Casa Mezcal — Restaurant in Toronto

I wanted to give this place 5 stars because of the sweet family that owns it but my experience with my server completely ruined it. My boyfriend and I went out for date night at this place. We had made a reservation and on the site, it said someone would call us back to confirm. We never got a confirmation so we ended up calling to let them know. We arrived for our reservations, no table was reserved for us so we had to wait. We were waiting for a while so the owner offered us a free drink each, which was really nice! We finally got seated and our server approaches the table and the first thing he said to us (in the most annoyed tone) was "Did you pay for these drinks at the bar or should I add it to your bill?" My boyfriend told him they were on the house, and we proceeded to order. As my boyfriend is ordering, the server cuts him off mid sentence and asks "Is this going to be one bill or separate?" we told him one bill. The first two interactions we have this guy is just about money. His tone was so rude and miserable and he doesn't say hello, doesn't welcome us or even tell us his name. He has a miserable tone like he doesn't even want to serve us. Me being a server myself, I figured he was just tired, it's probably been a long day and he's hot from being outside in a mask all day, I get it. Not a valid excuse in this industry but I get it. So we continued being nice. Then a couple sits down beside us and our server approaches them with "HEY GUYS! I'M JAMES! I'LL BE YOUR SERVER FOR TONIGHT. HOW'S IT GOIN? :)" Like so happy and upbeat with them ...but our initial interaction is all about payment... weird. Anyways, we end up ordering nachos and we finished them. We put our dirty napkins in the plate and move it to the edge of the table. The server did rounds at every table, blatantly ignoring ours. All the tables he was serving are side by side in the same section, there's no way he could "not see" us and even so, was he ever going to check in on us? He got the table beside us their apps, mains, drinks and we were still sitting there with a dirty dish from our app, waiting 20 minutes to order our mains. Finally, I just had enough of being ignored. I called the manager over and explained the situation. He wasn't pleasant from the beginning, only cared about how the bill is being paid and he's abandoned us the entire time but manages to go to every single table beside us. The manager was really apologetic and didn't charge us for the nachos. At that point, we wanted to leave but we were so hungry and the manager was really nice to us and offered to serve us instead so we decided to stay. We told him our order and he left to get it. The ignorant server James, then returns to our table (finally) and starts clearing the table! And all he says is "Did you speak to the manager" Not even, hey guys I am sorry for any misunderstanding, my manager will now be taking your order, I hope you have a good evening" Me being a server, that's how I would fix it but it goes to show you, for some odd reason, he had no interest in serving my boyfriend and I. He ends up clearing our table entirely and the manager walks by and I ask him for a water jug because James had cleared our table and we haven't even eaten yet! Like what is wrong with this guy ? .... How could someone so ignorant be in the hospitality industry. Anyways, after like 40 minutes of complete nonsense, we got our food. The rice was SO salty, we just asked for it to go because at this point we were just sick of complaining and I hate complaining because I'm in the restaurant industry myself so I like to make it easy on everyone that works in one. Long story short, the family that owns this place is VERY nice, they really tried to make our experience a positive one. We ended up tipping the three staff members that actually cared about us and provided great customer service, as for James, change your attitude and you'd actually make a lot more money bud. We will NOT be returning to this place solely because of...

They were recently closed for a renovations, and we had two very different experiences before, and after that.

My gf loves to try different mezcals.

The first time we went (right before the renovations), at night, we were served by a woman. She was friendly, smart, knew the menu and had a great working knowledge of what was available at the bar. The bar had several varieties (at least three or four) of mezcal for my girlfriend to choose from for getting her shots, and she even pre-emptively warned us that one of them was more pricy so we could make an informed ordering decision. I just got a corona because I'm basic, and it came with a little lime in it like it's meant to. We both ate food and it was great. We had no trouble with anything served to us. That day was a five-star service experience. My girlfriend was eager to return again and so was I, because the place made her happy.

Unfortunately we went again, daytime, right after they reopened from renovations, and had a much worse experience. The waiter had a language barrier, which wouldn't have bothered me on its own except that he was also doing high-pressure upselling, so we had to navigate not only making him understand our own orders but also turning down all of his unhelpful suggestions. Getting our nachos without the optional chicken or beef took several confirmations, for instance, and it made me feel like he thought I was stupid or cheap for not getting meat (just did not want to eat meat on my nachos that day). It seemed he was still struggling to learn what was available on the menu, and it took us two tries to successfully order a shot of mezcal from the bar (mezcal selections are not on the menu). He brought us an expensive cocktail we did not order. Luckily she enjoyed it, so I paid for it, but still irritating. And we were told (no idea if miscommunication, or true) that there was only one kind of mezcal at the bar that day. At a place called Casa Mezcal.

I want to try going again at night time, to see if we can recapture the magic of our first experience. Gf might take some convincing, as she was extremely disappointed the...

To put it simply, a group of friends and I dined here Saturday evening. They were severely understaffed and grossly unorganized. From the initial order taking we could tell that things were not going to go smoothly.

-Multiple drinks were forgotten and even those that were ordered took 30 minutes to hit the table. -For a party of 8 some people received their meals and finished them before other's meals even arrived -2 of the meals never even showed up after most of us were done our meals and we were assured earlier that it would only be another 10 minutes. (Completely unacceptable!)

-Additionally with the City of Toronto's new policies in regards to dining in Toronto, there was no hand sanitizer available for guests, not once did I see staff washing or sanitizing their hands and additionally some of the staff were even wearing their masks incorrectly or touching their faces/masks and then serving guests.

Lastly, when it came to our bill they would only give us one bill and a policy was never stated regarding not being willing to split bills. Additionally considering we had a horrendous experience we were hoping to have some drinks taken care of or something but the manager was unwilling to discount the bill. We still tipped the server because some of us work in the industry and we understand that this mess of an experience does not fall solely on her shoulders and has far more to do with the management.

As much as I would like to see this family owned restaurant succeed, the fact that they are not willing to make amends to repair our impression of this establishment leaves us no choice but to leave this terrible review so that others do not have to...