State & Main — Restaurant in Waterloo

I come here often. I get a medium rare steak and a diet pop, and either an app or a desert. I smile, make small pleasantries, order, eat, leave happy. In, out, and go on with my day.

Today, I had the worst service ever. The server was not unpleasant or rude, but I felt like like a second tier customer.

To be clear, when I came in today, it was not busy, but I understand that anything could be going on behind the scene.

Once I had been sitting for a while, it felt unussual for it to take so long for someone to take my order. From when I noticed, I contemplated with myself to wave down the server over or not. I did not and it took her 22 minutes before she came over to take my order (on top of the time is was already waiting).

It seemed like an afterthought as she was bringing bills to another table.

I ordered, smiled, thanked her, and though nothing of it.

After waiting longer than usual again, she brought me all my food at once; The fish taco was cold.

She did not check in on me at all- not even once. My diet pop never got refilled. She checked in with all of the customers and tables around me.

Sometimes people forget about me at resturants because I look really young, despite being in my 40's. So I am used to it. But this seemed like the person went out of their way for some reason.

I am unsure what the reason was. Was it my race? Was it the clothes I was wearing (t-shirt and shorts). Was it my 2slgbtq pin that tells me that "they are safe around me" regardless only their orientation? Or was she just having a day? I don't know. It could be for any reason, but it happened.

I usually leave 18 to 25% tip. Today is the first day in all of my time dinning out (and i dine out often) that I have left zero per cent tip.

I will be reevaluating if I come here for my...

The management reached out to me after I left the review below labelled #2. The general manager truly wished to improve their diners experience and graciously did what he could to make up for the long wait. At no point did he ask me to modify my review and for that reason I went back and am posting a second review to be fair.

#1 My partner and I went on the labor day weekend just before 6. It was busy but we were promptly seated after Covid protocols. Overall the evening was a markedly different experience than father's day with respect to speed of service. The food was just as excellent. Wait times were as one would expect and the chef nailed my request for a steak "half way between rare and medium rare". It was incredibly good quality! Kudos to all staff and management; we will be back again.

#2 Our group of four had a Father's day dinner on their patio. It was our first time there. I would rate the food quality as excellent! A negative was the time it took. Our server was helping out in the kitchen and trying but we sat for 20 minutes before anyone approached us and that was after we asked a nearby server if no one had been assigned to us. The server indicated the kitchen was swamped (patio was full) and running slow. From the time we sat down until our entrees arrived it was 90 long minutes. We clearly weren't the only ones waiting. We totally understand that they were full and staffing challenges happen but it would have been better had they been more proactive explaining the issues and giving people info or comping the odd item! Had we known how long it would be we might not have stayed but would have still had a much better experience and come back. Not sure we will. The wait impacted negatively on our evening and...

We had dinner here while visiting St. Jacob’s and it was a fairly average visit. The restaurant was pretty packed outside so we sat inside at the high tops which was a little uncomfortable, not the chairs but just the area. We were right by the door to the patio so the waiters and waitresses were constantly flying by us and standing and talking so close to us it was uncomfortable at times. We started with the artichoke dip and I really didn’t like it, it’s very watery and had little to no cheese. It was extremely bland. I had the sirloin and it was good, cookies rare like I asked but the only seasoning was basically pepper. The fries and dill dip were awesome. The truffle and shrimp rigatoni is absolutely amazing. It tasted like nothing we’ve ever had before it’s divine haha but the portion is super small so savour it. We also ordered the white wine and the rosé sangria. The white wine sangria gave me a really bad reaction I actually couldn’t drink it because I was getting a rash from it but the rosé was fine. Again though the portion size of the drink was so tiny and it was basically half ice as you can see in the photos. We were going to get dessert but the dessert menu was only 3 tiny items which did not excite us so we passed. Our waitress was very kind and even packed up my leftovers for me and gave us extra dip to take home. It’s a nice restaurant but I think most items other then the pasta are a tad small and lacking in flavour. The price is good though compared to other restaurants for sure. It was $95 before tip for 2 people including the alcohol, this is fairly standard...