Carousel Café — Restaurant in Toronto

Absolutely horrible experience. We weren’t expecting sit down dining, just a quick burger and fries place, But we ended up being there for nearly 2 hours. 4 people, ordered 2 burgers and 2 wraps. First we waited for someone to seat us, no one seemed to know what was going on, one waitress actually said to us that she thought that there weren’t any tables left, wrong. Got seated and waited for at least 10 minutes for our waitress to actually acknowledge that we were there, she seemed very distracted and disinterested( we had hoped that she got our order right). She brought waters to the table and when we ordered drinks, my kids said that they just wanted water and she seemed surprised that we had waters on the table, even thought she had just brought them over. She disappeared and never came back to our table to check up on us at all. The food came out after about a 40 minute wait( remember this was just 2 burgers and 2 wraps). The poor guy bringing food out seemed to be lost every time he brought something from the kitchen. We asked him for napkins, since we didn’t receive any silverware nor napkins when we sat down, and he brought us a few drink napkins from the bar. And since no one checked to see if our orders where correct or to ask if we needed anything, I even had to go get my own salt for our fries, because our table seemed to be one of the many that were missing the salt and pepper shakers. After we ate and we ready to get the hell out of there, our uninterested waitress finally showed her face and asked if we were “good” and took away our empty plates. My wife said “let’s see how long it takes to get our bill”. Well, after 20 minutes my wife got impatient and we up to the bar and asked the bartender how we get our bill. He went and I assume found our server, however, it was not our server that brought us the bill, even though she was on the floor when we left.

Absolutely terrible customer service.

This place seems to be disorganized and disinterested in its customers. While I did notice a couple of servers who were much better than ours, I still can’t recommend this place to anyone.

The food wasn’t terrible, but the burgers seemed like they were sitting around in the back for a while before they came out.

And there was absolutely no one around that looked like a manager or anyone who was in charge. This...

My family and friends spent a day at Toronto Islands yesterday. At the end of a long day, we decided to make a pit stop at the Carousel Café for a beer and some food. It was a mistake that we won't repeat again. First we were asked to wait to be seated while a few other patrons just wandered in and assumed their seats without waiting(wasn't the staff's fault as the hostess was away seating other people). The lady at the hostess desk was very polite and found us a nice picnic table by the water which was much appreciated. This is where the fun began. At least 3 other tables around us were seated after us, had their orders taken, even got their food and drinks served, the waitress in our section even asked the table next to us if they would like anything else but somehow we were invisible to her and all the other wait staff too. We tried getting their attention but they all seemed to busy to attend to our table. We sat there for at least 20-25 minutes and waited at least 15 minutes after deciding what we wanted to order and debated whether we should leave before we actually left but still nobody came to take out order. While leaving I approached another staff member inside the café and asked if there was a Manager present as I was quite "hangry" by then. He asked if there was a problem and to be fair he seemed genuinely interested in hearing me out. However what was even more disconcerting was that the waitress from our section was just a few feet away, smiling/smirking and yet nobody made any effort to ask us to stay back even though there were at least 4-5 staff members in the immediate vicinity.

An extremely disappointing visit and I am in no hurry to return to the...

Summary: burgers pretty good, salmon salad revolting, food not placed on order resulting in late delivery, staff had horrible attitude, bartender pleasant, no compensation for experience, stay away. That's concise, right? For more details see below.

Where do I begin? First the postive (note the singular tense): the burgers were slightly above average. Now the laundry list: the white 45 year old hostess (who I think may also be a manager?) was extremely rude and off-putting. We were 5 adults huddled around a small table as we were not allowed to move any tables (as per the hostess) in a half empty restaurant. There were downed umbrellas on the deck outside which added to the unkempt look. Despite our group of 5, only four meals were delivered (half of which were missing the requested condiments) and when this was brought to the attention of one of the staff (a black guy around 20 years old), he seemed annoyed that we bothered mentioning anything. The last meal was brought out halfway through us finishing our meals. Finally the salmon salad was revolting. Pretty sure the salmon was from the Mesozoic era - drier than a saltine cracker and atop a few greens. A young white female manger/bartender did try to apologize for the experience, and she is probably their best asset (and probably deserves to be working elsewhere) but no comp was offered whatsoever. I ate at this place in July or August last year and didn't think it was terrible, and if I hadn't seen the avalanche of poor reviews I might have believed this was simply a one off. In conclusion, stay away....