Neighbourhood Brewing — Restaurant in Penticton

To the owner, I hope this reaches you. I was searching for the your email, but I couldn’t find it. I have never been so disappointed and embarrassed at a restaurant in my life. Tonight I came in with family to enjoy your tacos that I had been raving to them about. I sent my boyfriend first to get us a table he had mentioned there was a minor in our party to the host and there was no issue, so he told us to come in. My little brother and I came into the restaurant, we were greeted by the host no issue and sat down. After 5 minutes or so we were greeted by our server who had brought us water and began taking our order. Me coming from the service industry as well asked if it was ok we were sitting inside as I know some places prefer minors on the patio and she said yes of course and continued to take our order. She then said as long as he is with a parent or guardian he is okay and asked if we were all siblings. I told her I was his older sister (he is under 12) and that the other person in our party was my boyfriend. She asked for my ID I only had my drivers license as I don’t drink so I only had 1 piece on me, but I am 20 years old. She said that wasn’t enough and I needed two pieces or to be his parent. I told her my boyfriend is 26 and has two pieces of ID and nobody at the table would be drinking. She said that’s not good enough because my boyfriend isn’t related to him; therefore, I needed two pieces or to be his parent. I explained to her that we are both his guardians for the day as my mom was at work out of town and my dad is a front line worker. She repeated that we all needed to be related to be there. I said okay could we order some food to take with us then as we had been very excited to come try the tacos, especially my younger Star Wars obsessed brother who had tried ordering the ham solo twice already. She said yes so we began ordering again and she said she had to go get her machine because she couldn’t remember our order. She came back and told us we couldn’t take the tacos we ordered to go as they don’t carry nicely but we could have burritos. We said we couldn’t have the burritos as some of us had dairy allergies. She then told us we would just have to leave then sorry. We were so disappointed and it was very embarrassing to just up and leave right after getting there. Being a server myself I was appalled by this service. Having my order taken 3 times being there for 20+ minutes at the table and then being asked to leave for having a minor that we were already told was okay to be there. We proceeded to have dinner at slackwater where they told us your server was in the wrong and they were happy to serve us and my little brother as long as an adult in the party was of age. Overall extremely disappointed. I will no longer being telling my friends or guests at my restaurant to go to this place if they want family friendly. Definitely not a family...

I recently visited Neighbourhood Brewing when I was in Penticton - my girlfriend and I didn't know about it until we got there and we decided to drop in because it looked really nice from the outside. I'm glad we did!

The beer was amazing and if you're looking for a great beer-drinking snack I highly suggest the Chips & Pico + Guac - they were huge and so delicious!

This review is less about the food and beer though and more about how amazing Kassandra is. It was busy when we were in and unfortunately it took a bit of time to get our food. We didn't think much of it but when the food did arrive, Kassandra came over, apologized for how long it took, and told us she wasn't charging us because it was unacceptable. A couple of points here:

It takes a pretty special type of leader to set high standards for a team and then hold the team to those standards, even when the customer isn't complaining

The fact that she came over personally to apologize, even though we didn't say anything, shows that she personally confronts difficult situations head on.

I've been to hundreds of restaurants in my lifetime and what I typically see are leaders who don't acknowledge problems unless the customer complains and leaders who don't interact with the customer personally when something goes wrong, choosing to send the server over to deliver the apology instead.

My girlfriend and I both manage teams of people, so we had fun debating what Kassandra's position was at the restaurant. She carried herself with such professionalism that I assumed she was the Restaurant Manager and my girlfriend thought she was the Owner (she told us she had leadership responsibilities but wasn't the Manager or Owner). You can tell this is someone who takes work very seriously and it's so refreshing to see because many people don't.

Neighbourhood Brewing you are extremely lucky to have someone like Kassandra...

Stopped by this spot twice last week while my partner and I were staying nearby. Some of the great things that stood out: The beer was amazing — especially the Pale Ale, which had us coming back for more! Food was decent, though some items like the tacos weren’t available for takeout (maybe they think their tacos are too fancy to box up lol?). Lots of gluten free options which was great for us. It’d be a good idea to mark the gluten-free options on the menu as ‘GF’ or something though. Also lots of vegan options!! The dog-friendly patio with lots of cute pups was a nice touch. Staff were also all super friendly.

A few downsides: no hard alcohol or shaken cocktails, unlike some of the other breweries nearby. Also, the hours on Google aren’t totally accurate—drinks actually stopped at 9:45 PM on the weekend, where as it’s listed as 10:00 PM here on google. Lastly, during our second visit, it was a bit off-putting hearing the chefs in the kitchen yell and swear at other staff members (our actual server being one of them). We sat close to the kitchen near the bar, only just a few tables away, so I know we weren’t the only ones to hear it that night if we could from where we were sitting.

Overall, the patio, drinks, food (mostly), and atmosphere were great, making this a definite must visit in Penticton! However all of these issues definitely stood out a lot more to us during our second visit, which negatively affected the enjoyability of the restaurant and our experience that...