St. James's Gate Toronto — Restaurant in Toronto

If I could give less then a zero rating, I would. If you are looking for a great night out, DO NOT go here. My gf and I were there on the weekend and the service was absolutely the most unprofessional I have ever experienced. I will preface this with the fact that this wasn't our first visit there. Previous visits were enjoyed but this visit was my last. The hostess sat us down with our menu and was lovely enough. About 15 mins later, she returned to tell us that the waitstaff had let her that know that the waitstaff were not going to serve us. We asked why and she didn't have a clue why the waitstaff collectively refused to serve us. A few more minutes passed and we waved the hostess over to ask to speak to the manager. She went to go tell him only to return and let us know that he didn't want to speak to us. WTH?! Again, no idea why this was happening. Finally one of the waitresses came over to reiterate that none of them were going to serve us. Again, asking why....she said that she was not going to serve us because we were mean to 'Erin'. Of course, we had no idea what they were talking about and who 'Erin' was. Again, we were perplexed. Finally, the manager came to our table and said they weren't serving us because of 'Erin'. The manager finally said that it was an incident that happened 3 years ago on St. Paddy's day! What?! First off, we didn't go there 3 years ago but we did 18 months ago, whereby, 'Erin' put her hand on my girlfriend's arm, in a completely aggressive and unprofessional manner. The incident escalated to involving another waitress who again, was overly aggressive in her behavior. At the end of the incident, the owner dealt with the incident, apologizing to our party about the very poor behavior we experienced. To that end, it's unfortunate the young staff that were working the night we were treated so poorly, took it upon themselves to exercise their poor judgement in 'getting back' at the customer. It's a shame we had this experience as we had enjoyed going there in the past. Needless to say, we will not be returning to celebrate the next St. Paddy's day or anything else for...

Do not go to this restaurant, their service staff (at least the ones on the patio) are the absolute worst.

I recently visited St. James Gate and had an extremely disappointing experience (Friday evening Jul.19/2024).

Everything was fine initially when the greet staff directed us to a table on their outside patio and handed us menus.

From there it went downhill. There were 2 wait staff who appeared to be serving the outside patio with about 12-15 tables in total with about 6 occupied.

While we waited to place our drink order, we observed one of the wait staff have an extended conversation with a customer, for at least 5 minutes. That in itself would've been okay until our waiting continued.

We saw the second wait staff come out 3-4 times and go to select tables for a few drinks, a bill, nothing major. It became clear our area was the second wait staff.

By then about 10 minutes had passed.

A few new clients were seated in the patio. We waited another 5 minutes or so. So have been waiting 15 minutes now.....approximately.

We even see the second wait staff glance an eye in our direction, as she walks back inside and fails to even greet us and let us know she hasn't forgotten us.

The first wait staff proceeds to greet customers who had just arrived and told them if the other wait staff doesn't come along soon, she will serve them.

This was the same wait staff we observed having an extended chat with a customer while we'd been there now for about 15 minutes and she went to the table that just arrived.

We had enough and left.

What a pathetic way to treat new "customers", instead of seizing an opportunity to make a good impression for possible repeat customers, the restaurant blew it big time.

Now I have to try and convince my 16 year old son that we weren't treated this way because he's of mixed race. To be fair, I never saw any direct evidence of treatment because of this but it sure makes you wonder if it was part of the reason for the poor treatment (so be wary of...

This was my one of my favorite locals for years. The service was superb and the food although pricy was good and in great quantity. But lately (probably after a change of ownership?) this place just took a big u-turn for complete worse. The last 3 times I went in there, were complete hell. One of them, I gave them benefit because it was end of the year and it was packed full of people. I understood they were understaffed (which idk why would you be understaffed on holidays but it is what it is), so I grabbed my things and left after waiting 30 min unattended.

Went there again on a weekend, after a long wait without getting any service I was about to leave but I finally got it, and after ordering, the food that came was so different from what it was. Way less for way more. Left with a bad (expensive) taste.

The last one was the last straw, got there on a very non-busy weekend and decided to give it one last chance. Sat down at a table and after deciding what to order, we had to wait precisely 30 minutes without a single person coming to our table. The servers were always out of vision and talking to themselves, and when one of them showed up I called them and asked if I could order after waiting and she promptly said "oh let me get someone to get your order" which never happened for another 10 minutes. We grabbed our things stood up and left and not a single person came to talk to us, even after seeing us leave.

Sadly, I will not come back here ever again, and I don't think anyone should. The other much more friendly and better local restaurants will certainly be...