13 Coins Vancouver — Restaurant in Vancouver

I love being the person that says "the other reviews are biased" or "the other reviews are not exactly reflective of the experience, it's just a bunch of people who are ganging together and bullying this establishment"... that is not the case here. The poor reviews, read them. They're not wrong. The poor review are extremely accurate.

I was so excited for an impressive experience and was let down in the worst of ways. The ambiance of the restaurant was seemingly warm and welcoming but it ended up being so disappointing.

After nearly 5 minutes of standing at the door waiting to be seated - we were greeted by 5 other staff who kept saying "someone will be with you soon"... Soon? Hmmm... the waitress was kind enough, the three total times she came to the table. Three.

The food COULD have been superb but it was not. First, I don't come to breakfast / brunch for a COLD meal. Not a lukewarm meal, not a room temp meal... a COLD meal. I can imagine the flavors I experienced could be delightful but alas, a refrigerator temp meal is not delightful. How does a kitchen with 5-7 staff members manage (you have to WORK at this folks) to serve a COLD meal? I've never seen so many staff fail as a whole.

How can you have a 1:1 ratio of customers : staff and yet be the slowest service in all of Vancouver? This makes zero sense. Even the less-than-nice restaurants in Vancouver have speedier service than this place. Let me be clear before the manager writes back to argue... it isn't because they're prepping your meal fresh and piping hot... that is NOT the case.

The booth seats are connected. I saw the woman sitting on the opposite side of the booth as me. She wasn't a minute bigger than me (I'm a little dude). Every moment I bounced. As she sat down, I stabbed myself in the mouth with a fork because of the unexpected movement. Poor design? Absolutely. Dangerous? YES. How did the health department approve this. This is a huge risk for a child to be harmed, hot coffee to burn, or alas, as in my case, bleeding gums.

Lastly, the restaurant was really cold. We were sitting by the window, but it felt like freezing cold air was coming up from the side of the booth. I wore my jacket and hat all through the meal. My fingers hurt while we ate it was so cold by the window... hot coffee did not help. The windows leak - we could feel an active draft the entire meal. If major details like this are being missed... what is happening behind the scenes. Makes one doubt if the food is fresh, are expiration dates being honored? Who is managing this because the manager isn't managing, I can tell you that. Ownership needs to reconsider their "management"... because they're failing.

I will not go back. There is no second chance to this. It was horrible. The manager passed our table a total of 7 times and never once asked if we wanted empty waters filled or coffees topped off. When we were 3/4 done eating our less-than-mediocre meal, they came and asked if there was anything more we needed / wanted with our meal. What? You come ask that 1-2 minutes after delivering food... not 20 minutes later. Over-priced, overrated, and they need to stop replying with "the beautiful Vancouver Waterfront"... folks, you're on a side street. There is ZERO view from this restaurant. You're on a side-street. Your view is parked cars and a new condo building across the street. You're overselling something that isn't really there. If you're going for a waterfront view, don't go here.

Ownership - take heed. The Portland / Vancouver food game is small but mighty. You're not winning at this point, which is disappointing. I now understand why you have so many empty tables on a snowy day when you're nearly the only place open for brunch. 1000s of people can safely and easily walk to your establishment for brunch... after one meal, I get why people would opt to stay home vs suffer...

Not impressed...

So when we came in we were sat down immediately and the place looks really bougie. Looks nice. I mean you know we were hungry it's our first time being there. Will give it a shot see what happens. Unfortunately what happened next was a crime. So we ordered drinks and about 10 minutes later all three of them came in. Unfortunately the drink that we needed the most was brought in after the adult drinks. And then we had to ask for it again. It was a milk for a child. With drinks at our table and after ordering our server notified us that are complimentary bread and vegetable plate would be coming. After several more minutes of waiting we got a vegetable tray. It must be only made for two people because the four of us like had to split everything. Okay now we got our drinks we order. The waitress notifies us that (because two of us got the cheeseburger) The burger comes dry. So I told her that I'd like to have the special 13 house sauce on my burger. And my daughter wanted mayonnaise and house sauce on her burger. Also we are notified that the burger comes with tomatoes and lettuce. Doesn't say anything about that on the menu so that was kind of a shock. Also the menu states that it's a half pound burger I'm sure before cooked but didn't look like even half that size. Plus it says diced onions... So they put the onions in the patty to cook with it but does that make it a half pound? Anyway after quite a way and drinks were done our waitress could have came back through and probably sold another three to four drinks. But unfortunately that didn't happen. So I got my cheeseburger I open it up and it is dry. So the waitress gave us that spiel for what? For me to ask excuse me I didn't get any sauce on this can I get it on the side. Well that took several more minutes. And then I had to put the sauce on myself. Not a big deal but I thought that was a whole purpose of me telling her how I wanted it. Okay moving on... Yeah it's a hand formed patty, but my bread was a French bread. But it was more like a French roll. So my 4" paddy didn't fit that 8" hoggie roll. My wife got a salad and a cup of onion soup. The salad came dry as well. So basically everything that we ordered was dry... We had to ask for sauces again and it just seemed like every time we asked for something that it just never came back that quick. The only thing that came back quick was our bill. The ambiance was really cool. The lobby smelt amazing, it looked really inviting and the bar chairs look like they were made for a king. It's unfortunate that this service seems like the new normal.type of stuff that happens all the time and that it's such a nice restaurant and at a new location as an up-and-coming area of our community. As a local I want to be proud of my surroundings. Unfortunately I cannot endorse this restaurant. We all know that word of mouth is the strongest...

Came here after a friend of mine in Seattle saw that a location was nearby. His exact words were, "When my mom was alive, she never passed up a chance to go to 13 Coins." So I met up with another friend that lives in the fancy waterfront apartments to grab a bite to eat and brunch after checking out the farmer's market that's up the street one Saturday.

Upon arrival, there seemed to be some confusion/tension with the hosts and some diners that had arrived before us. We overheard one of them saying that they'd seen others that had come in after them get seated before them, and had to be told that they were waiting for a table large enough for their party to become available. What was weird was how empty the restaurant felt though. One of the hosts told the person that they only had two cooks on staff at that time, which just seemed crazy for a Saturday brunch time.

We put our name and number in for a table and were told it would be about 45 minutes, so we walked to my friends nearby apartment and got the text message that our table was ready at about the 35 minute mark. We were guided upstairs to our table upon arrival. I wish that we could have sat at the bar facing the kitchen, the chairs there are super high-backed and look unbelievably comfortable. Overall the vibe of this place is very posh/chic and upscale.

The menu is gargantuan and everything looks delicious. I wasn't sure what kind of food to expect because I didn't check it out beforehand, but was pleasantly surprised to see a little bit of everything. Pricing was on par with what I'd expect for the vibe and the area.

Originally I wanted to get the chicken fried steak, but I asked if the gravy had dairy in it. The server ran to the kitchen to confirm, and came back to tell us, "In kitchen vernacular, the chef said, 'it has a butt-ton of cream in it.'" So I switched to the chicken and waffles, which were absolutely delicious.

At the end of our meal, I discovered a service charge on the bill calculated as a percentage of the pre-tax total. I know this is becoming common practice, and that some restaurants do this in place of a gratuity, however the bill clearly stated that the service charge was not a gratuity and was retained by the restaurant, and there was a line on the bill to include a gratuity. I really don't like it when restaurants do this, especially if the practice isn't somehow made clear upon entering the restaurant, as it makes it impossible for those on a budget to try to calculate their bill - just include any cost increases (be they due to supply or labor) in the cost of...