Fable Diner — Restaurant in Vancouver

Was really looking forward to brunch here on a Saturday & unfortunately my experience was very hit & miss.

Fable diner is a typical looking diner with an eclectic menu.

Some staff are friendly others not so much. The hostess in particular was quite rude. Both at the beginning & end of our meal. At the beginning they wanted to seat us at a high top. Being 5'3" with hip & knee issues I asked if we could be moved to a low top. Host - We have a lot of reservations. Me - Okay, don't we have a reservation? Host - Yes. Me - Then can we please have that table over there? Host - It's for four people. Me - Oh, I'm so sorry our reservation was for 6 but unfortunately two people can't make it. Sorry, we should have told you that from the start. Host - Yeah, you should have. They then proceeded to give another worker our menus & tells them to seat us over there (the low top). Okay, I guess they hadn't had their coffee yet (which by the way is very good).

Our party of four ordered the following :

Two Duck Pancakes - they are absolutely amazing & is definitely a reason to come back.

Pork Belly Eggs Benedict - I'm not sure what was going on with the pork belly. It did not look or taste like it was seasoned at all, couldn't even really tell how it was cooked. One piece was a very thick white piece of fat or meat? We couldn't tell.

Side of Roti - unfortunately not crispy but oily.

The Vegan Toast - looked delicious & apparently was.

The Mimosa Flight & the Chocolate Peanut Butter Milkshake were both well received.

Unfortunately refills here are a miss. I was offered one top up of coffee while there. I don't recall getting offered any water refills.

Our server was very nice & always dealt with us with a smile.

As we were wrapping up our time, we were there for about an hour & 45 mins, the same hostess came up to us & very rudely asked us to finish up our drinks & leave because there was a lineup out the door. We're not ones to "overstay" our welcome , however it's my understanding that usually a party of 4 has about 90 mins - 2 hours from start to finish. If Fable has a policy outside of these times (I may be wrong but at no point during the reservation or while being seated were we notified of any time limit), then it would be beneficial to notify the party if not during the reservation process then upon arrival. Not at the end of our meal & so loudly as to try & embarrass us.

I would love to take my partner back for the Duck Pancake, as unfortunately he was one that could not make it, but that host really has me questioning if it's that good that I'd be willing to subject myself to potentially seeing the host again....I don't...

I have never left a restaurant more disappointed than when I left Fable Diner today. I went in with my husband for dinner on a Thursday night at 7ish hoping for a quick and delicious meal after a long day at work. It was pretty empty with maybe only two or three other groups eating in at the time. I ordered a set menu with brussel sprouts, ravioli, and cake, and my husband ordered the diner burger with salad and a diet coke, no ice. Diet coke came quickly... with ice in it. It was switched out for an iceless one after we asked. Ok, fair enough. Then my brussel sprouts came. Pretty sure they were overcooked or something because they were just not very good. Oily, lots of burnt leaves. I remarked to my husband that it was good they had come first because if they had arrived alongside my main I probably wouldn't have eaten much of it at all. So far not great but I took it as a lesson learned: get the Caesar salad next time. Ok fine. So then we waited for the rest of the food. And waited some more. We waited a full half hour, and nothing came. I observed there was only one person working in the kitchen... to his credit I think he was doing his best to keep up with orders considering he was on his own. But they had two servers on staff. They never came by to ask how we were doing, to refill our waters, to offer a free drink or dessert, to apologise for the delay, or anything like that. (And remember, there was almost nobody eating there, so this was pretty inexcusable.) At around 8pm I got sick of waiting and wanted to leave. For context, I usually am a very patient and understanding person: I grew up in Richmond so I have a high tolerance for shitty service. I also was genuinely excited for my food and willing to wait extra long for it because I have had good experiences before at Fable Kitchen and twice before at the Diner. But I was left flabbergasted by my, frankly, miserable experience today. It has soured my entire impression of Fable as a brand. At the very least, they didn't make us pay for the coke or the brussel sprouts. But they did waste an hour of our time and were honestly pretty unapologetic about it. (Their excuse was that they had received a big online order that they were trying to deal with. But if that's the reason, then maybe warn us when we enter the restaurant, or update us with estimates of when the food will be out, or have the servers go and prepare some salads or something to help the poor guy out.) Needless to say, I will not be...

I will start off by saying that the average Vancouver brunch enthusiast has never worked in service and just shows up to a brunch spot on a weekend at 12 or 1. while I have never worked at Fable, I have worked at another breakfast resto in Vancouver. with every table packed in the room and a line out the door people still somehow expected to be seated instantly, greeted, coddled and treated as if they were the only person in the world. I have been going to fable for five years now and while the staff is always changing as well as the menu, I have never had bad food here. Of course sometimes there is a line when every table in the room is full and it’s a busy weekend brunch and of course sometimes there’s a wait - due to again every table being full during a busy weekend brunch. upon reading the above reviews, all I see are entitled yuppie expectations from people that apparently want their shoes shined and their faces pampered while going to get a very reasonably priced and delicious breakfast during an incredibly busy service weekend. Again, the food has always been better than average// reasonably priced, and the servers are always kind, even when slammed. I have gone to fable at 4 PM on a Thursday and I have gone to fable at 1 PM on on a Saturday and what’s important is that the restaurant delivers the same enjoyable experience in its cosy atmosphere with good food. I cannot say the same about most other brunch and breakfast restaurants in the city, including the one I used to work for. While very few restaurants in the city deserve a perfect score, I am avidly adding one to Fables record (on Google) because it definitely doesn’t deserve the first world judgement of our yuppie population expecting so much from a place that does so much better than most others in this backwards city. Lastly their rosti out performs ANY and EVERY hashbrown or hash...