I'm Canadian, which means before moving to the US, I ate in many many Swiss Chalets. On a recent trip to Calgary, I was looking forward to my first Swiss Chalet meal in a long time. This location was the closest to my hotel, so off I went.
Service was terrible - the worst I've ever had at a Swiss Chalet. The waitress approaches and the first thing she says, even before taking my order, is a loud, rude comment about my physical appearance. Of course the family in the booth beside me literally turn at once and look at me to see what they can see.
My first thought is to get up and walk out, but my Swiss Chalet craving overtakes my anger. The waitress then proceeds to provide NO service. The food comes fast so one star for that. But her method of checking in on me while I'm eating is to quickly walk by my table while saying 'everything good?' without slowing down, stopping or waiting for a response.
At this point I've had enough. Another waitress is sitting at the table behind me, folding napkins onto cutlery. I turn around and ask her to call the manager over. She walks off, and returns a few minutes later saying the manager is busy and I'll have to wait. I wait....5 minutes....10 minutes.
Suddenly someone approaches my table. It's my waitress. She asks why I want to speak to the manager and what the problem is. Apparently cutlery girl gave her the heads up! So I tell her what she said was rude and made me uncomfortable, and that the rest of her service was lacking too. She apologizes and asks how the food was, clearly missing the point about the rude comment. Cutlery girl then appears beside her to join the action, so I once again ask for the manager. Cutlery girl again tells me the manager is busy but I can go talk to her in the takeout section.
Over to the takeout section I go. There are five other people waiting there, presumably for their meals. I stand at the takeout counter for about three minutes before I am acknowledged. It's the manager. At this point, I'm fuming. I introduce myself as the customer who wanted to talk to her 10 minutes ago. She makes a nonsensical excuse about having to wait for her husband and tells me to go ahead - in front of the crowd of customers standing all around me. I point out this may not be the best place so she motions for me to join her at the kitchen doorway.
There I relay my experience, explaining how unacceptable the comment was, and how bad the service, including having to wait 10 minutes to speak to her. More apologies and a promise to talk to the waitress later.
I leave with a bad taste in my mouth that even Chalet sauce cant disguise.