Dockside Restaurant — Restaurant in Vancouver

Edit: After the requested contact with Restaurant manager, Eugene, I am blown away with how he has tried to make this experience right for us. His quick action and communication more than redeemed our experience and we look forward to trying the restaurant again one day. Thank you again, Eugene.

We decided to splurge on the Christmas night buffet. It was a very mixed experience.

Service: we were staying the night at the hotel and came out of the elevators to a large amount of people waiting to be sat at 7:00 pm. I walked up to the host desk and before I could even utter a word l was “greeted” by Connie who, without a smile or any type of cheer, held her finger up between us and said “I’ll be with you in a minute.” She then started to converse very tensely with a staff member about tables. I waited patiently as I have planned many large events (including AT the Granville Island Hotel) and understood the scope and complexity of what was happening. What I didn’t understand is when Connie held up her finger again to repeat her same “greeting” with no prompting from me. Connie needed a break, and perhaps a drink of water, as that was not the first greeting a guest should receive from an employee on Christmas night. We were sat approximately 15 minutes later and our server was absolutely wonderful. He really went above and beyond to chat with us and make our night fun. The staff were working hard to keep up with demand. Our server said that his “sales” that night were $9000 so that would be $1620 in tips for him. Even if that is split with other service people it’s a good night for the staff.

Ambiance: it was a buffet with huge tables of people so it was hectic. It was not a fine dining experience, more survival of the fittest. We had a nice table for two however there were so many tables people were constantly brushing by us which made us feel like we were dining in a hallway.

Food: this buffet was $149 plus an 18% gratuity. When doing my research this was the highest cost Christmas meal in the city. The advertisement boasted lobster, crab legs, prime rib, Turkey will all the trimmings. Well… those things were there in theory. It was so incredibly busy that a tray of lobster tail would be put out and literally gone in less than 5 minutes. The lobster tails were cut in half so people were walking about with 3 or 4. It was shocking to see the greed. The crab legs were so soft they could not be cracked and made for an awkward and messy dining experience. If one wasn’t visiting the buffet every few minutes, one would miss the fresh food. We never did find the Turkey breast either. Our seating was at 7:00 pm which felt early for them to be running out of things. By the time it came to dessert, all advertised crème brûlée and nice desserts were gone. In its place were English bay cookies, two-bite cupcakes (the ones you can get at Wal-mart) and a variety of Nanaimo bars and carrot cake squares you can get at save-on foods. The food was definitely not even close to being worth $149. I would have a hard time even justifying $99. The wine was so shockingly over priced ($22-29 for a 8 oz GLASS). And the auto gratuity was very expensive at 18%, even though our server was awesome.

Suggestions: Perhaps for higher value items, such as lobster, have your servers ask their guests who would like one and then provide ONE per guest brought to their table. This would give the servers a little more to do than just bussing tables and create a personalized experience for the guests and stop the greed. If a business is going to be the most expensive, you better be sure that each guest is getting an equal experience.

It took everything in me not to request a discount as we definitely felt it was a bait and switch with what was advertised vs what was available. Was ultimately a...

We were thinking of spots to enjoy brunch together with the fam today as it's one of the fleeting warm, sunny days in Vancouver this year. The criteria included an outdoor patio, preferably with a view, and a brunch menu as my husband's fave meal of the day is breakfast and my mum is not an early riser. We ran through the list of usual suspects when I proposed Dockside - surprisingly, I was the only one who had been here.

We weren't able to make a reservation online for the patio, but decided to chance it and try our luck for a walk-in at 11:30AM today. Success! The front of house team welcomed us and actually scanned our vaccine passports (!), which we were super happy to see since many establishments are still not doing this despite the new laws.

We got a great partially-shaded spot on their patio overlooking False Creek (see pic). I ordered the avocado toast (with organic whole grain & honey toast, alfalfa sprouts, heirloom tomatoes, sunflower seeds, za'atar and added a soft-poached egg), and both my husband and mum ordered the smoked meat breakfast sandwich (house-made montreal smoked meat, fried egg, provolone, alfalfa sprouts, horseradish mayo, sesame brioche) with salad. To drink, I ordered their breakfast tea, my husband had the coffee, and mum had the grapefruit juice.

The presentation of my avocado toast was nice (see pic), and the egg was soft as requested though the flavour of the dish was surprisingly bland... Pretty disappointing for toast that cost over $20. It definitely needed something, even just a citrus/acidic drizzle of some sort on top. I wasn't super hungry this morning so the portion size was perfect for me, but I do think that they should adjust the price or add something on the side.

Both my husband and mum loved their smoked meat breakfast sandwiches (see pic) - the meat was piled high, and the sesame brioche bun was a hit. Both mentioned it was quite salty (which is saying something since they are both salt enthusiasts), so if that's not a plus for you, you may want to factor that into your menu choice. Husband and mum agreed that getting the side salad was the right choice as it was tasty, fresh, and because they both probably could have done with half the sandwich and been okay (if taking the other half for later), though the fries would have been way too much.

When it comes to service, this is where they lost a star for me. Our server was pretty abrupt and frankly, rude at the beginning. We had sat down and she asked us about drinks, we said we were just waiting on one more person before ordering and she stormed off. I'm not sure what was going on behind the scenes, because there was nothing on our end. She sort of recovered through the end of service and was more friendly, but it was a bizarre encounter. That being said, everyone has their off days and let's leave it at that.

The sprawling patio at Dockside really is what makes the experience, and I would definitely recommend it if you're looking to enjoy some sunshine and a view. We look forward to going back for another brunch date and splitting the stuffed French toast, as we saw this dish going to a few tables today and it looked delicious! When life goes back to some semblance of normal post-COVID and the theatre and comedy shows start up again, this would also be a nice spot to go for a drink and a bite before or...

We just had our company Christmas party at the Dockside Restaurant Lounge and we were very upset with the service during our venue. This is the first time we booked our event there and I thought this would be an upscale restaurant with very good service, but is was the total opposite. We booked the private lounge from 5:30 pm to 11:59 pm on Saturday, November 25th for 53 people. During our venue the Banquet Manager Brittany said we were not allowed to have additional guests to our event without the hotel knowing. They even shut the bar down at 11:00 pm and we could not order any more drinks when we had to pay the minimum for the food and drinks of $10K plus 20% gratuity and tax. The bartender that night was very rude to the our guest and myself and when I was trying to order a drink he was reluctant to serve me and even cursed at me and called me names after he served my drink. At 11:15 pm they started turning on the lights when our guest were dancing even though we booked the venue to 11:59 pm and all the staff left and we had no service. At the end I still paid for the balance but I would never recommend anyone to book an event or party at the Dockside Lounge. Be careful if you were to book there as there are a lot of restrictions and the food is over priced and the service was horrible.

In response to the owners reply, I am the Director/ Owner of the company that booked and paid for the venue and we are a National company across Canada. I would like to say, please don't exaggerate about our staff inviting 500 guests to our paid event. We had approximately 25 additional friends and employees that tried to join our Xmas party after dinner but instead of having a good time they were surprised at how they were treated by your staff. You are delusional if you think we should appologize to your staff the way they disrepected and cursed at everyone. In fact it should be the opposite where we would expect you to appologize on how your staff handled the situation. Your Manager that night kept saying we coud not have an event within an event and it is in our contract. We did not have an event within our event as the additional guests that arrived did not pay and they were everyone we knew plus there is no such mention in the contract that says we could not invite additional guests after the dinner even though we booked the whole lounge and had to pay the minimum charge for the venue. If I don't get an applogy from you with compensation, the review will remain as is and this incident will spread to...