Tree House Cafe — Restaurant in Salt Spring Island Electoral Area

Average food, long wait time, and TERRIBLE service.

I went yesterday with my friends to get takeout for lunch before catching a ferry. Firstly, I had to wait at least 10 minutes standing at the counter before someone came to ask if I had been helped yet. After I had ordered and paid, no wait time was given so we just stood outside waiting for a while. 10 minutes after I went back to ask what an estimate would be to see if I should go for a walk and come back later and I was told it would take likely 20-25 minutes because their kitchen was really busy and they were understaffed. About 40 minutes later still no sign our food was on the way so I decided to check on the progress and again I had to stand at the counter for at least 10 minutes with servers walking past me but ignoring me when I said excuse me or tried to get their attention. Finally a server came and I asked if our food was almost done, they said it might take 15-20 minutes more so at that point I asked if I could cancel my order and get a refund if I hadn't gotten started. They called over someone who was maybe their manager? So I explained the situation again and said I've already been waiting for at least 40 minutes for takeout, if it's not been started yet I would like to cancel my order and get a refund. Instead of empathy, I got attitude, I explained I needed to catch a ferry and we still had to go back and get our luggage and stuff and she just dismissed it and said "it's okay you have plenty of time, and your order is being cooked, it'll just be like another 10 minutes" without understanding that we might have other things to do before catching the ferry. No refund or even common courtesy was offered. Finally we got our food after an hour wait and the food tasted fine, but their service was absolutely TERRIBLE. I feel bad for some of the servers who actually seem like genuine people. One girl overheard our conversation and asked specifically what our order was and went to check for us. I can understand if it's busy and understaffed but there was absolutely no reason to be rude and show such disrespect to people who are just trying to get lunch and move on with their day. Needless to say, we'll never...

If you have food allergies beware, they do not take allergy questions seriously and are lazy when checking ingredients.

We rarely eat out but my girlfriend had scoped out the menu the last time she passed through town. I was explicit with the server who assured me there wouldn't be a problem. When the food arrived I took one bite and knew I was in trouble. We stopped her and I asked again, she assured us again so I passed it to my girlfriend who took a bite, she also commented it seemed wrong. I ate the other dish but didn't touch the suspect food, we paid and tipped 20% (just incase I was wrong) but by the time we took the ferry and arrived home, any doubts I had were gone.

It takes 2 minutes of her time to check but days of anti-inflammatories for me to recover. I get people say they have allergies when it's just their preferences but this isn't a whim for some of us. I wanted to go back and confront them directly; my girlfriend talked me into leaving this review instead. The receipt also had no mention of the allergy and all our other meals were home-made so I know for sure it was this...

I have mixed feeling about this place. The ambiance is very island like and of course you have the famous tree in the middle of the cafe, which adds character. However, the food took around 30 minutes to arrive, which I was unimpressed by. This had nothing to do with the waitresses, but that really killed my experience because the place wasn’t even packed. It was too long of a wait for a burger to be made in my opinion.

Good news is the food tasted great and although it was a bit pricey for what you got, this is definitely one of the more popular tourist attractions to eat at. I’d also like to note that the veggie burger tasted like meat, which is great for vegetarian who miss their meat.

I know at night they have performances, which really adds a vibe. So yes, I would recommend checking this place out, only if you’re looking for a slow, laid back experience with nothing else in your day - it’s definitely not a place to have a...