Catch Kitchen + Bar — Restaurant in Richmond

DISAPPOINTING!! I have never written a negative review before and I am usually quite patient with dining experiences, as I know everyone is trying their best to handle everyone at once. However, my group and I were extremely unimpressed with the service and food at Catch Kitchen. We had a reservation at 12:30 PM the day after Canada Day to celebrate a birthday. We wanted to try this restaurant out because of all the reviews raving about the view and their seafood. We were seated inside the restaurant behind the host station as you can’t reserve the balcony - it’s first-come-first-served the day of, but this still did not seem like a table you’d give a reservation to! We ordered the strawberry cheesecake drink which was delicious, and the only good part of the entire experience. We ordered the prawn & scallop linguine, the miso glazed black cod, the herb-crusted halibut, and the roast beef dip. The restaurant had maybe 8 tables max and was in no way busy. There were many servers working, but it took at least 10 minutes just to get our server’s attention to place our order. It took about 45 minutes for our dishes to come out - we even had to ask our server to check in on our food. The halibut looked beautiful, but after you pass the flavourful herb crust, the fish was dry and flavourless. The pasta was average, and the black cod didn’t seem like black cod. The beef dip was the last dish to arrive, as the manager apologized that the bun wasn’t up to their standards and were in the process of re-doing the bun. If I could improve one thing about the beef dip, it would be to add crispy onions to it. The au jus and the curly fries were lovely, but the roast beef itself felt very bland, like lunch meat. We wanted to try two of their desserts, so we ordered the sticky toffee pudding which I was really looking forward to, and the apple cinnamon skillet cookie. We waited another 30 minutes and the desserts never arrived, so we had to stand up and wave in order to get our server’s attention who was chatting to other servers about their Canada Day. We had to leave, as we had already spent 2 hours there and paid for additional parking, so we asked to cancel our dessert order and they said they hadn’t even started cooking it yet!! Then, when we asked for the cheque, we waited another 15 minutes for it - at this time there were a total of 3 tables in the restaurant. There did not seem to be any reason for such a delay. At the end of the meal, the manager did not attempt to apologize or compensate us for this experience and there was no effort on the server’s part to help. Additionally, we noted in the reservation and we mentioned that we were there to celebrate a birthday and it was in no way acknowledged! Overall, the presentation of the food was nice, but the rest was VERY disappointing. Paid $130 for a bland and extremely disappointing experience. Also, our view was of the...

Edit: update to events, though not to rating:

Following this experience and me sending feedback using the restaurant’s comment site, I heard back later that day from a manager. He stated all staff knew about brunch being offered, that other guests were served brunch this long weekend day, and he wanted to connect if we were still there (which of course we were not — we had left hours earlier, after being told there was no brunch offered).

So, while we originally thought we were poorly served by the staff we spoke with on the phone the day before, and who we thought gave us wrong information, instead unfortunately we were served poorly by the staff member who seated us and told us there was no brunch served today. That maybe is even worse! We were there and could have been served brunch had staff been informed/trained better.

All his staff certainly were not clear on this, as we were seated at about 11:15am, and when we noted that there was no brunch menu on the table, we asked about it, and were told plainly that brunch was not available today and that it was only served on the weekend. We responded that we specifically called and asked someone yesterday about it, but she just repeated that brunch wasn’t being served. That was about all the information we were given.

I replied to the manager to let him know this, and did not ever have any further response. That, from our perspective, is another failure in good customer relations and service.

In the big scheme of things, this is of course a small scale issue, but for us, and for my wife in particular, it was a very disappointing outing instead of what was supposed to be a celebratory meal for her on the last day of holidays.

As Steveston residents, we wouldn’t recommend Catch, and would instead point people to better local establishments with far superior service and staff.

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We specifically called Catch on Sunday to ask about their brunch menu for a visit the next day, on the Mon. Aug. 6 long weekend. After speaking with staff and confirming they were offering brunch, we made plans for a special outing to celebrate before my wife's new job begins tomorrow, arranged our schedule around this visit, and drove to Catch on the Monday – only to find, once we were seated, that brunch was actually not being offered. Extremely disappointing, an unfortunate waste of our time, and totally let down by the staff who we spoke to to...

Tonight my boyfriend and I booked a 6pm seating for Catch. We reviewed the menu at home first and thought we should try it.

First, the pros: Location is great.. most seating has some view so you can’t go wrong. We each ordered a White Sangria - and it was delicious. Sure , 11$’s for the Sangria, but it was really good.

Unfortunately - those were the only pros. From the moment we walked in, we got a vibe of this not being what we thought based off their website and IG page. The hostess who checked us in, thought we were a party of five. There were only two of us. As a hostess, ask first before assuming.. Then we were seated. I was offered a tangible menu - I said yes. It came, eventually, but no drink menu. By the way, they have no menu codes to scan, you have to use your data to load their website menu or get your hands on a tangible menu. The food menu came, I had to ask for a drink menu. Our server was not on the ball. She was there for business and not for customer service. The drink menu eventually came, after she told us she can’t find one . ( how is that my problem??) We ordered the corn crab chowder to share and to be honest - that was delicious. My boyfriend had the pork chop - uhm, let’s just say it was as hard as a leather shoe sole and the flavor was lacking.. even the potatoes on the plate were not seasoned. I ordered the fish and chips.. everything about this was wrong. 1) the were so many fries, I had to fish for my own cod. Once I found my cod, the batter was raw. The outside was crispy, but the inside batter was raw. So I figured I can look past that, and just eat the cod. What a mistake. The cod was not seasoned at all, Nothjng, Nada. Nothing. And the coleslaw, I mean the spoonful you do get on the side, was just as flavourless - it was more like wet cabbage. The service here was horrible. Our server, like I mentioned was not on the customer service side of things. It took forever for the drink menu, forever for vinegar to arrive for my fires ( we had to ask twice) and it took even longer by the time we got our bill until the time she returned with the machine to pay. This place is overpriced for the lack of service and lack of flavour you get in your meals. Try another...