El Furniture Warehouse — Restaurant in Whistler Resort Municipality

Came here twice on my birthday Whistler trip.

The first time, the staff sat my fiancé and I in the cold patio with a broken heater. We weren’t ok with this and the staff didn’t accommodate until they saw me trying to adjust the heater myself after asking them to put the heat on twice with no help.

The staff moved our table finally but we were stuck waiting an hour for our food- turns out the staff didn’t communicate with each other that we were given a new table. Once our food arrived, it was cold and unappetizing. It took us a long time to tell them because the staff, despite being busy, helped what seems like every other table except ours.

We complained and they remade our food. The food we received wasn’t ‘hot’ but it was warm so we cut out losses and settled with this. Luckily the staff decided to cover the cost of our food because we were unsatisfied. We looked the other way after wasting hours here because it was a busy Friday night. We thought it would be a one-off situation; we love the El Furniture on Granville and have never had these issues anywhere but here.

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We decided to come back today.

The server who took our order was never to be seen again. Our food didn’t take nearly as long to receive. So far so good. Then the staff forgot cutlery for our table, no condiments no nothing. When we finally get to eat our food, surprise, it’s ice cold like the other day. We decided to once again settle with it because we were hungry and didn’t want to wait even longer for food that should have been properly cooked to begin with. While eating we ordered a beer from the Power Hour menu. Nobody gave us the beer. The same waiter walked back and forth giving eye contact to us multiple times but it never clued in to her. Eventually after we were grossed out by our cold food and unable finish, we asked for a to-go box and the bill. She gave us the beer finally when she gave us the bill. I didn’t want to be stuck in this hostile environment any longer. We said “no” to the beer after this, and it took another 10 minutes for them to remove it from our bill and take it away from us and give us the machine. We said we had to leave as it’s Sunday and we have jobs to get back to outside of Whistler. We don’t have all day to waste waiting for staff to do their jobs. They said “oh it’s really busy today”. No responsibility taken for poor service. Only two staff members genuinely seemed to even acknowledge us from both visits out of the 6 staff members we spoke to. Honestly, take the time and drive to the downtown Vancouver location- the service there is leagues ahead of this location’s. Your food won’t be ice cold, and you won’t be stuck sitting outside with a broken heater. The staff won’t forget about you there. Attached is a photo of the flat-looking beer they gave us after we already packed our...

El Furniture Warehouse is an oddly named bar located in the heart of the Village Stroll of Whistler, a block north of the Village Gate Blvd overpass. Arriving in Whistler around 3pm on a late and rainy July weekday, we decided to stop by here to grab some appies (a lot of the big restaurants are closed around this time of the day).

Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone else had the same idea and we had a bit of a wait to be seated. As we later found out, they had a shortage of staff so they had trouble keeping up with the orders. Staffing shortages seemed to be a common theme during our visit as we noticed many restaurants displaying help wanted signs while other ones had to shut down completely for dinner service because they didn’t have enough staff.

One of the reasons why this place is so popular is probably due to their $5.95 all day food menu. Gotta admit that the price point is very attractive. We decided to order the Crispy Calamari, Honey Garlic Crispy Chicken Wings (+$1 for ranch dip with carrots and celery), and the Chili Con Queso Dip.

The calamari turned out to be a very small portion size (which is probably in line with the price). Dusted and served on top of toasted pita triangles, the fried calamari was accompanied by a spicy tzatziki dip.

The chicken wings were okay… not really crispy as the menu described and the honey garlic sauce seemed to be a bit too sweet for my preferences. The extra charge for the 2 carrot and celery sticks didn’t really seem worth it.

I think I enjoyed the dip the most. Served hot, this creamy 3 cheese dip with chipotle peppers, roasted corn, and spinach had both tortilla chips and lightly crisp pan bread for dipping.

Overall, the food and service was slow (which was probably due to the staffing shortage) and the food was just okay but as expected given the price. It also seemed that there were tons of add-ons to the menu options so that $5.95 price could inflate rather easily if you take all...

Our afternoon here actually started off super well - we had an absolutely amazing server, whose name I wish I had gotten but we missed it. We were with a fairly large group, and she handled it like a champ, even helping our son get some ketchup off his hoodie lol. The reason for the lower review is that once that server left, things got a little cold. We had already squared up with the first server to make sure we took care of her and we had no plans not to keep ordering food / drink. By that point I figured we had dropped around $500. The kids left the patio and went to get ice cream and when they unknowingly brought it onto the patio and we weren’t disappointed immediately met with what I would call condescension and a bit of hostility when one of the other servers came over and started lecturing us on how they couldn’t have outside food on the patio due to health regulations and they would have to leave. She wasn’t nice, didn’t come across and understanding in any way, so we all packed up and left. I have yet to find the actual rules they quoted but it was handled poorly by a server that treated us like the table had gone cold and we weren’t wanted there anymore. We won’t be back, which is shame because our first server was absolutely amazing. Next time - try to show your future patrons (who are spending a ton of money btw) some understanding and compassion when an honest mistake is made. No one argued - we just got treated like crap. Like, maybe just point...