10 Acres Bistro — Restaurant in Victoria

We had out of town visitors for a few days and they wanted to take us out for a nice dinner on their last night in Victoria. On the recommendation of their daughter they booked a reservation at the Bistro for 6:45.

We arrived right at 6:45 and were very impressed by the bright and spacious dining area and very excited to enjoy our last dinner together. There were two parties in line ahead of us when we arrived. The first, a group of three, who did not have a reservation, a couple who did have a reservation to join a larger group, and then us. The hostess spent a few minutes talking to the people without the reservation and eventually they were seated at the only available table in the main dining room that had just been vacated by the previous guests. The couple ahead of us joined their party and then it was our turn. We stated that we had a reservation for 6:45 and the hostess said she was going to check to see if our table was ready. She returned and said the people were just finishing up and that we would be seated shortly. A few minutes later she came back to tell us our table was ready. We were led past the main dining room and down a few steps into the bar area, where we had to squeeze ourselves sideways between the corner of the bar and a wall to get to our booth. We found it hard to believe this was the table they had reserved for us and assumed, after the fact, that the table given to the party without reservation had likely been intended for us.

The table in the bar area did not give off the same inviting vibe as the main area. All of us wished we had said something but at the time nobody wanted to put a damper on our evening. In hindsight, we all wished someone had spoken up.

While we did enjoy the food and the server was friendly, the overall experience was dampened by the not so impressive table apparently reserved for us.

Our experience would have been so much more enjoyable had the hostess checked to see if anyone one waiting in line had a reservation before giving tables to those without one. The group without a reservation ended up at a lovely table...us,...

Let me start by saying the food here is genuinely good, and the venue itself is lovely – clean, great airflow, and a beautiful setting. You can really tell the owner cares about presentation, and it pays off, creating a high-end atmosphere without the ridiculous price tag you find elsewhere in Victoria.

But here's the problem, and it's a big one: the service is often terrible due to, frankly, incompetent servers. I've been here about ten times over the years, and I'd say four of those visits were spoiled by service mishaps.

Take today, for example. My wife asked for her dish with cheese on the side; it came with the cheese already in it. Okay, not the end of the world – it's a preference, she's not allergic, and the dish still tasted good. But then, getting our server's attention to pay took forever. When we finally did, multiple people at our table specifically asked for separate bills. What did we get? One single bill. The exact opposite of what we requested!

Fine, mistakes happen. Maybe they zoned out. We've all done it. Easily fixed, right? We told her again: separate checks, please. And then we waited. And waited. It took a full 15 minutes to get three simple bills. What on earth were they doing back there? Then she says, "I'll be right back with the machine." At this point, I was skeptical. To our surprise, the machine did show up pretty quickly – but brought by a different server! I actually had to laugh.

Look, I've lived and dined in Victoria for 16 years, and this is the first time I've ever walked away from a dine-in experience without leaving a tip.

This kind of frustrating service isn't a one-off here; I've had several similar experiences over the years. I don't think the servers are trying to be difficult; they just seem poorly trained and incompetent. Some basic service training would go a very long way. As for me, I'm not willing to risk another meal being ruined. Based on these consistent issues, I simply can't recommend this place in...

Short story: Went there and spent 40$ on two drinks and left dissatisfied. Long story: We sat for awhile before being asked if we had been helped, by seemingly the only server in the back section. (If you didn’t help us, idk who else would haha) My partner wanted to do the dine around but I wasn’t interested in a big meal so had the regular menu, but we were informed if one person at the table wanted the dine around then I’d have to get it as well. There was also add ons to the dine around, which my partner had said that it’s a fixed price everywhere which was the point, where as dine around in other establishments didn’t. I understand that , if salmon cost more then making a smaller portion to fit a random menu might not be cost effective, but other establishments don’t have price add ones. Something to note. But we never got to that point, the vegetarian options seemed lacking and we were only given a single menu to pass back and forth to figure out what we wanted. We started with two drinks, I asked for a rum and coke and got a rum and Pepsi and with the long waits and the expensive menus and the lack of service we at that point, decided to tap out. I paid for the drinks we left, went to craft, was greeted, seated, served right away. Spent almost the same amount on dinner and 4 drinks as we did here. I’ll extend an olive branch and say maybe that server was swamped and maybe as a bistro, vegetarian options are not their specialty, and maybe we just got off on the wrong foot by waiting for as long as we did while staff walked by us the whole time. Fun side bar Pepsi is not Coke. No one has ever asked for a rum and pepsi. Tell people if you don’t have coke. Either your a fancy restaurant that charges obscene prices for mediocre things. Or your a bar that doesn’t care about finer details. You...