Beans N Barrels Cafe & Lounge — Restaurant in Ottawa

Literally my worst experience at a dessert restaurant. I went with my partner and 2 friends. I'll sum up the highlights:

I ordered the fondue and was VERY explicit that I was allergic to bananas and I asked to not have any bananas with the dish. When the dish arrived - of course, there were bananas with it. I reminded the server I was allergic and they seemed to have no idea what an allergy was. They finally took it away and came back about 10 minutes later with apples, instead of bananas, in the "fresh fruit" tray.

My partner ordered the "S'mores" speciality milkshake which listed that it came with chocolate cereal, brownie BITES, and GRILLED marshmallows. When it arrived, it was a melted chocolate soup with no chocolate cereal, one single brownie bite, and the marshmallows weren't grilled or roasted at all. My partner called the server over and she said that they were out of chocolate cereal (which would have been nice to know before we ordered it...). He also pointed out there was only one single tiny brownie when the menu says brownie bites (plural!), and that the marshmallows were completely raw and just soggy floating in the melted chocolate milk soup, and she just kept repeating "I don't work in the kitchen. I can't do anything about it. I can't do anything." She eventually went and talked to the manager and said the most she could do was 25% off the dish.

We asked for our bills and the server came back and handed a single bill with all the orders to me (again... we asked for separate bills). So I asked if we could please have separate bills, and the server seemed really annoyed and brought out 2 separate bills but then still had my order on my friend's bill. He ended up just paying it because we didn't want to ask her to fix another mistake.

My partner asked if he could talk to the manager and the server said no. She said the manager was "too busy making the next order". (It was NOT a busy night... it was Monday at 8:45pm... there were maybe two other tables there...) My partner insisted and the manager finally came out to talk to him. The manager kept saying that bananas were cheaper than strawberries and so she was doing us a favour with the fondue (.... 1) we weren't complaining about the fondue, and 2) they gave us extra apples, not strawberries, so her point was moot anyway). Not only that, she then said that she touches everything after she touches the bananas anyway and admitted that everything was cross-contaminated. THAT I already knew in the moment because I could feel my throat and tongue tingling. BE WARNED IF YOU HAVE AN ALLERGY: THEY WILL NOT BE UPFRONT ABOUT CROSS CONTAMINATION. I am lucky because I didn't DIRECTLY eat the bananas so I didn't have a full on reaction but it could have been MUCH worse for someone else.

The manager then went on to say that she purposefully doesn't grill the marshmallows because it "takes too much time" and "how am I supposed to put hot marshmallows on cold ice cream?" (How is that our problem?! Take it off the menu if you don't want to make it how you've advertised!) She REFUSED to refund him and finally ended up just giving us a 5 dollar bill to get us to leave.

We will never be returning and would advise people, especially people with allergies, to stay away. I don't relish leaving a bad review but I am absolutely shocked by what...

Before I went to Cacao 70 for the first time, I had heard so much about it. I was warned of the overpriced menu, but not of the lack of attention provided by the wait staff, nor the lack of quality in their food. As soon as I entered the restaurant, I was first in line to be seated. It took me and my companion at least 5 minutes before a waiter even noticed, talked, or seated us. Not to mention the restaurant was only about half full, and there seemed to be many waiters on the floor. Once we were seated in the hard, uncomfortable, wooden chairs, I took my first look at the menu. The menus pages are hard to turn, and visually busy, distracting, and quite honestly not that attractive. The menu, although expansive, seems to have a lot of repetition, everything had chocolate and bananas. If you are a Swiss Monkey, I recommend this place highly. It took another 15-20 minutes before the waitress even came to our table to introduce herself. When she finally did, she took our order efficiently, and the drinks we ordered were brought out in decent time. The milkshake, although large, was quite small, and cost 8$. On top of the small portion, and frankly overpricedness, it was lacking inspiration, and for a chocolate place, really didn't have that nice of a chocolate flavour. My table mate tried the Banana Split parfait (10.25), to literally top it off, the whipped cream was the most bland thing ever. And was uncomfortably warm. If you could make this with food colouring and water, I wouldn't be half shocked. The Parfait beneath was fine, but again, a small portion for the price AND for the service. I tried the chocolate hazelnut pizza (13.95) which was very creative, but lacked again the sophistication, and quality I'd expect from a place so highly recommended and highly priced. We also tried the strawberry chocolate Crepe, which was very good, but again, I couldn't really tell that it was premium chocolate. I'd really expect something spectacular and tantalizing from a place that charges me 10+ for a crepe. The meal went on with poor staff attendance, and a mediocre and unfilling meal (note: we finished everything, including the tiny side dishes of strawberries, some of which weren't ripe). We left unimpressed, hungry, and unsatisfied with a restaurant we had such high hopes and expectations for. We vowed never to return to Cacao 70. And only recommend it to our worst of enemies. Had the food been okay, this would have received a much better review even with the poor service. Unfortunately, too many wrongs came together in this experience, and I would...

If I could give 0 stars, I would. The menu appeared delicious while walking by the store front. We went in, the waitress told us to sit anywhere. The restaurant was mostly empty and we wondered why. We sat, very quickly they brought water over as we sat down. The waitress was nowhere to be seen for the next 15-20 min. When she finally came to take our drink order, we figured we should order food at same time to prevent waiting any longer. We each ordered a coffee and an entrée. Another 20 min pass and we still haven't received our coffee yet. At this point we contemplated walking out. The waitresses were in their late teens/early twenties and stood around chatting at the cash register. They did not pay any attention to customers. I noticed one waitress serving a gentleman at the table closest to the cash and flirting and paying particular attention to him. Then saw her take a strawberry off his plate, take a bite, and then try to feed it to him. Of course, this didn't end well and she dropped it on him. Then had to get a cloth and started wiping it off his pants. I assumed at this point they were dating and she only cared about his table and nobody else's. The other waitress was seen eating her breakfast right in the front by the food prep and cashier. The "chef" came to the front to make our coffee and bring it to us. And the chef could not have been any older than the teen waitresses. The only good thing about this place, was the Americano we received (instead of the coffee we ordered) was actually decently good tasting. After waiting about 30 min, our food arrived. I got waffles and was disappointed that I had to assemble everything myself. It came with bowls of chocolate sauce, chocolate cereal, ice cream and "caramelized" bananas. Everything had to be assembled and nothing was over the top good about this food. The caramelized banana was just a banana lightly fried on one side. We were hungry and angry at this point that it took so long, so we ate it anyways. Assembling myself wouldn't normally have been a big deal but when I saw other people had ordered waffles and theirs came assembled, I wondered why mine didn't. After eating and looking for waitress, we had to flag her down to get the bill. Needless to say, after all that, we didn't leave a tip and we were not...