The Braeburn Restaurant — Restaurant in Langley

I have only one negative thing to say about The Braeburn, so I might as well get it out of the way at the start: the front of house management needs a little work. When we checked in, we were quoted a 1 hour, 20 minute wait time, which was fine with us; we received the text message with our place in the queue, and proceeded to wander about Langley Village and do some shopping, window and otherwise. We would occasionally wander back by the restaurant and glance in, noting a handful of un-bussed tables that say there for a good portion of that time.

Around the one hour mark, we decided to head back and sit in the lobby area, as the weather was a bit cold, wet and windy. We happened to notice one of the tables previously mentioned had been bussed, and was sitting there idle. After about 15 minutes, I remarked sarcastically to my wife that "if they seat us at that table, I'm going to be a little upset." I'm sure you can guess where we ended up.

Now, I'm no restaurant manager, host, or server, but when a table is wide open, there is no shortage of waitstaff, and customers are made to wait simply because someone doesn't know how to turn tables...if I were a manager, I would not be happy. There was literally no reason for such an extended wait, only to end up at a table that had been empty for close to 30 minutes. And to be clear, this wasn't the only open table: there were several that sat unused for extended periods of time, before, during and after our meal, all of which could have been put to effective use and bringing in income and tips more efficiently.

All told, I say this not because it irritated me (it did, but only slightly), as I am no drama queen, and I don't get my feathers ruffled very easily. That said, this sort of mismanagement can harm a restaurants reputation AND bottom line, and I've seen more than one fold because they couldn't flip tables fast enough to keep up with costs. This is absolutely an integral skill that cannot be trusted with people who don't have the capacity to be aware of the restaurant's state of capacity at all times.

Anyway, I digress. How was the meal, and the service...the actually important parts, from a customer's standpoint? Exquisite! Our server, a bearded, red-headed gentleman whose name I shamefully failed to collect, was fantastic: welcoming, efficient, helpful, encouraging, personable - everything a spectacular server should be!

The spicy Bloody Mary that I ordered ranks easily in my Top 3 of all time, and the Shakshuka (plus sausage) blew every other iteration of the dish I've had out of the water, hands down. If and when we ever come back to Langley, I will order this, without question, and without consulting the menu, along with another (or two) of those Bloody Marys. Similarly, my wife ordered the Pumpkin Pancakes, with bacon and an added side of sausage, and loved every single bite (as did our two-year old son, who shared them with her). However, the portion was so unbelievably large that, even between the two of them, almost half was left remaining, and since we had a 4 hour drive back home, there was no way they would survive, and they had to be left behind.

I guess I should also note one more slight negative, that being the time it took for our order to arrive. Our drinks came quick as a flash, but the entrées themselves were somewhere near a half hour behind them. Considering how busy the restaurant was, I guess that shouldn't be surprising, but it is something of which to be aware, since this, plus the wait times for seating, means your investment in a meal at the Braeburn is likely to be a 2 hour affair, so bear that in mind.

There is no doubt in my mind why the Braeburn is popular; even one of the local shopkeepers remarked that a lot of their business comes from people waiting for a table there, and it's easy to see why. Unfortunately, its those wait times that are the only blemish on this otherwise impeccable experience. Although if the hour+ wait times are helping to keep the other businesses in Langley Village afloat, perhaps its...

The Braeburn is one of the highest-rated brunch places on the south end of Whidbey Island, and Langley is a beautiful town. My hopes were high.

On arrival, the wait was long to get a seat: That’s not a problem. That’s what anyone should expect on a nice summertime Saturday in Langley. Onto the waitlist I went and, to their credit, the time to getting a seat was almost to the minute of their estimate.

Let’s get the food assessment out of the way too: The food was just fine (though that same chorizo you put in the Southwest Skillet should be in the Burrito, and a burrito served at the table doesn’t need to be dry. Experiment with good smotherings).

But, oh, the service. This is where the Braeburn failed.

For us, the time from sitting at our table to the time when our server greeted us was more than ten minutes—far too long. The time to coffee delivery at the table? Another fifteen. Morning brunch, and we’re waiting twenty-five minutes for coffee.

When we caught our server between his other tasks, to nudge him on getting us said coffee, he was… curt about it.

Yikes.

Time to food delivery? Nearly forty-five minutes. In this case, we can’t blame crowds on the time to make the food—the Braeburn was doing a good job at putting people onto the waitlist and pacing entry. At no point was every table filled.

Nor did they seem short-staffed, though perhaps they were missing a person in a zone I couldn’t see? Yet that can be handled with expectation management: “Hey, folks, just to let you know, we’re a little short-staffed today, so please bear with us.” Most of the time, most people’s patience will be vastly improved by this kind of communication.

The food was okay, but it wasn’t good enough to justify what amounted to a wasted hour of our time, all said and done, as we waited for our food. As a last note, I can’t believe a food-service business can survive this way: Table turnover is an important part of earning a profit, and we occupied our table forty-five minutes longer than we needed to.

Money, right out the door.

Perhaps that long waitlist wasn’t really necessary at all? I wonder how many more tables Braeburn could have served that morning, if their service...

Had dinner here a couple weeks ago and wanted to share my experience of how a negative situation turned much better due to one of their servers. We arrived on a Saturday evening and were told it would be a 45 minute wait which was fine, after about 50 minutes of waiting we checked in with the hostess Tony and was told they were waiting on a table to leave, they had already finished and were just chatting at the table, we said ok and continued to wait. After an hour and 5 minutes we checked in again and got the same response, the waiter seemed to avoid eye contact with us and never apologized for the wait taking so long. We ended up waiting an hour and 15 minutes for a table, not the original one we had been told to wait for since the group was still sitting there finished and chatting, and when Tony sat us down he didn't acknowledge the long wait we had just had and seemed pretty disinterested in us as a table, maybe because we checked in so many times but again we felt we needed to. With no update as we were waiting we would have preferred more communication as he saw us sitting there for an hour and 15 minutes after initially being told 45 minutes, so at that point we were very ready to be seated. He started as our server but after giving us water a new waitress was assigned, Shelby. Shelby immediately apologized for our long wait time and acknowledge how irritating that must have felt for us, just sympathizing with us felt really nice. She was attentive, kind and so helpful. She really turned our evening around. We overheard Shelby had been working since brunch and for her to still be so kind and helpful after working all day, honestly so amazing. It would have been nice to have had more communication about the wait time, or seen the waiters check in with the finished groups that were sitting there 30+ minutes after they had paid and were talking to move them along since we were not the only other group waiting there...