Smit's Paviljoen — Restaurant in Steenwijkerland

A beautiful spot, but unfortunately we had one of the most unpleasant experiences with service for boat rental here in October this year.

Rented a boat for 2 hours with a group of 4 going on a short ride to catch the sunset. The boat engine was spoilt from the start, and after 30 minutes and realizing several boats were passing us, we called for help. We tried troubleshooting as advised but nothing worked, and we called again. No instructions were given except that they would send another boat to help us. After drifting along making little progress and a further wait of over an hour, a fast boat arrived with a replacement boat for us to complete the tour. He confirmed that the boat engine was indeed spoilt. We missed the sunset in the village, faced strong cold winds on the way back and tried our best to rush back before it got fully dark outside.

When we returned exhausted after almost 4 hours, we asked to speak with the manager/owner about our experience. He was in the store but did not want to see us and sent his service staff out, who was not able to communicate well due to language barriers, to tell us nobody was in and to just offer a free round of coffee. When we insisted to speak to someone, the staff was sent back a second time to offer us a small cash back which we refused. Finally the manager came out, and he was immediately rude, unapologetic and confrontational. He accused us of not staying in one place to wait for the replacement boat when nobody told us to do so and we were not moving much with a broken engine anyway, and help took forever to come. Then he said we got our money's worth as we '"enjoyed" the ride for more than the rental duration, and had nothing more to say to us.

Honestly, a simple apology for the bad experience would have sufficed. We refused the cashback or free drinks and left the place in disgust. This ruined our experience in Giethoorn, which is a lovely place that we made a long journey to get to, but sadly didn't get to properly experience because of everything that happened.

Please patronize at...

This place is pretty good, in terms of food. Service, however, needs some work.

It is a bit pricier than other options along the path, but the portions are rather large, rivaling American standards. I had their pork in rib, one of the best cooked piece of pork I've ever had. Tender and juicy. Sides were literally came as sides, separate from the main plate. Potato wedges, salad, and [something else].

We also shared a fried catch of day (apparently chicken is caught in the sea around the Netherlands), lots of bread that came with out soup, more frites and mayo, the schnitzel with frites, and a chocolate pancake. All very good and well portioned.

As for service, our issue was with their basic service etiquette. We just wandered in, no one greeting us or directing us where to sit in this very vacant restaurant.

After getting their attention, they just say to pick any place that isn't reserved. OK. We sit. And we wait.

I'm not sure if Dutch folks have discovered telepathy or something, it took 'em a while to come around with the menus. The "chicken" of the day order wasn't a big issue, still tasted good, our problem was with water.

I'm not sure if we're spoiled in the US, where water is generally free with your meal. Apparently our pitcher of water (with a stick of mint and a slice of lemon) was E4 and just a cup of hot water (no tea, mind you) was charged for. We won't mind terribly if we have to pay, but it needs to be either mentioned in the menu or said by the wait staff.

Two more, not-review related things:

1. Cash only. You've been warned.
2. No take out or take away. Apparently they can be sued if someone gets sick from eating poorly stored take away (i.e. you left it your car, under the hot sun, for whole two days per the staff's...

Waited an hour and a half and didn't get our order taken. It wasn't too busy. Several dutch groups that arrived a full hour after us were served and eating. After the 4th or 5th time we left.

And some would say, sure they hate tourists. I get it. I've been wanting to see this place for 20 years and it was disappointing. I didn't want to be there either. I'd be sick if tourists too, if thousands per day went through. But it's no excuse for leaving me and my kids hungry. It had been a full 6 hours because of the bus and tour and my kids were having a pretty tough time. At any point if they had even told me they were busy, even in dutch, acknowledged us in any way I wouldn't leave a negative review. But they did the "look away" when we tried to get their attention as wait staff does. And I'm not one to try to even get their attention, and overly concerned about being the rude American.

The burger place on the walk over was fantastic and welcoming. Kids play area, not that my kids had any energy for that but it was cool to see. Very friendly. Wasn't on the lake but there were few people so that...