Symposium Cafe Restaurant Lindsay — Restaurant in Kawartha Lakes

We tried to have a nice dinner here with another couple on Sat, Oct 22nd, and the service was unbelievably poor. The worst I’ve ever experienced. I had been there one previous time at lunchtime out on the patio and it seemed OK. Our friends suggested that they wanted to try it for dinner. Happily the food was better than the service, but really just OK. The restaurant was not busy when we got there at 5:00 PM, so we were before any kind of dinner rush. The girl at the door asked us if we wanted a booth or a table and we said a table and then she brought us to a booth. No big deal.. But just funny because she just asked and then started walking with us and took us to the wrong place. She left us menus and pointed to a blonde waitress that she said would be over in a minute. Our waitress didn’t come near us for about 10 minutes and then took a drink order, out of which she only brought 3 out of 4 of our drinks. So we asked for my husbands pop again. And then she was completely missing from the floor for about another 10 or 15 minutes. We asked the the girl who seated us if someone was going to take our order. Because new people had sat down and she had taken their order. The girl we asked looked at us blankly and just told us, the waitress would be there soon. She never made any attempt to let her know we were looking for her. Finally, “our waitress” came out from the back room and served us. No mention of the delay or anything, which was obvious in an empty restaurant. We placed our order and asked for my husband‘s pop again. Then when she brought us dinner, she walked away very quickly and we had to flag her down to ask her a third time for his pop. Again, the restaurant was not busy and the girl was not even the least apologetic, after making us flag her down to ask her a third time. Of course, It’s ok to forget something… But forgetting three times is a little scary lol. We then waited forever for the table to be cleaned up and for the Bill to be brought. There was never any real friendliness. I wouldn’t say she was rude, but she was certainly not friendly or inviting… I’m quite sure this will be our last time to the restaurant. Our friends were disappointed because they were looking forward to trying it . We managed to have a nice visit with our friends but as far as the restaurant goes , It was just a disappointing visit all...

Tonight my husband's and I finally were able to have a date night as my mom watched our three children, our plan was to go to Kelseys but they are renovating and Boston Pizza was so so busy! So we thought we would go to the Symposium as a couple years ago we had a great meal there.

WELL LET ME TELL YOU THIS, SAVE YOUR MONEY! DONT GO THERE!!!

We ordered the Spinach Dip and it was so oiley and had thick big chucks of spinach, never in my life have I ever seen such terrible Spinach Dip! 🤢 so we put it to the side, Now normally anywhere else I have been when you put something to the side that is untouched they would be right over to you asking what's wrong but not once did our waitress attend to us!

Finally she comes over to us with my husband's meal and sees it and asks "what is the matter?" I told her and she takes it with such aditude.

So here we are hubby has his food and I'm still waiting for mine , 5 minutes later she comes back with mine, I ate the bread it came with and some of the noodles but I quickly put that to the side, as the sauces was watery which left my Chicken Alfredo very tasteless! All I could taste was plain noodles ☹️

I was able to share my husband's ribs and wings and frys as that was yummy 😋

But when she finally came back to check on us, I told her what was wrong with my pasta and she gave me this face and smirk 😏 (like so rude)

She comes back with the bill and omg she charged us for it and I didn't even touch it other then a couple noodles and the 1 slice of bread.17.95 for the noodles and then you pay 7.00 to have the chicken put in the Chicken Alfredo, 😡 so I spoke up and I said you're charging us for it? I said I hardly even touched it, it didn't take me long to discover it was terrible and because I ate the bread and a couple of noodles she has to charge me for it that is just ridiculous :/

So here we have spent 3.50 each on a fountain drink, my husband's meal and then "my meal" with a total of 72$ only for me to be HUNGRY AND UPSET in the end!

So if you have been here and had a good experience you're very lucky, but if you haven't been I don't recommend going the waitresses are rude, the service is horrible and the food is terrible!

We definitely will never be recommending or going back to the Symposium in...

Our friends and family have been meeting us at this restaurant for years, it's a good mid point for all to meet up. The one server who we love, has been there for years and she is great but we have not had as good luck with the other 'servers' recently including the owner as the server. The food has gone totally down hill. One day I ordered chicken soup and it was some weirdly spiced concoction, hardly edible. (I believe this is now off the menu.) In the early spring I ordered a fish and chips with 'coleslaw' and it was just absolutely plain shredded cabbage. When the owner came by to check on us he seemed confused when I explained it should have some dressing or oil and vinegar. He then brought back the shredded cabbage absolutely doused in mayo...inedible. This past week I ordered a chicken caesar sandwich on a potato bun with fries. The fries were cold and the bun was MOULDY inside and out! How does the 'chef' miss that?! The server offered a new sandwich but by then I was totally put off my food and I assumed all the buns were mouldy so why try that again.. The owner never even came to apologize and we knew he was there. We decided to splurge on carrot cake which is expensive but it was dry and stale. We were told they were getting new desserts that day so we should have known it would be so dry...but they should not be serving it like that. We did not even bother to mention it, just paid and left. Sadly we will not be returning to this restaurant for friends and family get togethers and will have to find a new...