Utopia Dream Cafe — Restaurant in Markham

If you’re looking for a board game café, keep looking because this was the worst experience my friends and I have had at one.

Went in with 4 friends over the weekend to celebrate a birthday. When we walked in we were greeted pleasantly by a host who told us that if we wanted to stay in the café we would have to spend $25 but that there would be no additional charge for playing the games. We thought, oh that’s a great deal! Just $25. Mind you, the place was empty so that should have been my first clue that something wasn’t right. They did have lovely tables that could expand to fit more players which I thought was cool and quite nice.

We played some monopoly and taboo. The monopoly was missing the dice so we had to look in another game box for dice to use. Taboo had some ripped cards and the buzzer didn’t work. I thought that was fine, the price of sitting in is quite low so I felt that the low quality of the board games was okay. We ended up ordering three drinks (which were quite expensive at minimum $10 before tax per drink) for our entire time there which was about 1.5 hours. When we went to pay, the cashier/manager told us that we had to spend at least $25 before tax per person! We tried to explain that we thought it was just per group, however the best they could do to accommodate was give us a 10% discount if we paid cash. However, the café is situated in an industrial area so there are not many ATMs around. We ended up spending $160 total after ordering some food (they automatically add a tip % as well even though the service was practically non existent except for the host that greeted us when we walked in). We were supposed to go out and eat elsewhere as half the party could not eat non halal food items. If we had known about the charge per person, we would have gone elsewhere as there wasn’t many appetizing dishes we could order.

We decided to make the best of it and eat the takeout at home. The chicken dishes we had were saucy on the outside but tough and chewy on the inside. It was inedible in my opinion, and some pieces still had the bone in them. The tofu and vegetarian ramen was bland. Even the sliced potato we had wasn’t good. The one tasty item we ordered was the fried fish, and that’s the only positive thing I can say about the food. The portion size was also relatively small and the meat and fish dishes did not come with sides of rice. We ended up going elsewhere.

Overall, this place is below mediocre and I would...

My Girlfriend and I went to this café play some board games and generally just hang out. We were looking forward to the experience as there are so few board game café’s that are north of Finch. When we arrived we asked for a table for two, the waitress sighed as though extremely inconvenienced as she had to separate two tables. Once we are seated we read the menu and are exposed to the "rules" of the establishment (some of which were a little off putting); saying that basically you are limited to two glasses of water and will be forced to buy a drink every couple of hours if you wanted to stay there. Now while I understand that is a business decision the language used in the list of rules came across as abrasive and came across more as a way to chisel you out of your money than it seemed to protect the establishment from people staying there for hours on end without buying more than a $4 drink. We weren't planning on staying for more than an hour and a half so that wasn't a big deal.

After a look at the menu we both decided to get the popcorn chicken and fries; it is safe to say we were a little let down. The food was very bland, and the chicken tasted like it was lower grade than cow feed to say the least. I would have been better off going to KFC or McDonalds with a deck of cards.

The most off putting aspect of the evening was when a larger group came in and asked for a booth. The waitress tried to direct them elsewhere but ultimately gave up and requested that we switch tables in the middle of a game. If we had not already received our food safe to say we would have walked out at that point. I don't know what possessed them to think that this was acceptable customer service in any way.

The bathrooms were disgusting, and I question how they could possibly pass any health code inspections although won't go into detail here as to not gross out any readers.

Overall it was an incredibly negative experience and we have absolutely no intention...

So we came in early to avoid the rush..we were a group of 6. it started off great.. but they soon forgot about us, waited for an hour for the server to come back to check what we wanted (not like it was packed that she couldn’t handle the rush) to order..and that she had trouble understanding us. We were only speaking English with a Canadian accent. they don’t separate bills on Fridays apparently, didn’t mention they don’t accept visa or MasterCard anywhere or at anytime.. only came to know when we wanted to pay that they only accept debit or cash. Said why doesn’t one of our friends in our group pay the whole bill and we sort it out amongst ourselves!! And because it was taking a bit of time for them to understand how to accept our payment told other people behind us to come pay first. In addition to that, they couldn’t read the items on the bill.. the guy at the cashier told us to read it out and calculate what we had to pay for. They were very Disrespectful and unorganized. the food was disappointing ordered onion rings and got something that didn’t have onion rings in batter.. fake onion rings! .. but the waffle was good.. maybe it was fake too?

Since we came a bit early..one lady behind the counter had her legs up on the counter as if she was lounging at home. How are they still running a business? Has customer satisfaction gone out the window? Unfortunately a games cafe that was good, staff who helped you pick out games, games that were in good condition, tea that was unique, had to close down because it was in an unpopular area... shame.

To add again. The guy at the cashier said for this time only he will allow us to pay separately on the one bill. As if he was doing us a favour and that he won’t do it again next time. Well there won’t be a next...