Wonders of Wine and Food

The Tip Outrageous

On a not so pleasant summer evening, this July my wife and I and five of our closest friends were taking in a Theatre Under the Stars performance, an annual outing for us. To start the evening off we gathered at Stanley's Park and Grill restaurant located next to the theatre in Vancouver's famous Stanley Park.

Parking was pricey at $13.65 with a 5-minute walk that leads to the rear of the restaurant.  Following the signs we went up to the back entrance onto the patio, there was a reception desk but no one in attendance. We were forced to dodge waiters and make our way to the front of the building to the outside deck where we did find a hostess.

While the rest of the group were being seated I made use of the washroom facility, there was only one, which was surprising with the size of the restaurant, what a mess it was! It beats me how a place that serves food can get away with such a dirty washroom.

Once seated, it was a few minutes before the waiter arrived. He was a very nice young man but English was not his first language. He struggled to take our drink order apparently pinot grigio was not in his vocabulary. When he returned with the wines he had trouble remembering who ordered what and again had trouble identifying the wines.  I mention this only to show why the tip was outrageous.

The restaurant features a very short menu of five entres, the wine list is extremely short. The waiter again struggled with English when taking our food order. We did not have long to wait until he returned carrying three dishes, we all thought, wow that was fast! He placed my order of a sirloin burger ($22) down first, I immediately went for the french fries, turns out it was not our order at all, but because I had touched the food it became mine! There were errors on a couple of the other orders that had to be corrected but all in all, the food was great, everyone enjoyed their meal.

The waiter also blew the dessert order. Only one of us ordered dessert Placing it in front of the wrong and later asking a different member of our group if they enjoyed the dessert.

On to the finale, the arrival of the bills! There was confusion as to whose bill was who's. I received ours and noticed the suggested tip amounts, 15% 18% or 20% wow. I am a senior living on a pension wow again.

Then I noticed that 18% had been automatically added to the bill. If one of the tip suggestions was added to the 18% the tip would have come to more than the meal itself, give me a break! Makes me wonder how many customers miss the mandatory tip charge and add more.
The service did not come close to us subsidizing staff wages. We estimated that approximately 90.00 was added to the tip jar from our table alone.
In preparation of writing the blog I took a closer look at our receipt and noticed we had been charged for two speciality coffees when we only ordered one, an extra 4.00 added

In fairness to the Stanley's Grill, auto-tipping is standard practice. It may work well for the working class of but for seniors on a fixed income based on the cost of living from days gone by it's far too much! We are not against tipping for good service but it would be nice if there were a seniors rate.

The restaurant at this time as not responded to our e-mail