Courtyard Restaurant.

Hot off the presses.

I was recently at the Courtyard Restaurant for a wedding reception and was not impressed.

The supposed start time of the meal was an hour late through no fault of anyone, since everone
at the event was sipping cocktails for AN HOUR AND A HALF. Now I am no prude, but thats a
bit much.
The room hold 60 comfortably and the place was crammed with 90---it looked like a diner on Canada day. To top it all off, the staff seemed surly and finally when the food arrived most plates were STONE COLD. Even the desserts were cut into sizes so varied that people at my table complained to the server that they were being ripped off. Yikes.

Can I say something nice. Well, the structure is beautiful, but thats thanks to some masons 100
years ago.

FEEDBACK

Don`t you just love the net. Within a couple of days of this post I entered into a discussion with the Manager of the Courtyard. You can see her posts in the comments section. Here are her some of her comments.



Thanks again for letting me know about your experience, and which wedding it was. We are aware of a problem with cold food, we have recently renovated our kitchen, and we realized that we need more heat lamps than what we put in. They are on order, and for now we are trying our best to heat the plates extra hot, as well as the food, etc. It is very unfortunate that some of the food was cold at the wedding, I am extremely sorry about this. We are doing our best to fix this as quickly as possible. As for the timeline, in the planning that we did with the Bride and Groom they wanted to sit down for dinner around 6:15, with a speech from them after that, and then the service beginning after that. So 7:00 / 7:15 sounds about right for the first course to be put on the table, considering it takes about 15 minutes to take the orders and process them in the kitchen. The timing of events is usually set by the couple. And as for the amount of guests, again, we tell our clients how many the room can hold comfortably. If the wedding couple decides to max out the space due to the number of guests they would like to invite, we do our best to accomodate them. Often with weddings it is more important for the couple to have the friends and family that they want to have at the wedding there, and have it be a bit tight, rather than not invite people they want to have at their special day. Perhaps as a Wedding Planner this is something you will address with your clients when you work with them! Wedding Planners certainly do help couples to set better timelines, and to judge the correct venue for their wedding in terms of size. Anyway, thank you once again for your feedback. I would ask that you please post my comment on your blog. Considering that your review of our restaurant could be damaging and harmful to our reputation, I believe it is only fair on your part to post my reply. I think it is great that you will be posting about your experiences, good or bad, and I have no problem with that. In fact, a dialogue is healthy, and ultimately beneficial to us as a restaurant as we grow and learn from comments!

Here are my comments back.

What can we learn from this. First, that the Courtyard was upfront and did not try to duck the issue. Second, that they are professionals who will fix it. Finally, that venues are often put in a tight spot by couples who have not carefully preplanned the size of their guest list and book a hall that is too close to the max. Cheers to the Courtyard, and thanks for your feedback.