When Old Faithful Let’s You Down

For over nine-years, we've considered the Pickle BarrelRestaurant at Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue in Toronto, ‘Old Faithful.’

That’s what we call our favourite place to go, when we just can’t think of anywhere else we’d like to be for a night on the town. Old Faithful. It’s our regular family restaurant visit to celebrate the start of the weekend.

Actually, I've been going to the Pickle Barrel long before they had more than one location, as I grew up going to this great Jewish deli with my family when I was a kid.

It was – and for many still is – the place to go after Saturday services for lunch for many Jewish families in Toronto.

My girlfriend and I have been going to the Pickle Barrel for as long as we've been dating – over nine years, be it weekly or sometimes more or slightly less. Whenever we can’t think of any place else to go for a night out, we always fall back on what we call ‘old faithful’ – the Pickle Barrel.

We've come to know many of the staff by name at the Yonge/Eglinton location in mid-town Toronto, and we always get exceptional food and service there.

Our favourite waiter – Peter up at the Yonge/Eglinton location always says hi, and chats us up a bit, even if we’re not able to get seated in his section.

We've always enjoyed the wonderful service and great feel-good comfort foods of the Pickle Barrel.

Which is why we were shocked and dismayed when we didn't receive the same calibre of food or service at the downtown Toronto location in the Atrium across from the Eaton Centre.

Our waiter – Bob—seemed friendly and upbeat at first, giving us plenty of time to figure out what we want. Even though we probably know the menu by memory (after almost a decade we should!) we still take a bit of time to decide on what we want.

We always share an appetizer, and one of our old favourites happens to be the warm pumpernickel bread which has been served since I was a kid. I love the onions baked in the top, and it comes as a mini-loaf, and is always served warm with butter.

Or at least that’s how we've always had it – this past Friday night when it came to our table it was cold, stale, and hard as a brick.

When the waiter came by to check on us, I told him the bread was stale and asked if he could get us another one.

He told us he could, but because they freeze them, it would be exactly the same. He said he could heat it up for us – in the microwave.

Now, I’m not a professional chef, but I know stale bread when I see it. I also know that if you heat up bread in a microwave, it just becomes soggy – not very good at all.

And certainly not up to what we've ever witnessed in our nine-plus-years of enjoyment of the Pickle Barrel over the years. We've had the occasional bump along the way, but it has always been corrected right away, and without any question.

However, Bob, our waiter – didn't appear to think anything was wrong with serving cold stale bread to customers.

Bob, not knowing we’re regular customers, did say that the bread would be on the house.

The bread is always on the house! This appetizer isn't one we've ever been charged for in all the years we've been visiting this Toronto restaurant chain.

It’s one of those appetizers not on the menu, that I suppose original customers always ask for, so they have kept it available.

We occasionally do get some of the other appetizers which you have to pay for – the Asian Nachos with little bits of chicken, veggies and a sweet teriyaki sauce and cheese is one of our favourites.

Perhaps Bob was trying to up sell us to another appetizer, because he wanted a bigger tip?

Or maybe the restaurant just didn't have much of the pumpernickel bread left. Or maybe Bob was just lazy?

Who knows – regardless of the reason – serving stale cold bread in any restaurant is wrong. Mistakes happen, and occasionally something stale may get served. But in that instance, the staff should admit the mistake, and correct it right away.

They shouldn't tell the customer that’s just the way it is –deal with it – which essentially was Bob’s answer.

As Bob wasn't willing to do anything and I didn't want to make a big deal over bread, we let it go. That loaf of uneaten, stale cold bread just sat between my girlfriend and myself, glaring up at us throughout the remainder of our meal.

Our meal also wasn't up to the usual Pickle Barrel standards we've come to expect in our nine-years of being regular customers.

My girlfriend’s eggs Benedict was luke-warm when it arrived – not hot as it should be. My Hot BBQ Beef sandwich, which is supposed to be smothered with gravy had gravy on the side. The dill pickle which accompanies my meal looked like it was barely a baby dill – not the usual big deli one we get up at the Yonge/Eglinton location. And the bowl of coleslaw on the side of my order was barely half full – in fact it looked like it was left over from someone else’s meal.

Typically when we eat at the Pickle Barrel at Yonge/Eglinton we’re there on average about three-hours for dinner, racking up a bill over of $170 for just the two of us. We see other couples and families come and go around us. We just keep ordering drinks as we enjoy a long lazy dinner. We always get desert, no matter how full we feel, because it’s tradition.

Last Friday, it was as if we couldn't get out of that place fast enough. We only got iced teas, wolfed down our dinners, and skipping our tradition of desert. We paid our bill and were out of the restaurant in a record-breaking 45-minutes or less.

My girlfriend was very upset – after nine-years of wonderful dining experiences, old faithful had let us down. She kept telling me how she couldn't believe what just happened, and worried about going to our usual location ever again, for fear of it happening again.

I was also appalled at the whole situation, and wondered if this was the end of an almost decade long relationship with Old Faithful?