Vanders Keep — Restaurant in Pleasant Grove

I had such high hopes for Vanders Keep. The menu looked good, the pictures looked good, and the reviews online were positive, though some of the items were very expensive. Being that it was a themed location the atmosphere was quite nice based on what they were going for, and the hostess was informative and quick, we were seated 5 minutes after our reservation time of 7:45.

Unfortunately, the positive experience ended there...

The appetizers we ordered took over an hour to get to the table, we didn't get any food at our table until 9:05, most of the appetizers were good, I personally enjoyed the fry bread, the poutine was average.

Our party ordered multiple different entrees, and we had such a large number of people that we were split between two tables. Multiple people ordered food that came with mashed potatoes, but they had ran out and didn't inform us until our food arrived. Rather than providing us options to change for one of the other sides, we were all given their wild rice.

My steak was ordered at a medium rare, and it came out well done and cold, the herb butter they brought out didn't even melt on the steak, I asked if they could reheat it, which they did. Multiple other people experienced food temperature issues, including the duck, the shrimp, the chicken, and other steaks.

Pros -

Atmosphere was nice, though the lighting was overly dark.

The bread pudding was good. The appetizers were good. Food looked good though was completely under seasoned (especially the rice)

The hostess was prompt and efficient.

Cons - Extremely expensive steaks (don't order the porterhouse).

Temperature issues for multiple plates.

2.25 hours to get and eat food, most of us got to go boxes at that point.

They were out of multiple things that were ordered.

We sent back a plate of venison as it wasn't cooked, and THEY FORGOT TO BRING IT BACK OUT. We didn't get the venison again until we waved down our waitress 30 minutes later and asked if they were bringing the food out.

The waitress wasn't proactive or aware of our food related issues like the potatoes being swapped out until after we told her, at which point she volunteered the information that they were out of potatoes. (Really poorly handled)

Final notes - I will not be returning to this location again, it was quite possibly the worst dining experience I had in the past three years. I asked to speak to the manager as I hadn't been able to, and he chose not to come out and talk to our table. I got his name from our waitress, his name is Jeremy.

Jeremy, I can't believe that after a dinner party paying close to $600 for their meal asked to speak to the manager, you chose not to come out. We were told you are new and have been there for about three weeks. It is unheard of that a manager won't come out and speak to a table who has had issues, especially since you took the venison from the other table as our party was split and didn't follow up to make sure it got back to the table you took it from, leaving our poor waitress to be completely embarrassed after such an awful experience.

I hope Vanders Keep looks at this review and takes it as an opportunity to improve and grow, and I wish them the best with their future dining experiences moving forward, which I won't...

Hands down the worst dinning experience I have ever had. We had reservations at 6:15 July 2nd and were promptly seated. We had such high hopes for this place but our experience quickly went down hill after sitting at our table. Our server (Jeremy) came up and started taking our drink orders and forgot to bring our 2 year old her drink.. twice.. which caused its own set of problems.. but fine whatever mistakes happen... Then we ordered our appetizers and it took a good 25 mins or so before they came out and he took our food orders. By then all of our drinks were in desperate need of refills. Then it just went from bad to worse... Our waiter took our orders and messed them up twice.. having to come back and double check who ordered what each time and us correcting him. After re establishing our orders we felt pretty confident but were sadly mistaken. After another 30 mins of waiting someone came up and said that our table actually wasn't assigned a waiter?? Then who the heck have we been talking to all this time?? We asked about our food and were told it would just be a little bit longer.. after another 30 mins we finally got our food at about 7:30pm and the order was completely wrong and awful. My venison was cold, my parents salmon was lukewarm at best and tasted like it had sat out for awhile, My sisters steak was supposed to be medium rare but came out very well done and then (the best of all) my wife's steak salad, that was supposed to have asparagus, goat cheese and stuff on it came out completely awful and lacking the aforementioned ingredients (just a mix of lettuce)! Her steak, that was supposed to be medium, came out as a black, inedible brick of charred meat. She took one bite and was unable to eat it and Some how we also ended up with two kids mac and cheeses as well? I think the only order that was actually decent was my Mom's sweet potato salad..

Quick recap: an hour and a half to get our food that was just wrong..no other way to explain it. No waiter assigned to us yet someone named Jeremy taking and messing up our orders.. and barley and drink refills along the way.

Feeling bad the manager came and tried to make amends but when we got our bill it was completely wrong as well as we were charged for some how splitting my wife's salad and other mistakes??. Frustrated and just wanting to get out of the place we quickly payed our tab and left.

Overall it was the worst dinning experience I have ever had. Everything was either cold or burnt (or both) and had to be choked down so that we could ho enjoy the park and avoid eating the concessions which, in hindsight may have been a better option compared to this "fine dining"

some of the other reviews mentioned similar staffing problems and I am wondering if they are just struggling to find quality people that match their higher prices and "fine...

We visited Vanders Keep on Valentine's evening and it was fairly busy but we had a reservation and were seated pretty quickly

The furniture is a bit of a mix of different tables and chairs and booths. We had a table but I would recommend a booth if possible, they seem much more comfortable and a bit more private

The service was not awesome but also not bad, maybe a bit over worked and not able to respond quickly, we had to wait almost 10 minutes to order even though the menu was pretty limited for Valentine's day. I think they anticipated a large crowd so they took some things off the menu.

We had salmon, which was very nice but the fish was pretty small and slightly over cooked. Also a salad with chicken added. The chicken was also small and a bit dry. 8 suspect the fish and chicken might have been cooked, frozen and then recooked/finished.

We also had poutine (fries, gravy, cheese and mushrooms). Unfortunately it was mostly undercooked fries, a few cheese chunks and a LOT of what I think was bottled gravy with a few tiny mushroom slices in it. It certainly tasted ok, not bad, but not what I expected from the price and the expectations the restaurant projects.

Dessert was an apple crumble with ice cream, lots of vanilla ice cream and a little apple pie filling and very little crumble. It comes in a huge bowl but the crumble is too small and too hot and the ice cream is too much so you end up with melted ice cream soup with a bit of apple mush underneath.

It's tasty, but not... Right. If you've had a good apple crumble with ice cream, you know how good it can be. This was a kind of half way approximation. Certainly not bad but it could have been so much better.

The interior of the restaurant is interesting, well designed and vaguely fun but not reaching it's potential. It's like they had plans when making it but didn't quite finish. Much like Evermore, it's getting there but not really done. The staff is just dressed in normal black staff outfits like any restaurant, so they feel out of place in what seems to be a themed restaurant, it's odd.

So ultimately I would say Vanders Keep is decent, but not what you're expecting for the price and not reaching their advertised experience. We'll probably go back again in 6 months to a year and see if things have changed.

I hope they add a bit more character to the interior, the staff/service and I hope they improve the food a bit with more fresh cooked to order items and/or higher quality...