Colours Restaurant

This is a real terrible place. Service sucks the buffet food is bland and cold. It’s pretty sad when a meal at McDonald’s would be better than here. When I spend $ 30 plus the food should be decent. There was 10 of us in the group. The races is what brought us and the food will be why we aren’t returning

A rather decent meal with a delicious dessert and lots of tea? Combined with watching the horses (and my table mates betting on them), this makes for a pretty excellent evening. Sure the food isn’t the best thing in the universe, but we’re a captive audience if we’re at the horses and Colours Restaurant is the best option for a good meal while here. The servers were pretty helpful. Be aware that they don’t take debit, only credit cards and cash for payment.

Wow! Colours Restaurant — have you guys «turned the tables» for good?
Be Cautious: I hope this will not be just a one off experience.
This is the first time I have had decent service — I was moved to write about it! Not sure if it was because of a Friday night (I have always gone on Saturdays). Our sever Asimwe was around frequently, ensured our drinks were always full and made sure we had everything we needed. She was so pleasant to be around and even made our night better with some quick chats. The other staff were super friendly and quick to remove used plates. The buffet was good, pork ribs, prime rib (mediocre), potatoes, a spinach and cheese pasta, rice. One time they served butter chicken and it was amazing!
Previous experiences were horrible, if it were not for the races I would not go. It seemed the staff were made up of inexperienced 14 years old running the show with not a manager in sight. The bartender had no idea how to make a strawberry daiquiri. Be careful on the mixed and «pretty» cocktails. Sticking to beer may be your best option.

Never again, thank you very much. The only saving grace of the buffet was the sticky toffee pudding which was excellent. The prime rib roast was not even ½ edible and the salmon was way over cooked and cold even thought it was in a warming dish. The mixed veggies were well done, not over cooked at all so that was good. I do not expect 5 star dining to be clear but come on! The desserts, besides the sticky toffee pudding which it must be said again was YUM!, looked like they came from Costco. And our server told us that we couldn’t get a jug of beer because the kegs had been taken to the Expo Centre for Comicon which was, 1, weird, and 2, completely false! Will go with the Pizza 73 pizza next time instead of «dining» here.

Food quality is not at all good, the cutbacks are more than apparent. Food value is also quite low, six dollars for a small slice of pie? The buffet items are pretty tasteless, you can tell nothing is fresh, all pre-​cooked and re-​heated. We felt sorry for our fellow diners, several of whom openly complained about the lack of freshness to what they were served, as well as echoing our own thoughts for the buffet’s lack of freshness and variety. We use to go to the racetrack all the time but those days are long over, the place looks terrible, ‘tired’ was the word used to describe Colours Restaurant by a nearby table of four of our fellow diners, and we agreed with them.
Northlands Park and Colours are nothing more than a cash grab and there are far better places to enjoy an evening, with better quality food, value and service.
Speaking of service, which takes far longer than necessary, why are waiters and waitresses allowed to take personal phone calls and send texts while they are on the job? There seemed to be a large amount of the wait staff standing around Colours oblivious to the needs of their customers, the reason they have a job.
One star out of five. Unacceptable on all levels, We are shareholders in the Edmonton restaurant industry.

I see it has been years since a review was written so here’s my update. Colours was once a decent place for standard fare but no more. It offers a fabulous view of the race track, its only redeeming feature. I booked for July 1^st, which is a great day to go to the horse races. Our first unpleasant surprise was the sign that said you MUST purchase the buffet at $ 25 or if you don’t a $ 20 charge is still applied. I’m not a big fan of buffet as they are generally more about quantity than quality, and I’m also not a fan of being told what I will eat. Would have appreciated a head’s up — this place is still called a restaurant and did use to offer full service with a menu. Ordering from a menu is only available for members, whatever that means. Onto the buffet — at first I was relieved to see a decent spread of salads, but the hot entrées — woof! A big bloated ham, a spam-​dense frankenfood meat loaf that probably made its debut the previous day/​week, seriously undercooked scalloped potatoes… you get the idea. Inedible unless you have lost your sense of smell (and sight). The servers were sweet young women but the restaurant covers an enormous, multi-​level area with poor sight lines and since they stayed huddled around their stations, good luck getting their attention unless you go for a stroll. No management to be found — the servers needed guidance, also known as… supervision. We asked to see the manager but got a no-​show. Looks like Colours has faded to a whiter shade of pale.

Every year I like to go to Colours with some friends, get a good meal (i.e. not skimp out on desserts!) and throw 20 bucks away betting on horses. It’s really fun, provided you keep the betting to a minimum!
Okay, so comments. I think it’s totally cool that I can snag a good meal while watching the horses. It doesn’t cost anything for admission, and a program is only a couple bucks, so it’s basically free entertainment. Much better than going to a dinner theater! The atmosphere is neat; everyone gets really excited when the horses are racing and it’s easy to get caught up in it. Lots of yelling, cheering, cries of exasperation and lost money, that sort of thing.
The price for food, especially on the lunch menu, is not bad at all. The food itself has varied the few times I’ve been there, but I’ve never disliked what I’ve ordered. The entrees can be on the heavy and sometimes greasy side. They also don’t have a HUGE selection, but unless you have a specific dietary restriction I think you should be fine. I’ve only had one dessert there, and it’s honestly the reason I go. Lava cake!!! With Baileys cream sauce. I am a huge lava cake addict, and the cream sauce ranks pretty high on my super delicious desserts list.
This is a great location if you need to do something new, exciting, and inexpensive for a date or family gathering.

Just spent the afternoon at Colours with my extended family and it was so much fun! It was a winter’s day out on the track and there was a coyote who seemed to have made his home in the green space inside the track. When the horses weren’t tearing around, he ran the perimeter like he thought he might have thoroughbred potential. Didn’t do any betting, but I enjoyed watching. The menu here has been updated a bit. I had their Wonton soup for the first time. It’s about $ 12 but it’s the best bowl of soup I’ve ever had. It has real chicken breast floating in it and fresh veggies, and the pork dumpling wontons are delicious. This is enough for two people to share for an appetizer. We also had the chicken wings. They’re hot and spicy with a cooling dipping sauce. D-​lish!
Dessert was apple crisp with a mountain of vanilla ice cream. It was sweet, a bit too sweet for my palette. Not enough bite to the apples, and not nearly enough crumble! Mmmmm, crumble. … they should make a dessert that’s called simply Crumble;)
We also shared the key lime cheese cake for dessert, passing it around between all of us. It was delicious and I highly recommend it. What a fantastic way to end the weekend. This is a great family outing and Colours is classy service and a unique Edmonton experience.