Pickle Barrel — Restaurant in Toronto

Never eating here ever again. My sister, mom, and I visited this location today for lunch. We eat here frequently.

We brought in 2 individually packaged slices of cake from the Cake Boss vending machine. The individual at reception saw them (they were highly visible — we were not hiding them) and proceeded to escort us to the patio. She did not comment re: our cake slices.

Upon being seated, we decided to have 1 bite of the cake. One of the waitresses (brown hair with blond highlights) gave us the dirtiest look. She genuinely looked disgusted, and marched inside. We immediately put the cake slices away.

She did not approach us or kindly let us know we can’t eat outside food while seated (Also, I regularly witness people in the restaurant watching cake purchased from outside the restaurant to celebrate birthdays), so I thought it was okay — and there was no signage in the restaurant indicating otherwise.

Suddenly, the manager marched outside — and in very loud and disruptive voice — told us that we can’t eat the cake from outside at the patio. Obviously, we understood her clearly but she repeated herself (even though we didn’t ask her to). While she did this, the waitress who seemed to have complained about us stood behind my mom/beside the manager and continued to give us dirty looks with her hand on her hip. It was uncomfortable, it felt like the manager was speaking to us in a condescending manner. Everyone seated around us was starting at us (since the tone of her voice was rude and loud).

A woman seated near us who witnessed the event asked the waitress that was giving us dirty looks what had happened and the waitress gave her an earful of how “wrong” we were.

Our waiter approached us and asked us what we’d like to order, but we were so embarrassed that we let him know what had happened and left the restaurant.

On our way out, the manager loudly said to us, in a very condescending tone, to “have a wonderful day, ladies”. If a group of people are in your restaurant for 10 minutes and leave without ordering — doesn’t it make more sense to ask then why they’re leaving abruptly?

That prompted me to share our negative experience with the manager. I let her know that the waitress was giving us dirty looks throughout our entire visit, and that her interaction with us had caused numerous people seated on the patio to continue to stare at us after she had approached us. I let her know that the waitress that had seemed to complain about us consuming cake packaged on the patio continued to give us dirty looks when she (the manager) was speaking to us.

The manager seemed somewhat understanding. But it also seemed like she didn’t want to understand. She kept saying that she understood that we only “need to be told once”.

First of all, she “told” us twice in 1 visit to our table — she unnecessarily repeated herself even though it was clear that we understood (the cake was back in its packaging when the manager approached us”). She agreed that the server’s actions (I.e. dirty looks) were unnecessary and rude but also keep repeating that we only had to be “told” once.

But the manager didn’t seem to think that her choice of words was an issue. To me, we shouldn’t have to be “told”. Instead, she, as a manager, should kindly LET US KNOW about their new policy, or kindly ASK us to put our cake away (which was already put away long before she approached our table). The way she approached us was aggressive and seemed like she wanted to argue with us.

The manager then seemed more concerned about us thinking that she was being rude, and asked us if we thought she was being rude. I said that she was because she approached our table in a loud, condescending, and disruptive manner that caused other customers to stare and ask us what had happened.

She offered us a gift card, which made me believe that she thought we were making a deal just for free food. We declined since we will not visit this location ever again. We understand their policy but believe that management could have dealt w the situation in a more...

We needed a place to go to celebrate my mothers birthday and picked this location as we had been here once before and had a good experience.

This time it was not very good. And almost entirely due to the service. Unfortunately, your impression of a restaurant can be heavily based on the experience you have with your server and the overall service you receive. In this case, my personal experience of this restaurant was reflected by the poor service we received on this special occasion.

I called to make a reservation and told them specifically it was for a birthday and could they do like a dessert or something special with a cake. The person I dealt with said they could not do an entire cake (which was fine) and to just inform the hostess when we arrived and tell them. When we arrived and were greeted by the hostess, I spoke to her privately and told her that it was my mother's birthday and could they do a cake at the end of meal. She said they could do a piece of cake (with candles) that they were serving that day and I chose one from the ones available.

When our server finally came around after a long wait, I could tell (and my mother confirmed this later) that our server was not friendly at all and we felt as though we were a bother to her. We put in our orders, and my mother requested her tea be served with her meal as she usually does and this is not usually an issue. I ordered a coffee and it was very good. We all had a variety of different meals and all tasted very good. I had a waffle with strawberries and it was excellent. But my mother was never served her tea until we asked again. And whenever we requested something from our server it seemed to be a long wait or we had to ask twice and we felt like we were being a nuisance to her.

As we were finishing our meals, I got the impression based on our servers attitude, that she either didn't care or remember about my mother's birthday. So I left the table to find her. I asked if she knew about my cake request that I made with the hostess and she said she did not. So I had to tell her which cake I had chosen and to please bring it out as we were all finished our meals. Eventually, the server did bring out the cake with candles, but just put it down in front of my mother without a word.

I'm giving this place two stars because at least the food and the coffee were very good. But due to the poor service, on what should have been a happy, special occasion, our server left us with a bad impression of this restaurant. And because of that I cannot recommend the Pickel Barrel, nor...

I've been going to this restaurant for about 2-3 years. No complaints until recently. The manager is very friendly which is why i'm giving 3 stars. I think her name is Oksana? i'm not sure. But she's always very happy to help.

We arrived here on a Wednesday evening and someone greeted us and gave us a table. They weren't very friendly but we thought whatever and sat at our table. We were seated on a table that was in the middle of the hall and thought it was kind of uncomfortable so we asked to move seats and the host wasn't very happy about moving us and wasn't helpful either. but we still moved to somewhere more private.

We waited at our seats for a good 10 minutes and our server came. She immediately said "Just a second" and left without greeting anyone. We waited again for about 10 minutes and there she came. We were pretty short on time so we ordered everything at once.

After we got our drinks i noticed that i didn't get what i wanted. I ordered a lemon water and never got lemon so we asked her for lemons. We waited 30 MINUTES for a lemon. Is that right? No. I got the lemon AFTER we got all of our food. Shouldn't the lemon come before our meals arrive? I don't know but something about that shows that this restaurant is slow im service.

We got our food and were satisfied with the chicken parm. However my mom was not bery satisfied with her meal. She said it was very different than before and it was too creamy. So we called our server. She was NOT helpful at ALL. All she said was "i'll get the manager" and ran off.

The manager came and we were happy with her service. She immediately said she'll take the order off our bill. She also offered to remake it but as i said before, we were short on time.

After our meal, we decided it was tome to leave. We needed to pay our bill so we looked around for our server. 10 minutes past. No one. A good 15 minutes past and we spotted our server.

We recieved our bill and waited for our change. It took 10 minutes to get change. Look. 10 minutes to get $40 is pretty ridiculous. And we spotted another mistake. Our server didn't give us the right amount of change. My mom decided to go tak to her and she was pretty rude about everything.

Overall. Today was a very special day for my mom and i so we tried the best to be nice to everyone. We were still happy that we got to go out but one server made us of mad but it's ok. I won't be coming back anytime soon. I'll only come here if that lady isn't my server. She was nice to everyone...