Swiss Chalet

We dined at this Swiss Chalet on New Year Eve. I was surprised that it was opened, even more so for how busy it was. I ordered a rib and wings combo. The ribs were tender and meaty. The spicy wings put many pubs to shame. What really pushed the rating to 4 stars was the enthusiastic, effective, efficient and friendly services. A waitress wore a warm smile working the evening shift at Swiss Chalet on NYE? THAT is a 4-​star attitude.

Really want to compliment how much I appreciate this location, not only is it close to where I live, but most importantly, I think the management at this restaurant is done pretty well. It really takes care of the experience of customers. I personally really like the homey atmosphere of Swiss Chalet restaurants, this location of course has that… on top of when there are special days, this location does a bit of extra to make the customer experience even better. For example, I remember last year on Mother’s Day, they make sure to give a stem of rose to the mother at the table after their meal. That is a nice touch to end the meal off in my opinion. Also, recently I went and they decorated their main lobby with lots of beautiful Christmas decorations. I would not be surprised if it was just a tree and a few things hanging, but they did more than that and it makes me feel so warm and happy walking into such a festive lobby. The servers at the restaurant are also very nice and polite. And when there was the $ 14.99 promotion for 2 quarter-​leg dinners, I’ve been to another Swiss Chalet location where they prohibited me from ordering dark meat (not because they ran out of it, but they simply did not allow to order dark meat) whereas this location did not have such restrictions. I really hope the manager of the restaurant would see this review and know that someone really appreciates the management here. Please keep it up!

This is a hybrid swiss chalet Harvey’s which means you can get chicken with awesome onion rings. Oh yeah!
I’ve never eaten in, I ve always taken out or did the drive thru. Oh I forgot to mention the drive thru. Don’t go if there’s already someone there. You can get stuck behind someone who is ordering something from the chalet Swiss that takes a while to cook. Just go in, they have a bench for you to sit on.
There’s a large –ish parking lot surrounding the building. It can be busy because there’s a Starbucks and some banks. But don’t fear, its part if a giant smart centre type place so tonnes of parking. I think there’s a bus on Major Mackenzie but I feel its probably best to drive
Why I like this location you may ask? Why it’s because they have never messed up my order. I have always gotten everything I have paid for and its been warm, fresh made, and tasty. I’ve been to others that were pretty lax on their Swiss chalet standards. Not these guys. Nice!
Maybe I’ll sit next to you on the takeout bench one day!

HOW TO LOSE A CUSTOMER THE SWISS CHALET WAY
— have customer place an order for delivery and have them 1 hr. 10 min. for order
— have order arrive with food squished, sauces spilled, food dried out and inedible
— have customer call to complain, have order replaced with customer waiting an additional hour for food to arrive
— have customer service rep tell customer she will speak to store about credit due to inconvenience and have rep promise to call back customer
— have customer service rep not actually call customer back as promised and do nothing about bad service and even wource food.

The introduction of Rotisserie Beef Brisket to the menu was both a surprise and a departure from their usual chicken or ribs offering. I had to try it, so I ordered the 7 oz and subbed the potato out for a salad.
The beef was pretty good, a lot like eating a beef dip sandwich without he bun. Veggies on the plate were the usual, a bit soggy and flavour challenged.
For $ 15 it’s a bit pricey, but a good alternate if you don’t want chicken.

I don’t frequent Swiss Chalet that often but just could not resist the $ 14.99 Dinner for 2 Special.
Food was quite standard, at least it did not go downhill over the years. Green Side Salad was quite fresh but if you are a big eater, you can probably ate the dinner for 2 all by yourself.
Service was though friendly and attentive even our bill was not too big.
And it is right next to Harvey’s. One can pick up a burger if still hungry.

