English speaking travelers beware....
I had made the reservation in advance as a surprise for my husband and we drove two and a half hours to the restaurant. The drive was lovely and we truly enjoyed the scenery. When we arrived, we were greeted by the very friendly hostess. She offered us the option of either sitting inside or outside on the deck. Unfortunately, we chose to sit on the deck.
Our server arrived and I asked him (in French) if he spoke English and he replied , "Yes, I speak English and I will help you out. But you should really try to speak French. I mean you are in Quebec and we speak French." First of all, we had just arrived in Quebec and had asked him (in French by the way) if he spoke English. Secondly, I didn`t realize that going out to dinner required oneself to be fluent in the language. Third, we drove two and a half hours for the experience and not to be lectured. The menu was in French and neither one of us had asked for the menu to be translated. Furthermore, my husband and I were apologitic about our very rudimentary French. However, I do speak two languages (japanese & English).
Our server`s definition of "help" was to let us sit for another 15-20 minutes before coming back to take our order. It was moderately busy for a Tuesday night though. He never once asked if we had any questions and just took our order and ran off. We then sat another 20-30 minutes before our food arrived. It was delivered by another server (who was actually nice). I can understand if you are "in the weeds" and have to delegate some responsibilities but we witnessed the same server delivering food to each of the other tables in his section. This gave us the impression that he couldn`t be bothered to wait on us merely because we weren`t fluent in French.
After we were through with our meal, our server magically appeared and said, "I split the bill, that was correct, yes?". Um, no, it wasn`t. The location of the restaurant is far, far away from Quebec City and in the middle of nowhere (literally). Did he honestly think that we just met and decided to go out to dinner or assumed that we were "just friends".
My only regret is that I failed to bring this whole situation to the manager`s attention. We felf as if English-speaking tourists were not welcomed. Furthermore, we had at least expected to have a more engaging experience (you know, the one where you try to decipher the menu and then ask the server for clarification). Plus, this is a brewery and you would think that the servers would want to talk about the beer, right? I guess we were completely mistaken....... read more