Howe Sound Inn & Brewing — Restaurant in Squamish

My partner and I have been here before and have always had a positive and pleasant experience. This past Canada Day, however, was extremely disappointing and we felt that it needed to be acknowledged. The server assigned to our table treated us very poorly from the moment we sat down until the moment we left. We were appalled at the treatment we received.

We were seated at 2:45pm and were interested in ordering from the Happy Hour menu. While we were deciding what to order, our server told us we had 15 minutes until Happy Hour begun, so we ordered drinks and the Brussel sprouts to split in the meantime. When she brought our drinks, she accidentally gave me my partner's drink and gave my partner mine, which was no big deal. We just said "oops, other way around." She seemed irritated. The beer and Caesar were fantastic though.

Once 3:00pm rolled around, our server had not yet come back to check on us and we had to flag her over to take our Happy Hour order. We had the Happy Hour menu in front of us and pointed to what we wanted while saying our order out loud. My partner ordered the personal pepperoni pizza, and I ordered the Caesar salad and the ale & cheddar soup. When I asked for the soup, the server responded with "well which soup..?" which confused me because there is only one soup on the entire menu.

Once our food arrived, I was surprised that there was grilled chicken on my salad. I did not order any additional grilled chicken, and I checked the menu again in case there was a chicken Caesar salad on the menu and that there may have been a mix-up, but there wasn't. So I assumed that this is how it came. The pizza and salad were good, however the soup was extremely salty. I have had this soup before and I love it, but this time it was too salty to bear. She seemed even more irritated when I asked to return the soup. She never once came to check on us, and we always had to wave at her to grab her attention to which many times she ignored us. I was listening to how she was engaging with the other tables she was waiting on and she seemed to be relatively pleasant with them.

Once our bill came, we were shocked (but not surprised, considering how we were treated the entire time) that we were charged for regular menu items, not the Happy Hour items (I believe the only Happy Hour item that was charged was the pizza). Our server knew we were there for Happy Hour and we literally pointed to the Happy Hour menu when ordering. She charged me for a regular menu Caesar salad with ADDED grilled chicken, which I never asked for. Plus, she didn't take the soup off the bill. She tried to argue with us, but we politely told her that she was wrong. She huffed, went to revise the bill, came back and said that she now took the soup off, and "gave a discount" on the salad. Again, we ordered the Happy Hour Caesar salad, without added chicken. She reluctantly stormed off again and revised it to the correct way it should have been all along and did not say another word to us.

We were left feeling humiliated and in disbelief with the service we received. We felt personally attacked, for no good reason. We felt like she was deliberately trying to give us a hard time given how many issues came up, completely unnecessarily. One or two honest mistakes, no big deal - we understand that we are all human and not perfect. But there were multiple issues, one after another, and with every issue there was never any apology, and we received very short and passive aggressive comments.

I do not want to make the assumption that it had anything to do with race, but my partner is a person of colour (Indian). This experience, we hope, is an isolated one, and we do intend on returning in the future, based off of our previous experiences. This particular one was just disappointing, and left us completely speechless and disheartened.

Ellis...

Yes, the inside of the dining area is rustic and cottage like, and great for city folks to feel like they are far and away! But you are on the west coast. Look its an average pub with high ceilings and big windows, so it feel nicer than an average pub.

The staff are very nice but seem inexperienced with serving customers because they are unaware of how long people have been waiting for first contact, food or the bill (or all 3 in our case, and for others around us. Just spend more time on the floor and make eye contact with people and check in, problem solved.

Get a kitchen runner to take food to the table while its hot if you can't manage your orders adequately, check on the line for your food (that's your main job getting food to tables for paying customers)?

Our pizza was cold after waiting forever, yes they nicely took it off our bill after an hour, no questions asked (I think it happens a lot she didn't look surprised and made the excuse the oven was on the opposite side of the kitchen?).

The line cooks are also responsible for communicating to servers and management to get that food out there, period (get a bell and use your outdoor voice call server by name). Hey cook you see it sitting there you know how quick it gets cold, you cooked it! Be accountable or the restaurant loses money!

I couldn't see or tell who was a manager. Come on spend more time on the floor check in with customers it literally takes two seconds per table, and check the line often, communicate with the servers or you run the food! Yes, you! Get busy that's why you get paid the big bucks and have more responsibility. At least know whats going on because you clearly don't.

If the servers are not interacting with their tables where are they, in the kitchen? If so, why aren't they looking for their food on the line and running it?

Look, from what I could see the servers move at a snails pace when the restaurant was busy, management watch them and take note and have a scrum before the shift to manage expectations.

If the kitchen is in the weeds then you need at minimum a line manager (who can run food if needed).

The rooms: Expensive $300 a night for a VERY low end, motel type, keep your shoes on yucky room. Complete with old style adjoining doors where you can hear the people talking like they are in the room with you. Pray you don't get people who get in late, have sex, or get up super early to catch a plane. I say spend the money remove the doors (those days are over.) and drywall it (sound proof material in the wall while your at it, super cheap btw). At very least update the rooms, even a bit! Not like I didn't pay you enough.

Look its not all doom and gloom. I get its a slower pace environment, organic and people are chillin, and most OK with low end cottage accommodations but not in this day an age of living in a country that's sucking our money dry and people going out less. Pull up your socks to earn and deserve all that money, raise your standards.

Waiting tables and running a restaurant requires a lot of effort this isn't a desk job. Maybe good help is hard to find? Too bad not the...

Really disappointing experience here recently, mainly because in the past it’s been so good. This is the spot me and my friends always go when we’re in Squamish. Normally everything is fantastic from food to beer to service. This time, here’s what happened:

Got greeted and sat right away, which was great. Server took our beer orders and drinks arrived via a runner promptly and tasted excellent. We were ready to order but the server vanished for 20 minutes. They were clearly understaffed but not to the extent it took to be acknowledged. I had to wave down the hostess to order and she sent over the manager (I think), who took our order, a simple chicken pizza, that’s it. The pizza arrived an hour later and was burned (see photo). I hate sending food back unless absolutely necessary and we couldn’t wait another hour, so I waved down the manager to ask for a knife to scrape off the ash from the crust so it’s somewhat edible. He asked if I wanted it remade and I said “no that’s ok, just need a knife”. He said he’ll give us a discount. Didn’t need it, we were just hungry and didn’t want to consume ash. No quality check as is normally the standard, and at this point the pub was substantially less busy. We finished the pizza and waited with an empty plate for probably 10-15 minutes before I waved someone down to ask for the bill. The bill arrived with a $3 discount on the $21 pizza. Honestly no discount would’ve been better. Our server finally showed up to accept payment even though she only took our drink order at the beginning and disappeared.

I hate that I have to leave this review because I’ve been a server, bartender, and bar manager at multiple places for many years. Sometimes it’s super busy and someone calls in sick. I get it. Been there, and you just have to make it work. But I know what’s possible even when it’s busy, it doesn’t take much to pass by a table and ask how it’s going. It’s not difficult for the support staff to help out the server by checking in on tables. At the very least, knowing how long your customers were waiting and how terrible their food looked upon delivery, a $3 discount and no apology is a bit of a downer

The reason it’s not a one star review is because we’ve had great experiences here in the past so I’m hoping this is a one off but not sure if it’s worth the risk to try again. A bit of retraining can go a long way. I hope I can change this review back to 5...