Swiss Chalet — Restaurant in St. Catharines

I get the impression that Canadian folks compare Swiss Chalet to the likes of Denny's or other similar chain restaurants. They seem to imply that the food isn't that great. But as a U.S. citizen with my first visit to Swiss Chalet recently, I'm here to tell you that Swiss Chalet is far above Denny's. I don't understand the ratings that I'm reading, and maybe it's just because Canada is so much better than the States in many ways, that Canadians are spoiled. ;-) Seriously, I'm impressed with Swiss Chalet and highly enjoyed the food and service my wife and I received there.

We started with the garlic rolls... you had me right there. I could have just hammered through a few orders of these and would have been totally satisfied. But instead we each ordered one of the festive meals. My wife ordered the Festive Special (with the quarter chicken) while I ordered the Festive Hot Chicken Special (open-face chicken sandwich with gravy). There wasn't much talking going on, since we were too busy stuffing ourselves with delicious food.

The service was outstanding. There were 3 people that checked on us, topped off our coffee, and just enjoyed friendly conversation with them. We mentioned that it was my first-ever visit to Swiss Chalet and that my wife had been raving about it since her first visit a few years ago with family from Buffalo, New York.

So thank you to Swiss Chalet for making my first trip a very enjoyable one. I actually live in Oregon, so I'm hoping to make my way up to BC sometime in the future and you can bet Swiss Chalet will be one of the very first...

Absolutely the worst Swiss Chalet we have ever been to. I ordered a burger with fries and my husband ordered roast beef and mashed potatoes. The food arrives and the veggies are still in the Ziploc bag that the food preps had made earlier. The waitress says "oops" and proceeds to dump the veggies with her bare hands. I bite into my burger just to immediately spit it out into the napkin. The patty is cold, chewy, pink and raw. The roast beef was overcooked and dry...I would have rathered that. We ask for the bill and tell the waitress that this whole experience in completely unprofessional. The waitress says "I can make you ma new burger in under 3 minutes, just grab your fries. Are you kidding me? 3 min burger but i should grab my fries. After we pay full price the manager.....must be 16 years old, Catherine comes over and says " I was like told to come over here. I can like make you something else" and hands me a coupon for a quarter chicken meal, which I handed back to her. Worst Swiss Chalet experience. Check your food if deciding to...

My wife and I both took our daughter to Swiss Chalet as she wanted to eat there on her birthday. We are deaf so we used an app to write on for our order. The food was good but I noticed the server didn’t really pay attention to what we wrote. For example, we asked for water with lemon. Our kid wanted a kid drink. They gave her water instead. We informed them and that was corrected. They took her leftovers and discarded it without asking us if we wanted to take them home. We were charged for her birthday meal despite the placemat saying it’s free to eat on her birthday. We also had a coupon I received on Father’s Day. It was get one, get one free. Initially, we were given a bill with the full amount. I pointed this out and they changed it but the kid meal was still on the bill. I gave them a good tip based on the full amount, not the discount. I talked to one of the staff and all I got was an “Ok” and left. We sat there waiting. Nothing happened. So we left. Despite the good food, the service left a lot...