Earls Kitchen + Bar — Restaurant in Whistler Resort Municipality

After a transcontinental day of travelling, eating airplane meal after airplane meal, we were eagerly anticipating our first taste of Canadian cuisine.

The restaurant is somewhat unassuming from the outside, but within is a warm, cozy alpine atmosphere. The bar was packed and we had to stand for a drink. Perhaps it may be more convenient for waiting customers if there were more bar seating, or if eating customers weren't seated on the bar? Either way they had a fine selection of drinks.

We were seated at a booth style table, with seating on 3 of 4 sides of the rectangle. I possess a strong disliking for this style of seating. The social dynamic is imbalanced and awkward. We were also squashed in which is never acceptable.

Earls has a very accommodating menu, with dishes ranging from pizza to poké bowls. This is good for their comfort food genre that they are going for. I don't think the menu was stretched at all and offered broadly good quality of dishes all round, with my fellow diners all enjoying their respective meals.

Highlights included the Chicken Hunan Kung Pao, and the Ahi Tuna Poké Bowl. I loved how we were given a range of spice options for the chicken. This is great. The Poké Bowl boasted a harmony of strong flavours.

I was devastated by the Prawn Cocktail though. A personal favourite of mine, this meal was butchered. It couldn't be any easier to make either. Flopping a few prawns on a bowl of ice with a very mid sweet chilli sauce is just lazy. Where's the lemon, avocado, lettuce, seafood sauce, garnish, or anything to give it another dimension? Not to mention the prawns were too tough. The Chicken Tenders were flavourless and slightly mushy. They had run out of the Calamari. The Nashville Crispy Chicken Sandwich was labelled on the menu as a 'Handheld'. Mine fell apart. Fries were crispy and had good texture, but were too salty.

Price-wise I think Earls is very competitive. They offer good value food in a lovely environment. No complaints here.

I'd therefore easily recommend this restaurant. I can just imagine coming in the depths of winter, sitting back with a hot drink in the warm, welcoming ambiance with some...

UPDATE March 11-25

Management reached out as you can see below but when I had emailed like they had asked I was ghosted. Haven’t heard ANYTHING back in months.. This just shows the Earls doesn’t really care about making things right or giving their paying customer a great experience. It’s so sad they comment on these reviews to make themselves look like they care and want to rectify things but actually don’t at all…

Last night my Wife and I went out for dinner to this location as we usually do twice a year when we come up to Whistler and always have a good experiences. Unfortunately last night will most likely be our last. I wish i could give no stars for the service. The restraint wasn’t even that busy and not only did our server James drop off the wrong drink that I touched then gave back to him that he then he then gave to the proper table (not usually allowed in industry) we then waited over 10 minutes for ours. Once they finally came I asked for napkins and parm to come with our meals for my pasta. Food later came no napkins or parm. Not the end of the world but his quality check took (10-15) minutes into eating and then had to again remind him about the parm as my wife was eating her salmon. He came back with another drink for my wife but no parm. I had to again remind him as I clearly wasn’t really eating my food without it, he apologized but get this, You would think he would go get it relatively fast as our meals are in-front of us but shockingly I had to wait almost 15 minutes for it as he would rather assist ALL his other tables and chat first leaving my meal less than half eaten getting cold and my wife wanting to wait for me but hers was getting cold. Parm came but my appetite left so I pushed my meal and got a to go box. I have never in 33 years felt the way I did or left a $5 tip on over $100 meal and I do feel very bad for this but I honestly shouldn’t have tipped a cent considering and I really hope this was just an off night for him or maybe an opportunity for some additional training as again I come from this industry and have never experienced being...

Dismissive and Condescending Treatment I visited this restaurant around noon on October 26 as a solo traveler, returning after dining here the night before on October 25. When I arrived and asked for a table, the female hostess didn’t seem pleased. I could tell by the look on her face that "a table for 1" was a lot to ask for even though I told her I was ready to wait. She offered me a seat at the bar (the same thing happened the night before, but I did not want to make a fuss about it, so I agreed to it) , but I declined and explained I’d prefer a table this time as a returning customer. She told me there would be a 5-minute wait, which I agreed to.

When a waitress led me to a table, it was positioned in a separate section, far to the left of the bar and isolated from the main dining area. The area was completely empty, which left me feeling excluded and frankly, humiliated. I waited 15 minutes before I was even served water (there were waitresses cleaning the tables in front of me, but ignoring me) and when I inquired about the food service in the main area, I was told there would be another 20-minute wait 0_0

The final straw came when the hostess came back and commented, "I thought you would be happy with ANY table," in response to my concern about the seating. It sounded like she was doing me a favour - very condescending. When I mentioned that I will write a review, she quickly shifted to an overly apologetic tone, but the damage was done and the mood was ruined. I decided to leave the restaurant and have my lunch elsewhere.

The treatment I received was disappointing and felt dismissive and condescending. I also felt like there was a lot of prejudice on the table. I won’t be returning, and I would advise solo diners to be prepared for similar disregard. I shouldn't have been treated differently just because I was...