Ben & Florentine — Restaurant in Oakville

Was looking forward to starting Saturday with a nice breakfast with family.

On an earlier pick-up visit, while paying, I asked staff if they had hash browns. Was told no but they had something called potato pancakes instead. I was given impression we could just exchange the home fries for the potato pancakes.

Ordered today & remembered to request for potato pancakes i/o home fries. During pickup, I noticed there was unexpected extra charge for potato pancakes (approx. $6) Thought I’d clarify on that line item since I had been given a different impression from previous visit from the staff that it was just a swap

Happened to have the owner doing my payment step. She mentioned no it’s extra charge; pointing to the bill showing me what I already saw.

Now, not that one cannot afford the extra line item. It was communication and care shown that prompted me to write the review.

While paying, mid-conversation, the owner could not get a printout of receipt so walked off. 1 minute later, another person comes to me and .. guess what … proceeds to try charge me a SECOND time on my card for entire bill I had just paid. I clarified I’d just already paid on the machine … upon which she just thrusts the receipt in my hand and walks off.

Here’s an owner who decided not to bother with customer clarification that was unexpected based on previous info from staff, but chose to completely ignore a customer conversation once she walked off AND not inform the staff sent back that I had already paid.

To top it off, I reach home .. and the thing that I enjoy - the apple sauce sides - are not even in the bag. Their menu clearly states it’s included with all classic breakfasts

An owner who dodges behind her staff, does not care and cannot fulfill orders as displayed does bring up the question of the kind of leadership...

We went today to Ben & Florentine in Oakville. It was almost Lunchtime. We were are a group of eight people. The girl that greeted us, was very kind to tell us that she was the only waitress, that there was only one cook working at the restaurant and that we would have to wait a little bit more than usual. Nevertheless, since we’ve been many times at this place, we decided to sit.

I imagine the kind of pressure this girl was having by taking care of all the Clients in the restaurant that at the time were around 20-25.

Yet, she had the table ready for us in less than three minutes with all the menu folders on each seat. She took the first order for drinks and came back very fast. When she asked for our main course, she did not have to write them down because she said she would remember all of them. By the way, some of the orders had special requests. When she brought each of the orders, there were all exactly as we requested them. This girl is a joy, someone who wants to become the best every day, and one who dedicates her heart and soul to work very professionally towards the clients. Our most sincere congratulations and best wishes to this employee, who knew how to cope under such pressure. Her focus and engagement in her job was amazing. A message to the owner, You should not open your Restaurant to operate only with two employees!!! This is not the first time that I’ve seen this, just to save some money at the expense of your employees burnout. They are also human beings, not machines!!! If you wanna continue to be successful, keep this girl, because she is...

HORRIBLE. We used to love this place but we will never return. We had to ask the server to come take our order after waiting for so long. Then it took an hour for our order to arrive. One server even asked us to give up a seat for a toddler (even brought our own booster seat), just because he didn’t want to all the way to the back to get chairs. We said no obviously. They ended up dragging chairs that made a terrible screeching sound. Almost all customers were startled. We were seated beside the kitchen and could see the movement - they were beyond disorganized. Workers themselves were arguing. Chef screaming. Whoever the manager of this branch is must be fired - it was an absolutely horrible experience. Food came - they were dry. Took forever to give out even a simple toast. One family member has egg allergy so we asked for plain bread instead of french toast to go with the ham and cheese (do re mi). Lo and behold, they handed a completely different order with scrambled eggs?! Took forever to bring our bill. Never again. What a waste of time and money. Give yourself a favour and go...