Templeton Landing Restaurant & Special Events — Restaurant in Buffalo

When we called for reservations, we were told we could only sit inside as they do not provide the full inside menu on the patio. As we were celebrating an 80th birthday, we choose to stay inside for the full menu. When we arrived, we told the hostess that we had reservations under C** for 5:00 pm for 7 people. She asked if we wanted inside or outside, and we said we were told there is no full menu on the patio and that our reservations were for inside. She told us that was not true when in fact, they do offer the full menu on one part of the patio and the other part was bar food. We were seated inside at a very small table and the seventh chair was place at the end, which was blocking the aisle. We asked our server to either put two tables together or move us to a bigger one.

This began a series of problems as the majority of our general questions were then answered with "I have to ask the hostess. At our bigger table, we began our drink orders. Since it was Happy Hour, we ordered drinks from the Happy Hour Menu. One woman was told her order for Sangria only included the red Rojo sangria, which was not stated on the Happy Hour menu, and another woman asked if they had cherry vodka and trip #2 to the hostess to find out.

After 22 mins. she finally came back with our drink orders and another 20+ mins. to finally get our appetizers. Two women ordered salads, one before and one with their entrees. When the one before came out, it was huge. The woman who wanted hers with the entree did not realize the salads were so big and asked her to bring her salad out because of this. The server said she could get her a smaller dinner salad, which was not shown, on the menu nor was it offered when originally ordered. Their so-called Traditional Cesar Salad does not include anchovies so it should not be called Traditional. The French Onion soup was delicious and hot. So far, our first check in the plus column! Several women had problems with their meal. One wanted no starch and asked for only veggies, 2 had the steak with garlic mashed potatoes and veggies. The no starch meal came with potatoes and one steak meal had her meat bloody when she reiterated med-well. Both were taken back for their correct order. The ladies who had the smashed garlic potatoes said they were very bland with no flavor or garlic taste. The 1/4 cup of potatoes were smaller than the meat. The so-called veggies included four thin green beans!

Asked for regular butter in addition to the provided herb, was told they would have to ask the hostess! We eventually got it.

We were told they had a small birthday cake and we ordered what we thought would be a small birthday cake hopefully with a candle. What we got was one piece of cake. I do have to mention the birthday woman said the cake was delicious and was provided free of charge!

Two women ordered after dinner regular and decafe coffee, which took again, over 20+ mins. While waiting for the coffee, a man came behind me and asked us how everything was. When I started telling him about the coffee, he interrupted me by saying they had to brew pots of coffee because it was too hot to drink coffee! Then he abruptly walked away and went to another table. If you DO NOT want an answer to your question then DO NOT ASK IT!!

Overall, it took over three hrs. from start to finish because, our server was slow and was given several tables on the patio to take care of to.

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My husband and I began looking for venues for an intimate summer wedding of 35 people back in January. Our ideals included: waterfront view, amazing food, and showing up that day with little to no responsibility for decorating or preparations. We wanted the day to be relaxing and stress-free for ourselves and our families. We were looking for a venue that felt really special, felt like we were really treating ourselves to a beautiful meal in a beautiful place on the ultimate date-night.

The day of the wedding, the Marina Room was set up beautifully. While my mother did decide to make centerpieces for us, we absolutely did not have to do that: Templeton’s had elegant minimalist options that would have been perfect. We were permitted to bring in a guitarist who played while guests were arriving and through cocktail hour. We were permitted to play our own music over our personal speaker, as long as it wasn’t so loud that other restaurant guests were disrupted (no one asked us to turn ours down).

Jessica was there to help direct everything on the day of. She helped us put together our timeline for the day to include all the traditional wedding things - a first dance, cutting our cake (which was beautiful and absolutely delicious), the mother-son dance. The servers that evening were stellar - a nice surprise was that the appetizers were passed and not set up on a table like we had thought they would be. The servers never stopped moving - constantly checking in with new food throughout the cocktail hour. Once dinner was served, Jessica helped direct guests to serve themselves. Somehow, the food served that evening wasn’t exactly what we had originally picked to serve, but the guests told us repeatedly how spectacular the food was and that’s all that mattered to us.

After dinner and speeches, Jessica helped us move all our tables to the side and remove some chairs to make a little dance floor in the room. There were maybe 15 people who were dancing and we had the absolute best time. The bartender was fantastic, the signature drinks that Jessica arranged for us to have were amazing, and the cleanup was minimal.

All around, our experience with Templeton’s was amazing from beginning to end. It made for the most perfect wedding day, we couldn’t have imagined how perfect it ended up being. Jessica is fantastic to work with, so kind and accommodating and professional - she really knows her stuff. She answered so many emails and questions from us that she should probably get some kind of award. The other staff in the restaurant was also incredibly kind - we couldn’t believe how nice everyone was, from the greeters to the bartenders outside to the servers in the restaurant when we were cleaning up.

The restaurant felt romantic, elegant, and overall so charming. I believe the price we paid for the event we had was quite possibly the deal of the century - we certainly received our money’s worth, and they exceeded our expectations in every way. Compared to other venues in the area, Templeton is by far the most bang for your buck. I cannot recommend Templeton’s enough - thank you so much for making our wedding day the most perfect day ever. I wish we could go back and do...

We went here on Friday for dinner. My boyfriend was shocked to see how many reservation times were available for a beautiful Friday night in Buffalo. We arrived at 7 for our 7:15 reservation to a sea of people in the lobby waiting to be checked in. The host was very polite but it was apparent he was very stressed out.

From the banter between employees it sounded like maybe the online reservations weren’t synching to the system properly, thus reservations showing up without the restaurant knowing they’re supposed to have a table? Right before we were taken to our table, another employee came up to the host and argued to stop seating people because they were over crowded and there weren’t enough staff to take care of everyone. Not a great sign, understandable to an extent, but not a great thing to say in front of customers.

When our waitress came to the table, she started off polite but this very quickly changed. My boyfriend ordered an appetizer and I had told him to just order his entree at the same time as we were ready to order. For a split second, there was some confusion as to what I had meant, when our waitress abruptly said “Would you just order?! I’m busy.”

We watched staff deliver incorrect meals to incorrect tables, ours included, and when she stopped back to the table to ask how our appetizer was, my boyfriend asked if there was an event or a mixer inside due to everyone wearing name tags. The waitress proceeded to complain to us that the “restaurant overbooks every single night,” how “the management just crams as many bodies into the place as they can,” how the restaurant “was an hour and a half behind on tables and how everyone’s being waitlisted so I’ll be stuck here until midnight most likely having to deal with tables.”

Our meal was just okay, and seemed overpriced for what we got. Unfortunately her attitude left an awful taste in my mouth, not to mention she couldn’t be bothered to speak to the one other person at the table and only spoke to my boyfriend the entire time we were there. Each trip back to the table included more complaints about her job. Dinner for two cost $150 (which turned out to be a therapy session for our waitress). Looks like we won’t be back any time soon if this is how the staff chooses to speak to (or rather...