Stella's au CCFM — Restaurant in Winnipeg

Ordered the Noontime soup and sandwich, found the Split pea soup very thin. After bringing it to the Manager's attention, she explained that the soup thickens as it slow cooks over the lunch hour and becomes to thick, so new stock was added to pot. Brought us a bowl of the spicy tomato soup as a alternative 'peace offering', it was excellent! The clubhouse sandwich had roast chicken on it instead of roast turkey, a slight change of taste that I wasn't expecting, but it was packed with chicken. Courteous service and excellent product knowledge. Can hardly wait for outdoor eating area to re-open for the summer season....yes!

March 23, 2017 RETURN VISIT.

Decided to go back and re-try Stellas and see if things had changed.

Was seated in an odd corner of the service area away from the normal service pathway, not a great place if you are looking for service or your having a problem with your meal.

I ordered the the provolone roast chicken sandwich with tomato soup and my friend ordered the chilli with Cesar salad. Fifteen minutes later, we had a waiter deliver our dishes to our table. The chilli was in a large deep cup-type bowl, the meat/meal mixture was very tight and dry, with a teaspoon of mayo and garnish. After flagging down a passing waitress after five minutes, we asked her to bring a cup of hot water to soften the right chilli mixture. Adding 6 or 7 tablespoons of hot water softener the mixture and made it more palatable.

The tomato soup AGAIN was waterery and washed away for tomato taste and devoid of seasoning. The provolone roast chicken sandwich had no cheese in it and I thought the waitress who took the order, had misheard me a thought I said, a roast chicken sandwich only. For a Company that prides itself on bakery goods, the bread was dry and crusted on one side and soft on the other piece of bread.

Upon receiving the bill, I noticed that I was charged for a Provolone Roast Chicken, and my friend brought it to the Manager's attention. The Manager said if it would have been brought to their attention sooner they could have done something about it. That's alright Madame, I don't think I will be returning. You people can not make a proper consistent tomato soup and you can't read an order properly, i.e. add cheese as required to a sandwich.

NOTE! Did I mention that you have to constantly battle the tipping tables and your soup because of the in level tile floors! You have been open over two years...

I usually enjoy the service at this Stellas location but, this evening we had the worst and most confusing service I’ve seen from an establishment in a long time. It started with the waitress blaming us for our order being incorrect. I ordered the vegetarian sandwich which she clarified while taking our order. Not only did we have to wait 30 minutes for 2 sandwiches in a mostly empty restaurant, we had to ask her to check on the order and we saw that they had been waiting on the counter. She blamed the slow service on cooks that were training. Upon receiving the order, I realized that she had brought out a grilled vegetable sandwich instead of the vegetarian. When I brought this to her attention she stated “she heard me say grilled vegetable”. Okay, they sound similar I’ll let it slide but she did not apologize and did not offer to make me the right sandwich or to comp the sandwich until we asked. I asked if I would just be able to have the right sandwich made. We waited another 20 minutes for her to bring out the exact same grilled vegetable sandwich. When I brought this to her attention, she stated that this was the only vegetable sandwich they had on their menue. I had to show the waitress the menue for her own restaurant. She again blamed the kitchen stating that she plugged in and they made the wrong one twice. At this point I had waited an hour to receive the wrong order TWICE we asked for the bill. When she gave us the bill she mentioned that she waived my second sandwich for me. ???? Implying that she was planning on charging us for the second sandwich that was supposed to correct the first order which was incorrect. I asked to speak to her manager and she did not call him. I had to explain that I was not going to pay for the sandwich she made us wait twice as long for that I didn’t even order in the first place! She told us she can take 3$ off. The most confusing customer service I’ve ever received and for the waitress to consistently blame the kitchen and taking no responsibility is a...

Before even being seated, the front-of-the-house staff were difficult to communicate with, lifeless, and seemed to have no sense of urgency. It seemed like they were lost. After putting my name on the wait list, and eventually being seated, I attempted to order my meal. Firstly, I requested an iced coffee. Our server stated that they had ran out of iced coffee (at 2pm on a Sunday). Ok, no problem. I ordered an iced latte instead. Once we received our drinks (after waiting for some time), we waited at least 20 minutes for our server to come back and take our food orders. When they finally did return, I ordered the chorizo hash but our server stated that they had no hash (this eliminates 1/3 of the menu). “Ok,” I thought to myself, “I’ll try something else.” I decided to order the jambalaya but apparently they didn’t have that either. At this point, I wanted to know what I actually could order. I ended up getting a sandwich.

It was already bad enough that I wasn’t able to order (seemingly) half of the menu but then we had to wait almost 25 minutes to get our food. No sense of urgency from our server, at all. At this point, my experience was laughable. After being there for over an hour, we finally received our food. The person I was with ordered the quinoa and kale salad with 2 poached eggs. They brought out the salad, stating that the poached eggs would be brought out shortly. After having finished half of their salad, the eggs finally were brought out. The couple beside us were told there was no eggplant for one of the dishes.

After this experience, I had to come back to change a previous 5-star rating. This was not only my worst Stella’s experience but one of my worst restaurant experiences ever. It wasn’t the wait list that bothered me but the experience once we finally got in. I wish I’d left after ordering drinks. I’m not sure what has happened to this Stella’s over the pandemic but it certainly isn’t...