Slabtown Cider Co. — Restaurant in Uxbridge

June 14/22 - I’ve returned to Slabtown for Mother’s Day with a group of ten. They’ve certainly improved their service and as always, the quality of their food is great! I wish they’d pick up the phone for takeout orders. We realize they are short on staff and they are doing their best. We’ll definitely return!

Feb 14/22 - My wife and I were very excited to visit Slabtown Cider for the first time. We moved to Uxbridge in the summer of 2021, and we always saw the place packed with people and the parking lot full of cars, so we thought it was a great place to visit.

Two things for sure, the staff are friendly and the 3 dishes from the 4 course Valentines Day dinner menu was delicious!!! The dessert was awful. We had the 4 mini French dessert…it was just overly sweet.

It was a very cold experience, temperature wise. It was -15 Celsius outside on the evening of Feb 13 but the restaurant should be warm and cozy, as it looked from the outside. We moved from a booth that was almost directly facing the entrance, to another table in the middle of the restaurant near the kitchen hoping it would be warmer. It did not make a difference. My wife and I were cold the whole time.

When the server presented us two (regular and Valentines Day) menus, we expected to be able to order from either menu. My wife ordered from the Valentines Day menu, and I ordered from the regular menu. The server immediately returned and said that both of us had to order from the same menu. So, I reluctantly ordered from the Valentines Day menu which I thought was overpriced as well, especially after tasting the dessert. After we placed the order, I wanted to get up and leave because I should NOT be told on which menu I should order from. But we stayed because it was our Valentines Day dinner, and we were not able to go out for our wedding anniversary over a month ago.

After the first course was served to us, the server returned a few minutes later with the second course, when I barely took a bite from my first course. She asked if she could take the first course away and I said “no, I am still working on this one…”. My wife and I like to eat slowly, share our food, and savor our dishes. We both felt we did not get a chance to do that because our table was now cluttered with 4 dishes, plus the extra plates and drinking glasses.

We like to have water on the table, and we should not have to ask for it. We expect water to be served soon after the menu is presented to us or as soon as we are seated. We asked for water before we moved from the booth to the other table. When we realized the water, we requested was forgotten, I asked the server again which she promptly delivered. For the rest of the evening, we did not get a refill, nor she asked us if we wanted a refill. This may seem a bit picky on my part but it all the restaurants I’ve been to, we never had to ask for a water refill.

The attentiveness of our server was somewhat lacking. She was young, perhaps new to the job, so we gave her a break. Possibly she lacked the proper training and instructions to perform her duties. If a restaurant wants to serve highly priced food, your patrons are going to expect exceptional service from your staff.

We’re unsure about returning. As I write this review, for me it is a definite “NO”, but the food was very good so there is still a chance I may change my mind. Perhaps when the weather gets warmer.

Compliments...

This is a long one, so bear with me... My friends and I visited Slabtown on June 3 - there was a total of 4 of us, we had the reservation for a month and all made arrangements to get babysitters for our children. We took a cab from Ajax with plans to spend the afternoon. Upon arrival we were quickly seated and we ordered a couple of flights to share and some apps. We ordered another round of drinks and a bunch more food (a couple pizzas, short ribs, etc). Around the 2 hour mark we tried to order another round and the waitress told us that she didn't think she could serve us anymore. I asked if this was a concern of over serving and mentioned that we had taken a cab there. The waitress then mentioned their 2 hour seating limit. Fine, we mentioned to her we noticed there were a number of empty tables and we would like to stay for another round if we could. She said she would check with the manager and walked away. She returned a few minutes later to say she couldn't serve us and that she would bring our bill. We were a little surprised but didn't put up much of a fight. When she returned with the bill she mentioned to us that they have a one drink and hour drink limit which we had exceeded? We were very surprised to hear of this drink limit which was not advertised anywhere. We asked the waitress if we could visit their cabana where you can get cider and sit at one of the picnic tables in the green space to continue our visit. She again mentioned their one drink an hour limit but went on to say "but it's not like I am going to follow you over there.". We settled our bill and tipped the waitress very generously, our final bill was around $350!!!!! (A total of 7 pints + 3 tasting flights between 4 people and lots and lots of food) Once we left the table we went into the farm store and bought 4 bottles of cider to take home at $16 each and then returned to the Cabana to order drinks at which point a second staff member came over and asked us if we had been sitting on the patio ... I already knew where this conversation was going. When we answered yes, the employee told us that our waitress had told him she had cut us off. As 4 x 40 year old adults we were shocked and embarrassed at how this experience was unfolding. One of the people in our party went inside the establishment to speak to the manager on duty who reiterated their one drink an hour policy. Another person in our party emailed the establishment after our visit and received a call from the owner a few days later. The owner was apologetic and advised that the staff should not have cut us off, that we should have been permitted to stay and enjoy a beverage in the field and that many of the staff are new and didn't understand the policy/how to manage guests or smart serve. She offered our entire group a guided tasting with their cider maker any time we choose which is a nice gesture but because of how we were treated on our initial visit I don't expect I will ever return again. It's very unfortunate given that the food was great, cider was great, service was great ... Right until the end when the staff treated us like we were a bunch of belligerent teenagers,...

This is a really nice place, great Cider and a really nice facility. The only reason I don't give 5 stars is that there is no common sense to how they are managing traffic in the COVID-19 crisis, and some fairly serious disorganization.

On arrival, we were not permitted to enter the grounds, not go on the grass, not allowed to go to the food truck (the amount of people on site is relative to my photos, the entire time we were there people were asked to wait) ... Ok, being on the safe side I can respect that, and I do!

However, only 2 staff members, I could identify, on the entire property were wearing masks, while handling drinks and serving customers. There were no staff members wearing masks behind the counter area at all. There is a single Plexiglass shield approximately 24 inches wide on the bar but neither server stands behind this and all workers behind the bar are not socially distanced and are not wearing masks (indoors while we were present). I can compare this space to another local brewery where staff and customer masks are properly enforced (even though they also have garage doors), so I have no idea why there are STRICT restrictions on number of people in a field, but no one is following Ontario Health guidelines that are serving you?

You can agree or disagree about the measures in place for safety, but you can't tell people to wait 25 minutes to enter a very distanced and open field outdoors while all your serving staff working indoors don't wear any sort of protective material whatsoever.

The other issue is when lining up (properly socially distanced) and ordering your drinks, they properly identify what you want and write it on the flight drink holders in chalk but there is no identification for who the order is for. Constantly people are getting the wrong orders, and a friend I was there with had to wait a very long time to get his order Becuase even after they realize he didn't get it they dont prioritize and the poor person lingering around the bar for 10 minutes already, he needs to wait another 10 minutes while he is put back in the "Queue". They DID give him some extra after but had to go through the whole chaos again.

They have the chalk compatible paint on these flight holders, so why they can't just paint the ends of the holders and put people's first name and initial on the the flight holders and call out people's names as their order comes up seems baffling. All the tools are there, seems like a super easy fix with no new tools and almost 0 process change required.

So ya, good experience, LOVE the temptations food truck but the whole visit otherwise just seemed totally disorganized for a place that has been open for a...