Impressed with the menu and what they serve. Compared to the menu of old, the new one is in its own league. However, Swiss Chalet is no longer a «cheap» place to eat these days. The double leg dinner use to be $ 9, then $ 10. I stopped going and came back to find $ 12. I can easily buy a Costco, Food Basic or Fresh Co rotisserie chicken for $ 7.49, and that’s a WHOLE chicken. I do understand the need to increase price due to inflation and operations maintenance, but they could also try other tactics to lower price and get more people to come. There are always alternative ways to work around just raising prices.
Onto the actual experience, I’d say I had a pretty good time here. Hostess was very nice and polite, so it was a good start. I ordered the double leg ($ 12) and fiancé had the rotisserie chicken in kaiser ($ 10) — DON’T YOU EVER ORDER THE KAISER. She made the worst decision ever. It was literally chicken and bun. There were no condiments or sauce to go with it or even mixed inside. How can you serve something like that? It’s like ordering a big Mac and you don’t get the Mac sauce! Will not order that again. What else can I say? Overall experience was a decent one — I will go back. Someday.

Wasn’t too hungry because I had a large breakfast, but the service was there. I just had a bowl of soup. Which at 4 bucks is a pretty good deal for a bowl of soup at a restaurant. Get free water and a nice bowl of soup for 4 bucks isn’t bad.
My friends got the pot pie and the quarter chicken deals. Overall, the food is standard chalet food. the service was good. No problems.
If you are still hungry, then drop over to Harveys and get a burger.
The only thing I wish is that you could order a burger from Harveys while eating at swiss chalet so you have options. Who wouldn’t want a chalet chicken with a Harveys burger?
Well, maybe they will change this eventually.

I’ve found that most Swiss Chalets have been very consistent, so when it comes to Unilocaling (is that a verb yet?) the franchise it’s really more about the service.
That being said, the service of this location is great. The servers are attentive: knew when we’d want to order, came around to refill our glasses often, and cleaned off the table without us feeling rushed. The restaurant is clean, and the food came out hot and quick. Kudos to the ladies serving today, they made it a very good experience.
The food itself was consistent (which is why I like Swiss Chalet, no surprises, you know what you’re going to get). We ordered the chicken spring rolls as an appetizer, they came out crispy and light (not greasy at all, hard to find). I would recommend it.
For the mains, we ordered the quarter chicken dinner (dark meat) and the chicken pot pie. The quarter chicken was moist and well seasoned, it comes with Chalet sauce a delicious added bonus. The pot pie was consistent as well, the only constructive criticism is the top. It seems to vary from location to location, some places have a puff pastry, this place had a cracker like consistency that kind of just slid right off the pie. It’s a preference thing I guess.
When normal people are full, they stop eating. Not us, we finished our meal off with a pecan pie. We got a generous slice with powdered sugar and a drizzle of caramel. Delicious.
I would highly recommend this location. Good food and great service.

Been going to this location for the passed five-​plus years and it’s a fantastic place to go for a meal.
It’s never jam packed so it’s unlikely you’ll be ever waiting at the door for a seat and you’ll usually be able to get a parking spot pretty easily. The inside’s very clean and it looks like just about any other Swiss Chalet.
The food itself is VERY consistently good. I’ve gone fairly frequently and got the same, good quality food each time (no, not super high end, but I’m okay with that). I usually like getting the quarter-​chicken, white meat with fries or a poutine. The fries on their own aren’t fantastic but having the gravy or Swiss Chalet sauce makes it a lot better anyway. Their appetizers are really quite good too — Garlic Cheese Bread, Wings, Soup — though many of them are a little on the pricey side. They used to have an appetizer called Dry Ribs but they seem to be gone from the menu, which is a shame because they were really good too. During the winter only, they also have Chicken Chowder Soup (it’s basically a creamy soup with potato and chicken in it), and I highly recommend giving this a try — I always get it if they have it.
The staff are fantastic. Most nights, the manager will make sure you are enjoying your meal and the waiter/​waitress always do a good job to make sure you’re satisfied with everything. Since I’ve been going here so often, I can usually tell if someone’s new and they are always amazing — so this place must train them fairly well. If the wait’s a little longer than usual, they let you know and if they bring you something wrong or off, they’re happy to change it right away (I tend to get fries rather than a poutine — easy fix). They always bring you warm lemon water to put your hands in just before you’re done your meal so that’s always nice too.
All in all, Swiss Chalet’s a fantastic place to go for lunch or dinner. Low wait times for food, fantastic staff, good and consistent food quality and a pretty calm environment is their recipe for success!

