The Hatter — Restaurant in Orangeville

We had a party of 12 on Mother's Day, ya we had a fair size group but we went at 3:30 in the afternoon. There was only a few other people in the restaurant, so it was not busy yet. Almost all of us ordered appetizers and they came out really quickly and for the most part were really good. We were ready to order our meal and Prime Rib was the daily special. Four out of the 12 of us were looking forward to the prime rib so when our server asked us if we were ready to order yet we said yes and it was 4:40. I was the first person to say my order and I said the prime rib please, he said sorry but that is not available until 5:00. We could see the chef doing the cooking as they have the cooking area out in the open for customers to see. We had to search the menu for something else now so the server proceeded to take the orders of those not wanting the prime rib. Anyway by the time all orders were placed it was close to 5. As soon as the chef had our orders, the prime rib came up. Needless to say, the 4 of us weren't happy. My husband ordered the wings and they were more like drumsticks. They were huge but he couldn't eat them, they were so tough he could not get the meat off the bone. My brother ordered a beef dip and he said there was no taste to it. Three people ordered the fish and chips and it was so slimy and greasy that you couldn't eat it. It looked disgusting! My sister in law ordered the spaghetti and it looked like it had s scoop of dishwater on it. There was very little marinara sauce on it. My niece ordered a caesar salad and there was a SLUG in it!! They took it away and apologized and offered to bring her another. She said Not! They apologized again and told her they would not charge her for her slug, I should say salad. How kind. Her complete bill should have been looked after! They gave her a 5 dollar voucher for her inconvenience and so she will come back again. Hahaha NOT! I ordered a pasta with chicken in it and aside from there being a little too much peppers in which is just my taste, it was excellent and I totally would order it again if I were to go back. The three kids had chicken fingers and fried and they looked really good as well. I guess everyone should have ordered...

We decided to go to the Hatter partially because we had gone there before for a brief stop before going to Forage, for dinner but mostly because we heard that the lineups for the local rib festival were exceedingly long.

Little we know...

Service started well enough, with a seemingly attentive server. The place wasn't busy (a few couples outside in the patio area - where we were sitting, and 2 or 3 smaller parties inside). However, our meal took an extremely long time to get to our table (though we were approached twice for more drink orders and the other tables got their meals long before us, even though we ordered long before them). At the end of it all, the amount of time it took to get our food was well over 45 minutes if not over an hour.

I completely understand delays - they are a part of life for a busy restaurant - but not when it's barely at a quarter of its capacity. In fact, it felt like our order wasn't even submitted to the kitchen until much later on. The other server who was working outside kept making sidelong glances at our table, but, again, nothing was done (even though we kept asking after our food).

At the end of it all, there wasn't even a real apology. No recompense whatsoever - and the icing on the cake was the "gratuity already included for parties of 6 or more" on the bill.

The food was decent - which was small sliver of a silver lining - but it certainly didn't make up for the delay (which, frankly, affected our plans for the rest of the night).

Hopefully this is a one-off. As folks from out of town who enjoyed previous sojourns to other restaurants in the area (which were great experiences), we were very disappointed in this place and will probably...

Sorry to say but the waitress was not very attentive at all. Service was very slow and had to ask couple of times for condiments and drinks. To be fair, the place was busy, but I also struggled to get the waitresses attention when needed, which to me lacks table awareness. To add to that 1 of 4 meals was incorrect when delivered...not even close to the meal ordered, which was odd when she repeated the order back to us signifying she heard it correctly..she then proceeded to tell us the restaurant was backed up and our replacement (correct) meal could take an hour!!!..it was a pasta dish!!. Needless to say, we expressed our displeasure and after 15-20mins it arrived, but of course the rest of us had finished our dishes. We were not charged for the incorrect meal thankfully some saving grace. The restaurant was casual but VERY loud from people talking trying to be heard. The rest of our meals were mediocre to okay. Not somewhere I will rush to go back to..poor service, wrong meal, loud atmosphere.. Update: Received response from owner. Unfortunately I was there Friday night, not Thursday night, so perhaps the staffing error repeated itself so something to consider. Regardless..I appreciate the effort put into the owners response...not something you get with many reviews, and has changed my opinion to try again..I'll post another...