Friday 19 June 2015

The Hearth by Lynn Crawford :: Airport Lunch Before Take Off

Kale Caesar Salad

Just your standard kale Caesar salad. Nothing fancy, nothing bad. Exactly what you would expect - no outstanding flavours.

Food is decent at this establishment, but the service is terrible! 

Upon seating at 10:15am we saw everyone around us getting brunch menus. We were pretty excited for brunch and asked for the brunch menus. The waiter said, "Brunch ends at 10:30am so we don't give out the menus any more." We replied that's fine (though we thought it was albeit early for brunch to end), we'll order before 10:30am. Still refuses to give us the menus and walks off. We spend 5 minutes trying to decide what to get with the lunch menu and waited for a waiter to come get our orders (while making it very obvious we were ready). 

Table next to us gets seated at approximately 10:30am and our waiter immediately gives them brunch menus and takes their brunch order. The same waiter then walks by us without taking our order or any sort of acknowledgement despite making eye contact. Waited a few more minutes for the waiter to punch in the order and come over to our table to take order. Waiter never came. Waiter proceeds to go to the bar and starts a friendly conversation with the bartender laughing and talking loudly about their upcoming weekend plans. Feeling a little rushed due to our boarding time, my friend decides to stand up and physically walk to the bar to ask our waiter to take our order, waiter rudely comes up, rolls his eyes, and demands "What do you want now!?" We give the waiter our food order and requested for four glasses of water. Other table gets their eggs at 10:45am. We waived down the waiter at 11:00am to check on the status of our food and inquire about water. Waiter ensures that meal is coming out in 2 minutes and proceeds to bring the water. At 11:15am, the waiter comes and throws my salad in front of my friend and her sandwich in front of me on the table and walk away immediately. It does not take 35 minutes to put together a salad and a tiny BLT sandwich together, especially at an airport where people have to catch flights and expect prompt service!

Poor service is not due to the restaurant being understaffed. It was quite the opposite with 5-6 servers lazying about the half empty restaurant. One was even checking their cellphone behind the bar. None of them offered to assist or acknowledge us when we motioned to our waiter to take our order despite clearly seeing us trying to get his attention.

Bottom line: Decent food with a slightly higher price tag - not worth the terrible, rude, and slow service. When you see the sign, don't just walk - run away because you will be late for your flight (unless it's delayed).

The Hearth by Lynn Crawford
Terminal 1 - After Security (USA)
Level 2 Gates Near Gate F60
Toronto Pearson Airport
Toronto, ON


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