The Mill Restaurant and Inn — Restaurant in Tillsonburg

We have been to the Mill Restaurant a couple of time previously for a meal. Have found the food good, atmosphere nice, service a bit slow but okay. On Tuesday Jan 7, 2025 my wife and I went to the restaurant for lunch. Arrived at about 11:50 am. We were seated in the enclosed patio area. One very busy server popped by to say the she would be with us shortly. Instead, a little while later another server arrived who, by her attitude and body language did not want to be there, maybe she was told to help outside of her normal tables area?? She took our orders without writing anything down which I really don’t like. When my wife asked about something on the side with her soup the server said it comes with crackers!!!!! My wife asked about toast or a bun. The server replied that she could bring “bread”. I asked if that was a bun, she looked at me and said “yes, bread” no love there. She went away never to be seen again. A couple of other servers entered our area, three now. After waiting about a half hour for our food and after two other tables who came in after us were served, I asked a server about our order. Was told that the a new computer system was down and everything had to be written down, which does not explain the confusion with processing our orders in sequence nor why out first server did not write anything down. We were told that our order should arrive soon, nothing about checking on our order. After after another 10 minutes a third late arriving table was given their food order, nothing for us yet. I called over a different server and asked again about our order, got the same story about a computer problem and no offer to follow up but she did offer to have the manger come over. He showed up a couple of minutes later and said the same thing about the computer but he DID offer to check on our order. That should only take a very short time to call out “Where is the order for table 123” or whatever. After a couple of more minutes and no feedback from the manager we left after waiting a good 45 minutes for our food and three later arriving tables receiving their food orders before us. Did not spot the manager on the way out. A few things annoyed us: If the computer was down why did the first server not write down our order? With her attitude, I really don’t think she even placed our order with the kitchen. Why did she never show up again? Why did two, or maybe it was three servers, say the lack of a computer was the issue but never offered to quickly follow up on our order? PS. We then went to the Skyway Restaurant at the Tillsonburg Airport. Have never been before. Was a neat and enjoyable experience, order direct at the kitchen counter. Lots of folks who knew one another. Thanks for the response. All the best in the future. Correction, I did not go to the kitchen as U stated in your response, we simply left. The computer issue still does not explain the unwillingness of servers to look into the possibly of a missed order when three tables of later arriving patrons were served before us, which I told the servers about - especially when they knew there were computer problem. I got the feeling that they were not...

I hope that people who read the reviews take my experience to heart when deciding on holding an event here or dining in the future. We heard decent reviews on the Mills Tales in, and decided to host my cousins confirmation dinner at 7pm. We had called for reservations since it was a large group of 18 and even double checked the reservations the night before. Their website does say they do not take reservations for under 15 people, which is why we called ahead. When we arrived they had "no record of our reservation" for in the main dining room. Their solution was to throw us in a room upstairs with DIRTY PLASTIC FOLDING TABLES and PLASTIC CUPS MEANT FOR A WATER DISPENSER. Now remember, this is an established restaurant. We had to ask for table cloths even when the owner came up and said "he was rolling out the red carpet for us" laughed and walked away. Continuing on, straight away we were told 5 main entrees were off the menu because they ran out of food, including potatoes. How does a restaurant run out of the most basic side dish by 7pm on a Saturday night? I understand things go wrong, but it kept going down hill. Three times, my families orders had to be changed as they kept running out of everything, soon they would be offering us boiled water for $35. When the meal was finally served nearly every meal was messed up with the wrong side and my mothers ENTIRE MEAL WAS MISSING. At this point she said don't even bother bringing her anything. Going back to the potatoes, they said they were going out to get more to make them for us, changed our orders again, then did not even bring us them!! We went down to talk to the owner, as we find him drinking a beer refusing to even APOLOGIZE FOR HIS MISTAKES. We confronted him in a calmly manner and nothing was done except for sexist remarks towards me and my sister degrading women; "Women shouldn't talk to a man in that way"! Our compensation offered was "free desert" when he god damn well knew we had brought a cake! When we spent 45 minutes trying to pay our bill, we were kicked out for voicing our opinion, and a few of the girls were absolutely horrid the way they were speaking.

Overall, the owner was a complete ass. The two girls serving us were lovely. We made sure they left with a very generous tip as we felt horrible they had been dealt this as the owner is a coward. I believe he needs to come to the Ancaster Mill in my home town and learn what HOSPITALITY AND SERVICE IS. As I had worked in the Wedding industry for over three years, I know good hospitality, but the owner only cared about the $1000 bill we payed than the service he offered. He only got up from his chair when the girls were making our bills, to see how much money he got out of us.

We should of done what my family had suggested as soon as we saw those amazing plastic folding tables, go to Kelsey's down the street, at least they have food and an owner with a smile. Please do not go to this "established restaurant".

For the owners reading this, please take a college class on Hospitality services. You need to brush up on...

The food is always great, consistent, and is of good quality, but dessert is quite expensive. The service is usually pretty great, and the servers are typically friendly and have come to know us as we tend to visit on a weekly to bi-weekly basis.

One server, however, causes us a great deal of frustration. She lacks communication and conversation skills, never smiles, never engages, and is overall very unfriendly. We left our most recent visit feeling very frustrated and let down from her lack of proper skills that one would come to expect from service/hospitality employees. We came on a Saturday night, knowing it would be busy and we waited for over an hour to get our food, which came slightly after 8pm. She never checked in to let us know that there was any kind of delay, and when we asked about our food, her only reasoning was that "it's Saturday". I politely argued the point and she simply said "okay....?" and walked away to the kitchen. We've been to The Mill many times on a Saturday, and this hasn't been an issue. Our meals were simple: a burger, pan fried pickerel, and a kid's haddock plate. With having a toddler with us, made things even more frustrating. The server never asked about refilling our drinks, asking if we wanted an appy to tide us over - nothing. Once our food finally came, she set a plate with hot food directly in front of our toddler, and we had to wait even long because our server never set us up with cutlery. Another team member came around, noticing that we had no tools to eat with, and provided us them.

My partner asked for a refill on his drink, and once again the (original) server put it directly in front of our toddler, but I was able to reach for it before tiny hands did (same as the plate)The server also took one of our plates directly off of the table while one of us was still eating from it. She never asked if we were done....

Sadly, this isn't the first time we've had this server and it's not the first time we've been frustrated by her behavior.

On top of all of this, we had to go through 3 of their highchairs until we had one that was actually safe to use: The first had a broken seat buckle with sharp edges that would surely cut or stab a child, the second had a missing buckle altogether, and the third, albeit had no missing or broken SAFETY restraints, was considerably shorter than the first two. Our toddler couldn't reach for her food properly as a result. The server was unfazed and never apologized for this lack of safety detail.

Having been a server myself for many years, I would have been embarrassed and would have apologized to the patron over and over again, and I would have talked to management in an effort to retain the customer's business.

We enjoy going to the mill, and although the server isn't a reflection of Patrick and his team, we will request not to be in her serving section. If that request can't be met at any given point, we will...