn't take the order and weren't faulting her. The comment felt unnecessary and unprofessional. That feeling continued when I asked to give feedback before we left. I explained how many times we'd dined, that this was the least pleasant experience we'd ever had and that, while I recognize they were busy, I was sharing this feedback as input for future. Rather than listening and hearing my feedback, the manager cut me off and responded with "I'm sorry you felt that way" and comments that felt like counters/excises such as 'I'm only human, we had 100 tables tonight, we are so busy, I work 6 days a week, I'm the only one who can turn on the heaters and there are blankets you can use." I was shocked. The next time we visit, I hope the team is entirely composed of the more friendly folks we've had the pleasure of chatting with...

We’d been to Radium and Panorama many times and every time we made sure we went to Birchwood for dinner.

We were blown away by the food the first few years, we specially loved the pork chop which was tender and juicy.

Last 2 times were a bit of disappointment and we mentioned politely at the end of meal that the chop was on the dry side (we were thinking, well, things happen and it’s not Birchwood’s norm ).

So we went to give it a 3rd chance. Well, total disappointment this time. 3 of us all had pork chops and they were all overly overcooked despite we asked for no more than medium , and our server assured it’d be pink in the inside because that’s the way they cook the chops.

Well, again, we didn’t return the chops, we finished the meal. We didn’t want to insult the restaurant returning 3 plates of pork chops! We mentioned more than half way through the meal when the server finally made it back around to ask us how things were. Being polite we said it was more done than we expected when the reality is they were all well done. However we didn't ask for them to redo all 3 entrees but at the same time no offer was made.

I am sure the restaurant would say we should have told the server to replace. Well, that’s who we are, trying to be polite .. and we think giving it a 3rd chance is more than reasonable, why bother to complain and make a fuss. We will just give up and try no more.

I am not a good cook but I’d think one can feel the doneness of meat by feeling it with a fork or something. We could “knock on the chops” with a fork, it’s so over-seared/grilled outside and overcooked inside.

I am not sure what happened , it’s not the old Birchwood.

Our appetizers and desserts were good tho , the old...