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| - After eating and bowling at Ballroom several times before, my recent visit was one of the worst experiences I have ever had at a restaurant.
I went with some friends after a Blue Jays game (go Jays go!) and should have taken note when most restaurants were packed with fans, but Ballroom was almost empty.
We were met with mediocre service from the hostess, who was giving out discount coupons for eating there post-game (again, should have taken all the cards on the ground as a bad sign).
We sat on the patio upstairs. Our server, who was pleasant at first, took our drink orders first. The patio had about 20 people on it, but the indoor dining area was nearly empty (maybe 6 people).
It took about 15 minutes for water and drinks to arrive. Fine, we were chatting anyways. The waitress dropped off the drinks and sped off instead of taking the stacked menus as a sign we were ready to order.
We waited and chatted... 10 minutes... 20... We asked a waiter if he could grab our waitress, or take our order himself. "Sure, I'll go grab her."... 15 more minutes pass with no sign of her.
It started to rain heavily so we all moved inside. Again, not a ton of people indoors and many staff. We sat and patiently waited for service while other patrons had to go up to the bar to ask for refills of water. If it weren't pouring rain outside we would've paid and left long ago!
I finally spotted our waitress and walked over to her to tell her we'd been waiting over 40 minutes to order food. She was somewhat apologetic. She took our order of food and drinks.
The food came- i wish it made up for our wait, but it didn't. I ordered the chicken wrap which I would describe as more of a Caesar sauce wrap, lacking chicken, and which came with chilly, limp fries. At this point we wanted to get out of there, so after she forgot two of our drink orders and cleared our plates, we asked for the bill.
I've been to Ballroom for bowling, friend's birthdays and to eat when they used to have a great, peppery mac and cheese. I don't know what's happened over the past year, but after our experience I won't be returning or recommending the restaurant to any of my friends. If anything I'll dissuade them from visiting unless they want somewhere dry to sit during a thunderstorm!
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