Schifflände — Restaurant in Maur

We keep coming back to this restaurant mainly because we live next door and it's the most convenient option with kids. And to be fair, the food is always good. Not excellent or memorable, but reliably decent – which is often all we need on a busy day.

However, over the past year (12 visits), service issues have really added up, to the point that it's become frustrating rather than forgivable. Of those 12 visits, 7 times there was an error on the bill – items added that we didn’t order, incorrect totals, or attempts to charge for dishes that arrived ridiculously late (including once after dessert).

One time, a main course we ordered simply never arrived until we were finishing dessert. The waiter brought it out then and still tried to charge us for it, despite it being entirely missed during the actual meal.

There’s also a recurring issue with slow or dismissive service. I once came in with my kids, asked upfront to be seated and served quickly (just French fries), and to pay right away to keep things simple. I was told to wait – and ended up sitting there for 30 minutes before anyone even asked for our order. When I returned another time and asked again for just fries and to pay right away, the staff were noticeably unpleasant with me, even though I was just trying to avoid the same delay.

My father once took his grandchild for an ice cream, and they waited 45 minutes for a single scoop of chocolate. No exaggeration.

The worst visit was our most recent one. The waiter was openly rude, made no attempt to help my dad (who doesn't speak much German or English), and even created unnecessary confusion over a simple draft beer order – they only had one on tap, but acted as if it was a major negotiation. Service was slow, uncoordinated (main dishes didn’t arrive together), and the whole experience was so unpleasant we skipped dessert altogether.

In short, we continue going for the location and convenience, but the hospitality side is deeply lacking. If management took service training and attention to detail seriously, this place could be a neighborhood gem. Right now, it's just a default option — and only when we have no energy...

Obviously looking at the other reviews, they seem to have a problem with service when there are a lot of people. I can't comment on that.

We were there on a Monday evening, when it was rather quiet. Everyone was nice and attentive to us. We did notice that the timing of dishes was slightly off, but well.

However, what is completely wrong in some other reviews is the price/value. The portions are HUGE (for Switzerland), so much so that we asked if e.g. they didn't bring two portions of fries instead of one.

You could easily have a starter as a main (and you would get that size in other places). The fish was very fresh, as were all the other ingredients. Now, you could argue there was a little too much sauce on some, but it was all very tasty:

Cordon bleu with nicely creamy taleggio. Crayfish starter (again, huge). Truffle fries (2-3 portions in one). Whole trout with an excellent sauce and perfectly cooked potatoes.

The wine list also just has some really good easy drinking options on it, and quite a lot of wine by glass.

All in all, I really hope they can keep this standard up, it was just really pleasant overall. Again, totally understanding some of the other...

Absolute lack of service quality and politeness. Not only when serving the food (we needed to order 4times a glass with ice in order to drink a coke) but as well to have a sit and order the food. The menu didn't even correspond to the real dishes (grilled chicken with Pommes frites but there were no chips at all). Furthermore, they didn't even clean our table from the dirt of the previous clients. On the other hand, we called in advance to know the availability of the rental bikes they offer (which they confirmed by phone), just to realise (once we were already there, ready, sport dressed and with the bike plan made days in advance) that all their bikes were being fixed. The staff don't even know what they offer or what is going on. Plus the waiting time is completely discouraging. Actually we live around the corner, but we are definitely never...