White Spot (Best Western) — Restaurant in Vancouver

13 October 2024 tonight...

We reached White Spot at about 6 p.m. It was more than 30 minutes before someone took our order, and then we waited an additional 30 minutes for the food. When I asked the server if they were short-staffed, he mentioned that the kitchen was overwhelmed with takeout orders because of Thanksgiving.

As depicted in the photo, the presentation appears quite satisfactory; however, upon closer inspection of the carrot, you'll notice a bubbly and whitish mark. Additionally, the turkey was excessively salty. I inquired with another server—a very pleasant female individual "caucasian" —if the turkey was intentionally that salty. She offered to have it replaced. My server (identified as AK3280 on my receipt) mentioned it would be the same, as it would come from the same batch. Consequently, I requested a change, which took an additional 30 minutes. When I questioned the delay, he reiterated that the kitchen was overwhelmed with takeout orders due to Thanksgiving. My husband has already finished his dinner at this point.

By the time my food was served, it had already passed 7:00 p.m., I had already waited an hour. and have lost my appetite. After a few minutes tasting Spinach & Mushroom Fettuccine decided to have it to go. Again the container I requests have taken a long time.

Dining at a restaurant is supposed to be a stress-free experience. It would help if the server would have explained it better rather than expressing 'the kitchen is busy because of take out orders due to thanksgiving' it has given us an impression that restaurant cared more for the take out than the people that are dinning in. The restaurant were not packed and we as couple were pleasantly waited. Perhaps the company can train server to explain the situation better that it was handled. Not once did they return to offer water or drinks, nor did they apologize for the long wait for the food to be served.

We have been patrons of Whitespot for over 30 years, with the Kingsway location being our preferred spot. Perhaps your establishment could benefit from observing their approach to customer service. Unfortunately, the customer service at your location seems deficient, and the quality of the spinach mushroom fettuccine does not justify the price we paid. I requested the dish without salt and NOT gluten-free. When I inquired with another server about the bread, she clarified that it was gluten-free. I didn't pursue the matter further as I was too tired from the long wait for the simple meals I had ordered.

The receipt from the restaurant shows we left at 7:54:21 p.m. after waiting two hours for simple meals. I am disappointed and will not visit your establishment again; I prefer the Kingsway location. Today's visit to your location was unfortunately...

We have been going to White spot since we were kids so we have a ton of good experiences at various White spots. Tonight, we had one of the worst dining experiences. We returned from shopping and stopped at White spot for a quick meal. We arrived and were seated within minutes but noticed that many of the tables were not cleared. We sat for approximately 20 minutes before a server said he would be coming over. He came over 10 minutes later. in total, it took 30 minutes for someone to take our order. And it was not busy (restaurant was 25% full). We asked if he could get the children's meals out first. Our drinks came 10 minutes later (not complicated as they were fountain drinks). Again, he had 2 other tables to attend to so it made no sense that it took him 10 minutes to get these drinks out. The restaurant wasn't busy and there were 4 staff on the floor. Countless times, we noticed that none of the staff were on the floor but were in the back room. I took my 3 year old for a walk around the restaurant as he was getting restless. 80% of the tables were full of dirty dishes. The servers walked by these tables on numerous occasions and did not bother to clear them. After 70 minutes, we left without having dinner. Once our drinks were dropped off - no one came over to check on us or communicate when our food would be arriving. Typically, we would have had servers at least come by our table but no one did. Typically, we would have been eating our dinner within 45 minutes of sitting down. Typically, we wouldn't see food and dirty dishes lying around on almost all of the empty tables. There was only one table that did not have dirty dishes on it. Two couples were waiting in the front to be seated for well over 15 minutes. There were numerous empty tables that had not been cleaned up. I have worked in the restaurant industry in various roles and in various settings - and I was appalled by the lack of care and customer service. Only when we got up from the table and had our jackets on did a server finally come over to our table. We indicated that we have never been to a non-busy restaurant and waited over an hour for our dinner and further, we expected someone would come and communicate if our orders were delayed in coming out. She said: I can check if your order was put in.Which was also alarming as we had ordered our dinner an hour ago. Meanwhile the server who took our order stood in a corner and watched us speak to this other server, and he never came over to talk to us. We ended up at McDonalds and received prompt service. Between customers, the manager was busy cleaning and wiping down tables. I know white spot is not high end but I expect them to clear tables and get orders out in a timely fashion. We will not be returning to...

We live in the Greater Toronto Area and are visting friends in Vancouver after taking a repositioning cruise from Hawaii to Vancouver. We chose to stay in the Best Western Plus by the Vancouver airport, and this location features a White Spot restaurant. I'd been to a White Spot about 7 years ago when I visited friends back then. I found it to be a place that provided predictable, unchallenging food of pretty good quality, but nothing to write home about. Since it is co-located in the hotel, it was hugely convenient for us to eat breakfast and dinner there.

I can tell you that White Spot has really kicked up their game by several notches. The decor in this location is a far cry from a Mom and Pop kind of diner. It is modern, has interesting fixtures and choices in art prints. They've retained the burgers and fries as well as chicken, but have added interesting salads and some vegan options (i.e. Impossible Burgers). Our breakfasts there have been very enjoyable, hubby particularly liked the smashed potatoes that came with our eggs benedict. The eggs benny were delicious btw. My husband ordered the club sandwich on sour dough bread last night, and found that it was more than he could eat himself. I had the caesar salad and while I have had better, I quite enjoyed it. After hunting for a restaurant somewhere close by that would not cost us an arm and a leg, we decided to just go back downstairs to the White Spot.

We started by ordering a caesar from their cocktail menu, and it was quite enjoyable. We split the club sandwich, which was really tasty. My husband had the fries and coleslaw. He enjoyed them both. I had a their regular side salad and was pleasantly surprised to see it included edamame and craisins. They also did not drown it in an ocean of salad dressing. It was lightly dressed and throughly enjoyable.

It being our last night in Vancouver, we decided to indulge in dessert and chose a strawberry-rhubarb pie - they had run out of cherry pie - which we also split. It came with vanilla ice cream, which had flecks of real vanilla. The pie was pleasantly both tart and sweet, exactly what a strawberry-rhubarb pie should be. This pie had a crust that was actually good. Not as good as mine....but good.

As this White Spot is right in the hotel, it was pretty slammed during the dinner service, but our servers were all friendly and responsive. I am pleasantly surprised that we enjoyed our meals so much, and am now looking forward to our breakfast there tomorrow morning, before we get our...