Taphouse Guildford (Closed) - Now reopened as the Barn Country Bar — Restaurant in Surrey

I had my 25th birthday this weekend at The Taphouse. I had emailed back and forth with Wayne, the owner about making a reservation for 20-25 people. I did this about a week and half prior, and was told there were no reservations left, but he said he would put me down on the list to get a table as soon as possible. I thought great, that's awesome! We sent a few more emails back and forth just finalizing details. He made it clear that he was not guaranteeing my group a table right at 8 o'clock, and I understood.I told my group to meet between 730 and 8 to help get the table, and to try to beat the crowd that comes later in the night. It was decently busy when I showed up but not packed. I arrived at about 7:40 and two of my friends had already gotten there and said they had been seated. The hostess showed the few I showed up with to our table and my other friends, only to find they had given me 3 small tables for 15 max people. Apparently they asked the first of my friends who arrived how many people to expect, 5, 10, 15? As soon as the waitress walked by I explained her the email i had with Wayne, and that he should have had me down for 20-25 .Our waitress of the night came by and started taking drink orders but didn't ask everyone. Some people weren't ready, but everywhere else ive ever gone has at least asked if everyone else before going off to fill the two orders she had taken. When i explained to her that this area wasn't going to work, she said we will just have to hope that a near by table was leaving soon. At that point I got concerned because I know I wasn't promised a table but then they seemed to be able to make it work only to find out they disregarded the number of guests I had coming. The manager then came over, I believe his name was Richard? He was extremely nice and took me upstairs to show me a section of tables and asked how i thought that would work. I said awesome fantastic. He then told two other waitresses beside mine for the night what tables were for my party. Now considering I had a large party, that trickled in over an hour span, I will say the service started out decently. The manager came by twice throughout the night asking how everything was, so I appreciated that. Our waitress gave everyone numbers to help keep the orders straight, and she was pretty patient considering people would order food speratically, and drinks speratically. However as the night progressed the service went downhill. I know there were a lot of us spread over 2 booths and a long table, but it just makes more sense to me for her to go table by table and at least check on people to see if they are ready for food, or drinks when someone else is ordering. At least that's what ive experienced everywhere else I've ever gone. Now i will say the food came quite quickly so that was impressive but the quality wasn't great. Many of us had the chicken strips which had ZERO flavour without the dip they came with. The caesar salad was decent but had a bit to much anchovy taste. I was told the burger and pizza my friends order was good, and the yam fries were good. The drinks were not good. I tried several off the menu and they all tasted watered down. I had two martinis which were good but the glass came half full. I would have rather they charged two dollars more and actually filled the glass. As the night progressed the service slowed down. Sometimes we wouldn't see our waitress for 30 mins at a time and even then we had to flag her down. Other girls would come to help her deliver food and would only go to the back booth and when they would say no it's not their food/drinks they would walk straight past the other table where the food should have been delievered. Overall I appreciated the management and that they accommodated us, but the fact that it is close to home and decently priced doesn't make up for the unimpressive drinks,...

Bad buisness practices. I booked a party for 11 people for 730pm well over a week ago on Feb 27. The girl I spoke on the phone with even asked me if I was interested in this birthday package that they have. It includes free champagne,birthday balloons and even a shout out to from the dj. She even mentioned not to be late or else they give our table away 15 minutes after the reservation. We had booked this for the three of our friends birthdays including my own.

We show up for our reservations on Saturday March 9th and the hostess says "we don't have a reservation under your name. Is it under someone else's name?" Of course it wasn't they straight up lost my reservation.( I even showed her my phone log the day I made the reservation) because she asked if I called the right place. I was shocked. This has never happened to me before. How could they have lost my reservation? I talked to that girl on the phone for a good couple of minutes making that reservation. Anyways they Were scrambling trying to figure out what to do but, they ended up giving us a table anyway but, all the way upstairs and they apparently didn't have helium for the birthday balloons which was even more disappointing. If we knew that someone would of just brought some dam balloons.

On top of that our service started out really good but, near half way through it started going down hill. It seemed like our waitress was the only waitress working at the top level. So she was taking a long time to come back and check on our table and get our next drink orders in. We had to remind her about the water we already asked for. I mean it seemed like the upstairs was under staffed? I don't know how it was downstairs but, it definitely seemed that way.

I was actually pretty disappointed with how the night went but, I didn't let it ruin our night. I decided to call in and let the manager know how my night went and surprisingly I didn't get one apology on the phone even when they messed up and lost the reservation. If someone's making a complaint you should really say sorry specially when you're in the wrong. Good lord.

Its sad I had such a bad experience at the tap house because when I was younger I used to love the old mirage. (Back when it was a club) used to come here almost every Thursday ! Sad now my memories of this place will be this bad experience.

I'm only making this review because when I had called in I talked to the manager. She told me she would talk to her gm and get back to me and well ...they haven't. Maybe this will get your attention. This is probably the same girl who took my reservation the first time. I'm still waiting for...

I've been here a few times and haven't had a great experience so far (on Fri/Sat nights). This is how my last night went. We had reserved an area with 25 people - confirmed multiple times. We confirmed a birthday package that included balloons, deserts, etc. We were asked to confirm - we confirmed. We arrived and none of what was promised was set up. The balloons were eventually brought out but they were set up extremely awkwardly and while everyone was sitting at the table watching. Instead of an area for 25 people we were given a table for about 12 people and a couple randomly scattered tables in the area. Whatever, we can make it work.

In the 1.5 - 2 hours we were at our table, most people were only served 1 drink. Going to the bar was much quicker (the same drink was $8.50 at our table but $10 at the bar... hmm). Our food orders weren't taken until about an hour after we were seated. By that time, the menu switched over to the late night menu so the menu in front of us for the past hour was useless. Honestly, it's not the server's fault, only one server was responsible for all 25 of us - and a few other tables. Although she was disorganized, she was not in an ideal situation.

Food was terrible. A couple people were completely ignored and didn't get their orders taken until a solid 20 minutes after everyone else. People who ordered burgers had ice cold buns. People who ordered chicken strips were served mostly burnt/overcooked tendies. Whatever, we're not there for the food - we're here for a good time. Oh and the bathroom attendant in the men's washroom literally asked for tips when we walked out.

The DJ played some decent songs but there was always that one in every few songs that was super low tempo and a buzz kill. He played mostly hip hop with medium-lower tempos and it got old after a while. Our group knows how to have fun but it was getting really tough. Any sort of higher BPM song that came up livened up the crowd but it was often followed up by something much slower. At one point he played 4 (!!!!!!!!!!!) Drake songs in a row. Slow and boring. Ridiculous.

We made the best of the situation. Past the dinner, most of us had some fun but only because we were surrounded by our friends and great bartenders. I'd like to visit this place not on a friday or saturday night because I think it has great potential - but just not on those...