Bon Temps Cafe — Restaurant in Saskatoon

Overall, I’m on the fence on whether or not I’d come back. When you’re spending over $200 on food and drinks, there’s a service standard that should be met.

The food was amazing. I started with the fresh oysters (which actually did taste fresh) and had the Low Country Boil as an entree. The oysters and accompanying sauces were delicious, and everything included in the boil was super yummy. For a completely land-locked province, all of the seafood (crawdads, shrimp, mussels, and clams) tasted wonderful, and I would go back just for their jambalaya. The corn was from-frozen and tough, but I can’t expect much for this time of year, so no complaint there.

The atmosphere inside the restaurant is one of my favourites I’ve been to in Saskatoon. The vibe in there was awesome, and for either a small party like I was, or a big group, I think it’s a super awesome place to spend a couple hours enjoying.

Where Bon Temps really did not shine was their service. The host was lovely, but our server (who didn’t tell us his name so I can’t say who) was subpar at best. We were seated right away, but it took our server 20 minutes just to greet us. I ordered a Bourbon on rocks, and it took us another 10 minutes to get our drinks. The first few sips were good, but when the server put more ice in the glass than liquor (the glass was literally over half full of ice) it was completely diluted and watered down before I was half-way finished. We didn’t see our server for another good couple of minutes, and when we did he only took our starter orders, which would be fine if we didn’t have to wait so long for him to come back for us to order entrees. The started themselves were wonderful, but our server took his sweet time clearing our plates and getting our entree orders. We waited about half an hour at our table for our entrees, which also would have been fine if we had starters to eat while we waited, but we had no food and I had a watered down bourbon to reluctantly sip. Once we got our entrees, we didn’t see our server for probably the hour it took us to chat and eat. One at our table ordered a water at the start, and didn’t get it until our server brought our entrees. We ended up having to go to the bartender (who was also very lovely) for waters, and pop refills, for the rest of us. After we finished entrees and ordered deserts, we waiting about half an hour before flagging another server down and just asking for the bill. When our server caught wind, he came and said he’d go ask the kitchen, and we needed up getting our desserts to go with our bill. The deserts did end up tasting delicious.

Our bill came out to just over $200, which was fine for the amount of food we ate, but I was charged $15 for a crappy Bourbon which I’m not cool with, considering that’s less then come of their prices for their house specials and cocktails.

We had also tried to order corn ribs to start, which our server told us were seasonal, and personally I don’t see the point of having an unavailable seasonal item on the menu with no warning.

Overall, the food was delicious and the atmosphere was great, but the service standard, especially for the amount of money we spent, was sorely lacking from our server. We saw our server maybe 10 times and spent over 2...

Had my first experience with Bon Temps the other day at lunch. I had been excited to go and try it out, as I had many good things about the establishment since it opened.

My friends and I had chosen to eat here for a number of reasons: they were listed on a number of Gluten-Free Restaurant lists here in the city and a friend of mine suffers from Celiac, and both he and I share an penchant for spicy food.

When we arrived, it was shortly after 12pm and there were two groups in the restaurant already, both larger than ours, but the rest of the business was empty. The sign at the front indicated we needed to seat ourselves, which we did. It was then about 7-10 minutes of our group sitting there before a server attended to the table by bringing us water and saying she'd be right back to grab our orders.

Bon Temps features a nice lunch menu which indicates that if your meal is not prepared and delivered to your table within 20 minutes, they'll cover your next lunch. We figured that this would be perfect as we were already over 20 minutes into our 1 hour lunch break, so we all ordered from that.

We were then rather disappointed to learn that my friend was somewhat limited to what he could eat as they did not specifically have anything on the menu other than Salads that were guaranteed Gluten-Free. After some conversation with our server, he had managed to create a dish with modifications that would allow him to eat. I was equally disheartened to learn that the delivery of their spicy flavours leaned heavily on seasoning and spices in creams and sauces instead of spice blends mixed or cooked into the dishes. But we still ordered.

After 25 minutes of waiting, we asked our server if it was going to be much longer as we were running out of time to eat. She indicated out food would be up right away.

As the clock approached the top of the hour, we asked if our meals could be packed up as we needed to return to work. She apologized again and said she would get that done right away. It took another 7-10 minutes to get things packed up for us, which resulted in members our of group returning late from lunch.

I feel that this situation may have been due to the sizes of the 3 groups in the business at the time, and the odds that a number of the orders were off of the Express Lunch Menu. However, if your establishment is confident enough to have such an offer, you need to ensure that you are set up for success each and every day, whether you only have a handful of tables filled, or each table is filled.

Although this was not an ideal situation, I will credit the server for remaining calm and apologetic to our situation and I do have to say the food I received was quite good(could have used a bit more spice added to the patty's for the burger or added to the fries). I wish I could say the same for another member of my group who returned to work with her meal and found the majority of her meal completely inedible.

I may return another time to try an item off of the regular menu to see how the flavours are, but it most likely won't be...

I'll start by saying I've been here three times. I enjoy the food very much (if you don't want to read about the full experience and want good food even if you risk meh service... Just go because the food is amazing). The first time I went I got the peacemaker poboy w/mac and cheese but I think they mixed things up and gave me something different. Wasn't mad about it because whatever I got was also delicious and I'm not a picky eater.

The second time I went was for my birthday. My partner booked us and two friends the boil as a surprise (quite a while in advance). My birthday is in December and it was packed between other patrons and two holiday parties. Although we had a reservation the staff seemed unsure of what to do with us when we arrived and stuck us at a very tiny table that they pulled from elsewhere right next to the door. It was so cold with so many people coming and going we had to request a space heater (which broke). It then seemed like they completely forgot that we booked the boil because we were asked if we were ready to order. Then it was a mad dash to change the table setting to prepare. We now think that our boil wasn't prepared properly because after a recent visit we noticed that another table's boil smelled so much more seasoned than the one we had that night. Supper took so long my partner had to cancel the remainder of the plans for the evening. We got a round of complimentary drinks but by the end I was so cold and miserable from the whole experience I declined my complimentary dessert and wanted to go home.

We went again this past Thursday night. There was one table who got a boil and maybe two or three other tables. Not super busy. This is where I realized the first time I did not get a peacemaker poboy the first time because I ordered it again and it was completely different (although delicious). Our server, however, I hope she was new because the service was terrible. Long waits while they focused on the table who got the boil. My partner's drink was empty for half the meal and never offered to be refilled and then when I finally asked for more water it never arrived. She didn't even know what the dessert special was even when she came to our table to ask if we wanted dessert. Also I was really excited about the cucumber salad but they didn't have any. Which I understand happens but I was bummed nonetheless.

Overall I will say maybe I've just had terrible luck because others seem to have amazing experiences and the food is outstanding. Like. Really freakin good. Except the side slaw. Unless I got a meh batch but it wasn't worth it. Get the...