Gold Pan Saloon at the Best Western Gold Rush Inn — Restaurant in Whitehorse

UPDATED with RACIST SERVER DESCRIPTION: !! ASIAN DISCRIMINATION at GOLD PAN SALOON !!

We first had to spot a dirty table (with beer bottles from previous customers). It remained dirty for 10-15 minutes, despite our attempts to get attention. Eventually, our waitress tidied up and took our order.

Here it's the drama part. We had to practically "beg for water," sitting for 30 minutes without water served. Despite repeated requests, we were ignored.

And here's the kicker: there was this waitress who was serving everyone around us, but when she came to us, she rudely said, "I am not your server. Ask your waitress to serve". Funny enough, she then served the tables around us. She even chatted and laughed with customers from other tables. She is a white waitress with blue earrings, black plastic glasses, black long hair, and a tall, curvy figure.

Our original waitress seemed to be very busy, cuz she was serving the entire restaurant. I tried to ask her but no luck. The blue earring waitress was serving tables around us and I decided to asked her to ask her colleague for water. Well, she looked me straight in the eye and walking away, not even waiting for me to finish...🤬 It was clear as day that she was singling us out because we were the only Asians in the place.

Honestly, it felt like we were being discriminated against by that blue earring waitress because we were the only Asians there. For the entire restaurant, I understand that today is busy but from our customer perspective, we were ignored and unhappy for so many times. We were polite all the time. This is DISRESPECTFUL. By the way, the food was very slow. We also waited in total at least 40 minutes for food.🚫👎

-----Based on the response from the restaurant--- Yesterday was Yukon Rendezvous. My family and I decided to go to GOLD PAN SALOON (your restaurant) to celebrate. We went there at around 1 p.m.

From my observation, there were only three waitress yesterday：

-- One young white waitress with blond ponytail. She was our server and her name was Kelly (?). She ordered and do the cleaning and everything for us. She was very busy yesterday but with good service attitude. However, from our perspective, most of the time we could not find server to serve and we were ignored. I guess she tried her best and this is more related to the holiday staff arrangement from the restaurant.

-- One older and shorter white waitress with blond hair (medium length) (sorry if this is offensive). She was mostly at the counter. I went to the counter to complain about not serving water and eventually she served us water.

-- RACIST SERVER: As what I described earlier, she was a white waitress with blue feather earrings, black plastic glasses, black long hair, and a tall, curvy figure. She is the tallest and curviest among the three. Yesterday was Yukon Rendezvous, she had her blue/pink garter on her thigh (forget left or right). If you check the staff schedule, this will be quite obvious to determine.

Well, interestingly, when I read the reviews yesterday, I found a people had SIMILAR experience. One was from 9 months ago and that description was clear. I am sure that was the same person with rude service. My experience was DEFINITELY WORSE than that (she even pretended not see me when our table ask for sth. Very rude. We were treated very differently compared to other tables).

I am not sure why your restaurant/hotel will retain such a rude server for such an extended period, especially after receiving complaints about her nine months ago.

I am a Yukoner and also an Asian. This is my first time writing Google review because I was too disappointed to the service. That lady's service ruined our mood for the holiday...

This is one of the rare places that open for lunch as the rather famous places for bison burger or food is only open for dinner till late. This place is located at the first level of the Best Western Inn and there are 2 ways to enter it, via the main entrance of Best Western Inn and then the side door which is the main entrance of Gold Pan Saloon or you can go by the back door which gets you to the restrooms (which was how I entered but it doesn't matter as they still checked your vaccination status and ID).

Do note that this place has a lot of regulars (given that Whitehorse downtown is a very small downtown and everyone kind of knows each other). Don't be upset if they don't service you immediately. I found that the regulars there know the menu better than the servers. My server actually didn't know the price of the special of the day and how much the beers cost so she had to return to the bar to ask and get a menu to show us the price instead. All in all service is not strong here for new customers, but regulars know the service staff by name.

The bison burger is pretty nice (first time for me), gamey, lean, tasty, well marinated and burger well made. The fries were pretty good as well. As for the special of the day, it was butter chicken (ended up being an Indian style of butter chicken which was fine).

Beer was really cold and nice in a retro looking plastic cup (probably because many customers broke them after too many a glass).

Given they are one of the few lunch joints, I'm pretty happy with what I got, and service was never my emphasis anyway so this place is worth my time...

I was here in Yukon for business. The food itself was decent, but literally the worst service i have ever witnessed, table was not clean when we were asked to sit down, our server never really checked in on us after food was brought out. When confronted about this, she complained that we ordered late and she’s handling 3 tables at once. You cannot just wave down any server, you have to wait for your own waiter who would disappear once they take your order. Our whole morning was ruined by her nonchalant attitude. We asked for takeout box and she almost threw the box on our table. Very disrespectful staff and entitled servers. When we asked for a manager to explain our situation better. She came back to our table and said ‘’I’m the manager and if we have any complains we could let her know’’, we asked if the owner is at the restraunt and her reply was (and i quote) this is a big establishment and the owner never comes at big restaurants like these. Which almost made us choke on our food lmao! we did not tip and told her that she’s the problem. I’m from Vancouver and sit at restaurants mostly for business meeting and never once had a complain from service. Not sure what was she trying to point out by bringing big establishment? 🤣 Would never recommend any visitors, not a worthwhile service for the money...