The Riverside Grill & Gazebo — Restaurant in Peterborough

If I could give 0 stars I would. Ignorant staff and completely unorganized. Totally unacceptable. We stayed at the hotel for one night, on a family trip. Wasted our entire evening trying to get dinner. We arrived at the restaurant before 6pm, and were greeted by staff that gave us the option of sitting inside, or out on the patio. We chose the patio, and she walked us out, said "Sit anywhere", and took off. My family moved some tables together and sat for 10 minutes before another staff came to tell us "We aren't serving this area." So we moved inside the restaurant. We gave our order to our waitress and then sat 45 minutes before we had to ask another staff to at least bring us water to the table. When she brought our $4 pops, they were in child size glasses, and all tasted like water. (By the way, during this time another family sat out on the patio exactly where we did and received their meal basically at the time we got our first glass of water) An hour after we placed our order she informed us the appetizers we wanted are unavailable so we picked something else. Then some time later another server took over for her, and informed us of the same thing she had told us (no communication here). We waited 2 hours before receiving our meals. I ordered the chicken Alfredo and the portion was child sized, and came without chicken. Then waited until my meal was luke-warm to receive a dry chicken breast with not even salt for seasoning on the side. My sister received a "Caeser salad" which was essentially just some lettuce in a bowl of watery soup, and hair to top it off. The appetizers they did have showed up after our actual meals. Also, we were the only table in the whole restaurant. Do not waste your time going here,...

BEWARE, it's very likely you'll have a bad experience at this establishment. Such a shame because it's one of the few restaurants in the area that is by the water. Our party of five arrived at the gazebo patio at 1pm for lunch. Two tables were put together for us, but only one table had an umbrella... we asked the server for another umbrella, but were told they couldn't do that as it was unsafe...meanwhile the guests next to us had two tables together with an umbrella on each... The server finally came to take our order, 15 to 20 minutes after we arrived. We ordered drinks and meals at the same time. My beer came in a dirty glass. I took it back to the bar and it was replaced with a clean glass. Three of us ordered the single smash burger and were promptly told it was very small, and are you sure you don't want the double? .... just odd. Misleading attempts to up-sell sides that sounded like they were included. After waiting for an HOUR our meals finally came, all except mine which was a smash burger. I was told mine would be along shortly.... I finally canceled my order after waiting an additional 20 minutes while tables around us were served the same thing I ordered......! I was offered a complimentary Caesar salad that was left over after a mistake the server had made with another table's order.... As well, the meals were served but we had no cutlery or napkins. My brother-in-law ordered a rack of ribs and was served with no knife. Just a lot of hassles when it should have been so simple and pleasant. I'll never return to this...

Upon arriving for our lunch reservation, we were completely enamored with the location and view on the patio. Unfortunately, that's where the positives stop. The service was "okay". Our server was training, so I understand to a point, but he said almost no words to us. Even when collecting the tip from the table, he said nothing. Just took it and left without so much as a, "have a nice day". The young lady training him was very good though! As for the food, it was not great for the most part. The hot and butter wings sauce tasted nice but the actual wings were greasy. The guacamole was quite good. The fish and chips, on the other hand, were terrible. There was almost no batter. It was like it had fallen off in the fryer and there were just crispy bits sticking to it. They also left the skin on the fish which was a very strange texture and taste. The portion size looked like something from the child's menu. By extension, the fish sandwich had the same issues. The calamari were breaded, oily chunks with no dip of any kind. The flavour of the breading was nice and it was not rubbery, but it was very fishy tasting. In the end, we didn't finish anything and 2 out of the 3 of us left hungry. We were so hopeful this beautiful setting would become a go to lunch out spot, but sadly we will have to...