Swiss Chalet — Restaurant in North Bay

Went Saturday Oct 22. Food was great and came quickly! We were all very happy with our meals.

Our experience with our waitress was not so great unfortunately. I was out to lunch with my 90 year old grandmother. She ordered a soup and then later said that she wanted it to go as it was put on the table. I get that this is odd, but again, she is 90 years old. We then ordered a wrap to go, but since my grandma is hard of hearing she didn’t understand that she was getting green beans on the side, which she does not like. When our waitress came back I said “I don’t know if this is possible but can my grandmother actually get mixed veggie on the side if isnt too late?” Believe it or not our waitress actually sighed loudly mid sentence and then rolled her eyes at me. Then agreed grumpily and walked away, super rude and unprofessional. She had maybe one other table, and having a few extra requests (that were communicated politely) to keep a 90 year old happy really isn’t a lot to ask. It felt like our waitress just wanted to do as little as possible and that we were annoying her. What our waitress also didn’t know is that we actually like 2 hours away from my grandmother. She lives alone. The wrap and the soup were for her to take home so that I could make sure she was fed over the next day or so. I wanted to make sure it was the way she wanted it so that she would eat it. She hasn’t been to a restaurant in months and Swiss chalet is one of her favourites. This was a special lunch for us. A little kindness goes a long way, especially with the elderly.

Of note, I was a waitress for about 5 years (up until about 2-3 years ago). I know how hard it is sometimes and I know how frustrating it can be to have a “needy table” but never would I never behave that way to a customer. I always did my best to treat people with respect and kindness. If you have no patience or are not friendly you should not be working as a waitress, especially in a restaurant that is a favourite for the elderly population. Hoping we just caught her on a bad day but if not, I would suggest thinking long and hard about how you treat your customers and have a little more perspective in terms of who’s being “needy” for no reason and who simply has more needs (ex. Elderly, tables with kids, etc).

We tipped her 20% or more despite this experience, which was not deserved but having been a waitress I couldn’t not tip someone and believe in tipping well.

I will end on a positive note and say that another waitress (Matt or Mike?) was incredibly nice and friendly (made small talk with us even though we weren’t his table). It’s almost like he knew that our waitress was unfriendly and wanted to...

Normally I would have given Swiss Chalet full marks, but each time I either order Swiss Chalet for Delivery or go in to eat or go to to pick up for take out to eat where I am going to enjoy a meal delicious meal from my most favorite restaurant chain I have been eating at since long before I was still living with my parents as a child, we have celebrated every special occasion at in our family and now since I don't have a Credit card I am now unable to order for delivery, so I now had to drive to the restaurant despite the fact that I only drive for emergency reasons due to a deep seated fear, I had to feed my husband who had surgery and is on heavy duty pain meds and cannot drive for a few days.

I ordered simple food that he would be able to eat with open wounds in his mouth, thier original soup, mashed potatoes and gravy and thier new veggies and cheese sauce, I said I only wanted to have broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower over cooked with their cheese sauce, I needed the veggies to be overcooked so that they would be soft. I got the veggies, but they were covered with bacon and onions, I am allergic to onions so if I had been aware of the onions I would have asked for no onions and if I had of known about the bacon I would have also asked them to hold or even better on the side.

My husband after having not eaten in 3 days did enjoy the soup and potatoes but I did not get to eat.

I am becoming more and more disappointed in Swiss Chalet and I never thought that the restaurant I grew up eating at starting with the Chalet Swiss in Montréal where the whole Swiss Chalet legacy began so long ago. The money grabbing dropping the fact that the whole point of having a business that is so customer oriented as a restaurant where when feeding and pleasing the customer is supposed to be one of the biggest points of the business, yet now each franchise owner only cares about how fat they can get their own wallet and don't seem to care how they are becoming perceived by the people, who without them at a minimum, would need to find a different industry to be in.

I am tired of being disappointed by places that used to bring comfort and happiness and now only bring about more and more disappointment and sadness.

Please Swiss Chalet remember the little people who come from the people who made it possible for the brothers who wanted to bring thier fathers love of feeding people and helping them celebrate all things family, all stages of life from birth to death in his establishment where everyone was always welcome.

Bring back the means of family restaurant instead of what...

We went for a birthday dinner tonight with 17 people. The service was terrible. Our server argued with our grandpa about a dirty fork, he asked for a replacement because it was dirty and she said she thought it was his from home. She then kept leaving during drink order taking. It took 45 minutes for everyone to finally get a chance to order a drink and she had to be told she missed many peoples drinks. We were told we weren't allowed to order our starters separately because it would have us there for hours. She walked away in the middle of my order and had to be told I wasn't done yet. When bringing the food out she only brought out half the starters gave one of our guests the wrong garlic bread, and instead of giving it to the right person she gave it to another person who didn't ask for bread and said "You can have this I guess" then another guest of ours asked where his bread was, she went and grabbed the bread she already gave out and brought it back to him. She brought out the starters separately from the entrees even after telling us she wouldn't be doing that and discouraged some of us from ordering starters. When one of us changed our minds about what we would like to order after being informed we wouldn't be able to remove tomatoes, she made a rude face when he looked back down at his menu, he didn't see it but we did. Our food was alright, some things were a little over-done. But for the most part it was good. After dinner she had to be flagged down twice to order dessert. She only got 2 dessert orders then we didn't see her for another while. We gave up on ordering dessert. When bringing us the bills she had no idea who had ordered what even though we told her in the beginning who was with who for the orders. She was visibly annoyed during all the interactions after dinner and complained to one of us about how many people we had. When given a low tip by one of us, she said "what? No tip?"

We have gone to many establishments in North Bay and it is very rare that we have such horrible service as a large group. We will not...