Dining Out: Thanksgiving Dinner Special at Swiss Chalet

As per tradition, I went for Thanksgiving dinner at Swiss Chalet. I normally just go with my mom, but my dad asked if we wanted to have dinner altogether this year, so we went to a location that was more central. Now, I'm not sure if it was this was location-specific or Thanksgiving-specific, but it was by far the worst meal and worst experience I have ever had at a Swiss Chalet in the last 30 years.

I should've known it would be bad as soon as we walked in. I made a reservation 10 days ago, knowing that it would be incredibly busy. (For those of us who refuse to cook Thanksgiving dinner at home, Swiss Chalet is the go-to chain restaurant because they offer the closest dishes to a Thanksgiving dinner as you're gonna get.) First of all, there was no host in sight. We waited 10 minutes at the front of the restaurant until someone came around to greet us. By then, there was already a line-up of people waiting to be seated. Second of all, when we told them we had a reservation, they said they didn't have one for us, EVEN THOUGH I CONFIRMED. Fine, no big deal, they sat us at a table right away, anyway. But then we waited for nearly 15 minutes for a server to even come to our table to take our orders. 

Quarter chicken with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a roll

As usual, my mom and I went for the Thanksgiving special — a quarter chicken dinner with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, a slice of pumpkin pie for dessert, and randomly, a Lindt chocolate truffle. My dad and half-sister went for the two-can-dine quarter chicken special. Which is when we were notified that they were out of dark meat. How does a chicken restaurant RUN OUT OF DARK MEAT? Our server apologized and said we could do a half-chicken dinner instead, or we could stick to the quarter chicken dinners and they wouldn't charge us extra for white meat (which is normally $1 or $2 more). Okay, fine, what other choice did we have? We can't eat half a chicken each. So white meat it is.

But then it seemed like our section was completely forgotten about. I guess they were too busy playing catch-up with the drive-thru line, which was immense. But how do you not have enough staff working on Thanksgiving, your busiest day of the year? Every single table in our section was trying to flag down someone, anyone, to see where their food was. We waited nearly 45 minutes for our food to be served. And the table behind us, who arrived before we did, didn't even have their dinners yet. It was a complete and utter shit show.

When our food finally — FINALLY! — arrived, they forgot my cranberry sauce, my mom's salad dressing, my dad's chicken sauce, and butter for our rolls. They forgot to bring straws for our drinks even though every other table had straws. I had to get up and go to the bus boy TWICE to ask for things. Not even extra things, but things that should've been served with our meal to begin with. That poor bus boy came to our table twice after that to apologize and ask if we had everything we needed. That's when we noticed that the pierogi appetizer that came with my dad and sister's meals never arrived and was sent to the table behind us instead. They said to the server, "We didn't order these." And the server just told them, "Oh, um... it's okay, just keep them." I didn't even have the heart to tell her that it was ours. I just said to the guy behind us, "Well, at least you have something to eat now."

So we mentioned to the bus boy that our pierogi never arrived. Seems like that bus boy should be a server instead because he got shit done. The pierogi arrived within 2 minutes. Good thing, too, because it was way better than our actual dinners. First of all, there is a reason why I never order white meat chicken and that's because it's drier than the desert. I usually use about half of the chicken sauce they serve it with but let me tell you, that bowl was completely empty by the time I was done. Secondly, the stuffing was room temperature at best. To the point where it was congealing. Like, I tapped it with my fork and it bounced back. Thirdly, I never did get that cranberry sauce, which I don't usually care for, but in this case, would've totally helped with the driest white meat I've ever had. Fourth, the rolls were cold and ROCK HARD. At that point, we didn't even have the heart to send food back because we might never have gotten to eat.

Pumpkin pie

I think the only thing we didn't have anything to complain about was the pumpkin pie. Probably because they don't make it in-house. We never did get those Lindt chocolates, though. 

Anyway, happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians. I hope your dinners were better than ours.

Swiss Chalet

725 Markland St.

Markham, ON L6C 0G6

(905) 887-9650