Orchard Family Restaurant (All Day Breakfast) — Restaurant in Mississauga

My brother and I went here for lunch today.

I hadn't visited orchard family restaurant since well before covid, and even then only for breakfast (which I recall as being above my pre-conceived expectations).

My brother stuck with his usual breakfast fare. I, unsure of what to get for lunch at a restaurant I haven't been to for ages, decided to go with my usual (a rare steak, the biggest one that's available, with whatever sides they had.). The menu doesn't state the fact that they serve AAA beef steak, but I am pleasantly surprised that the chef told me that that is the grade they use. The steak I had was cooked my desired doneness (plus the grill marks were exceptional!), and the sides were also appropriately cooked, the mashed potatoes were a great consistency, the green beans and carrots were both cooked as such that they were cooked yet not soggy, and the mushrooms were firm to the bite and not slimy ( as is the norm for a lot of the diners I have frequented in the past). The service provided by the waitress/hostess/server was exceptional, with her recommendation of the soup of the day (being a new England style clam chowder, in it of itself amazingly cooked, and seasoned perfectly.) And the coffees my brother and I ordered, while the actual mug was smaller than I would have preferred, tasted very fresh and were never empty until the very end of the meal.

My 3 critiques of the entire experience are as such. 1: I am of the opinion that the seasoning the chef used for the amazingly cooked steak was a bit less than I would have personally chosen to use (being trained as a chef and working on a line for years myself, it is reasonable that different people like their seasonings different ways)

2: when I went to pay my bill at the end, there was no direct way to electronically tip both the waitress and the cook. I wanted to do both, and the workaround was to tip the waitress double and tell her to give half to the kitchen. While the tip I gave them was not extravagant, I do wish there was an easier way to distribute the tips I so choose to distribute as I see fit. (Other than cash, which should ideally not be used in this situation of tipping a cook due to money being potentially covered in chemical, or biological contaminants and therefore add to the cooks cleanliness workload on what I imagine is an already crowded plate.)

3: it's too far to get to regularly for me, it's in a highly frequented hurontario and Dundas location that is great for cooksville residents though. I would be ecstatic if there was one in clarkson.

While Google only gives a 1-5 star rating possibility, I don't like that system because it's to broad.

Accuracy of meal doneness: 10/10 Professional and curious service: 10/10 Overall seasoning: 7.5/10, steak needed a pinch more salt and perhaps peppercorns, unless they decided to go exotic with spices and flavors. Vibe: friendly neighborhood dine Visual presentation: 10/10, hard to do much to fancy up steak, but the grill marks were divine. Cost to value ratio: 9/10 hard to get an AAA steak of any good size and professionally cooked on top of that for under $30, but somehow is place is doing 12oz for about 20. Almost unheard of during this time.

On a scale of 24/h diner (as my brother told me that they are) it knocks it out of the park at 10/10, it puts the big chains to shame.

On a general restaurant scale I'd say 8.5/10

Kudos to the staff,

-The guy with the...

I don’t like to post negative reviews but this calls for one. Very disappointing with what I’m guessing is the manager! Our family has been coming here for over 30 years. We have always loved the staff and food, however today my husband was served raw pork. My husband let the waitress know and she was trying to get him to have it re cooked. He didn’t want it after that. It was pretty gross to have eaten raw pork. Some lady that had just come into the restaurant with her parents and kids, at least I’m guessing she’s the manager, came at our table with attitude because my husband didn’t think it was right to have to pay for a meal that was raw. All she could focus on was that he ate half of the meal so he should pay for half. Had she come up to the table with a different attitude and a shred of customer service and apologized, he would have definitely paid for the meal. It was not about the money but the principle. Instead she let her ego get the better of her because my husband said he was not going to pay for it, so she came back to the table so angry and told us that she comped the whole meal, does not want our business and we can leave, said we are banned from the restaurant and Merry Christmas to us? Who does that? The right thing to do would have been to apologize and comp his meal. Instead this moron said he would have to pay for half of the meal?? She said it, in a tone like we were trying to get away with something. She embarrassed us in front of the other customers because she didn’t like it that he said No to paying for half the meal. We are in the food business and would never make a customer pay for raw food. So for $20 she lost the restaurant great customers and great tippers for her staff all because she is an A hole person in the wrong line of work! What lesson and example in service and decency is she teaching her children that we’re watching and listening to the whole interaction. Poor kids! She should be embarrassed for herself. I’m actually embarrassed for her and the restaurant....

I read great reviews about this place and just wanted to take my family out for a treat. However the whole experience left a sour taste and left us extremely unsatisfied to the point that we'd never come back. Whether this serves any importance to you readers but we are an Asian family.

Let me break down our experience for you. We arrived at 10:45am, we sat down and after about 5 mins of deciding what we wanted, we waited anothet 30 mins for our server to come to our table. As I was about to give our order, she interrupted me and asked me what we wanted to drink, which we replied water. At this point, the table beside us flagged her and instead of telling them to wait, she decides to go over to them and fulfill their request. At this point, we still hadn't even placed our order and it was now over 35 mins!

Our waitress brought over water after 6-7min but then left without taking our order again. It is now 11:25am. We're now hungry and annoyed because we felt like we were being ignored while other diners were being taken care of.

We felt like we gave enough time for the diner's staff to take our order and decided to leave. My wife went to speak with someone to explain that this was unacceptable. Her excuse was that "I've been so busy" and said that if we "sit back down and she will take our order now". At this point, we had already decided to leave due to her poor customer service.

You might wonder why I'm bringing up my race. We were the only Asian family in the diner. My friend (Caucasian) came in after us and had already been served and eaten halfway through her meal with her family. This is by far the worst customer service experience I've had.

I can't believe the reviews and after seeing the food that arrived next to us, this place isn't something really to come back for.

What a...