La Patate A Carlo — Restaurant in La Pêche

This review is for the ice cream part of Carlo's.

Tonight we ordered soft serve, shakes, and slushies for a large group. The soft serve was adequate, the shakes were good, but the slushies were something else. They tasted like dentist paste--very plasticky and a bad kind of sweet. They weren't even very icy--unsure if there was a problem with the machine or the mix they are using, but when we brought this up to the staff, they were unwilling to make new ones. We purchased new ones in another flavour (kids, am I right?), and those were equally terrible. The customer service was totally absent. It also would have been good to know what the sizes were like for folks there for the first time, as we were. The medium soft serve was as large as my child's head and impossible for one person to eat. Why would you even serve it in that quantity?! The cashier/server was also eating while taking our order--unsure if she was not allowed to take a break or if this is normal.

There is a nice place to sit with lots of shade & picnic tables, and the play area for little ones was nice. All the customers seemed friendly. As someone who was here for vacation trying out a place to treat the kids for the first time, this seemed like the natural choice. After experiencing the lack of customer service, we...

Update 2024 - we've been back to visit the bus, and the ice-cream/pizzeria has a "For Sale" sign in front of it (walk-up window closed at this time of the season). The Bus still has excellent poutine and food with good, friendly service. We will visit again

The Bus: busy but good. The food and portions are good, the people are friendly. The ice cream counter? Really sub-par... but same owners? Hard to believe. It's tempting in the summer, so I read some reviews. I didn't expect to have the 1-star review experience actually come true during my visit (sounds like this a long-standing problem). Product quality issues should be a no-brainer "let us fix that for you." A $2.50 slushie should never be a barrier to an issue being fixed to ensure a good experience for your customer. Sadly, there are $12.50 of slushies in the trash because no one bothered to ask how they could make things better, or offered to absorb the cost of another smoothie or an ice cream cone for three kids on summer vacation. In a business like this, the money you save by not offering a replacement is the only money you will enjoy from those customers because they...

I have been going to this place since I was a kid I think and I've always looked forward to coming here. Always. This year was no exception, but I'm disappointed.

While I recommend Patate a Carlo for the taste and the atmosphere, I have to say I was really disappointed in the new portion sizes. Like... Really disappointed. The small poutine is more like snack size now and it costs $7 (for which I generously tipped $2 each poutine we ordered) assuming it would be the same size and quality as I'm accustomed to. I can't even say there were maybe 12 very small fries loaded with tons of cheese (I'll 100% give them that) but I had no fries to eat the cheese with and I'm not into eating cheese and gravy soup. I would think the fries are the cheapest way to make people happy but I really think they've just gone way too small on their containers and they aren't functional. I seriously hope this gets fixed. I used to be so happy going there. Today I left very hungry.

Unfortunately, all we ordered today was the small poutine so I don't have anything else positive to share and that...