Our go-​to place for a quiet, simple date night. Though admittedly we mostly come here when the coupons come in the mail.
Put simply, withOUT the coupons, the general quality at most Swiss Chalets is a bit lacking. Chicken can be a bit dry, portions are a tad small, and the prices, while not expensive, aren’t exactly cheap when you compare to Chinese establishments.
So when a coupon for an appetizer, two quarter chicken dinners, and a pie came in the mail for $ 19.99, we came straight to this location, the closest one to my parent’s house. The place as usual is simple, a bit dated, but wide open and a bit busy on a Saturday night. Nothing too crazy though.
We’ve kind of figured out a way around getting dry chicken: ask for FRESH chicken to the server. Our chickens were wonderfully tender, moist, and JUST cooked right. Coupled with the Chalet sauce and (a new discovery) seasoned rice pilaf, it was pretty damn satisfying! For the appetizer, we had the perogies (which we would recommend) and for the dessert, we added a few extra bucks for the chocolate caramel donuts. This one is to die for. Basically it’s like a pizza pocket, but small and with chocolate cream inside. Dusted with sugar and served with caramel dip, it’s so addictive Rob Ford would have a problem with it.
The service was also attentive and polite (as it always is here in this location). I’d give it 4 stars but for the fact that, at full price, it’s a tad expensive. It’ll always be our fave place if we want some low-​key dinner, but mostly when we get those few extra dollars off. Don’t knock Swiss Chalet. It’s surprisingly decent if you give it half a chance.

I have since ordered pasta from Swiss Chalet. This is normally a no-​no for me. It’s like ordering steak at a wing place. You just don’t do it. BUT! The chicken penne pesto pasta has become my absolute favourite. It makes the standard quarter chicken dinner look and taste bland.

I generally like to eat at Swiss Chalet when I travel to Toronto on business. I have experienced the gambit of great to poor service at locations. This one was on the great service end. Salad was just OK but the tomatoes were not quite edible. Rotisserie chicken was good as usual as was the baked potato. Unfortunately there was a party of 10 adults with 10 unsupervised kids behind me that were really loud. It kind of spoiled the experience. I was the only quiet and non-​asian person there.

Lemon merengue pie was grainy, soggy and half frozen. This is the second time we’ve experienced issues with the desserts here. Last month we ordered the apple pie and had to send it back as there was a big chunk of hard gelatine in it. Manager was great with us as even though we didn’t make a big deal about it, she gave us 2 free dinners for next time which we are here for tonight. Chicken a hit, dessert a big miss for freshness.

While in the GTA visiting family, my Mom and I were out shopping and we decided to stop at Swiss Chalet for lunch.
When we arrived, one of the servers seated us pretty much in the North Pole section of the dining room where no one else was, so my Mom asked to be seated by the window. She pretty much hands me the menus and said, «Sure, go ahead» and walks away. All I’m going to say is I’m glad she wasn’t our server!
Looking through the menu, they had a unique menu offering than what I’ve experienced back home in California. If you’re familiar with the resto, «Boston Market» it’s pretty much a sit down version of it. My Mom and I both ordered their Quarter Chicken Dinner, which wasn’t a bad deal for just under $ 9.00 each. The chicken was good, typical rotisserie style and flavorings. Other than that, it was just a basic, no frills meal.
Our server was a little scattered all over the place going from one table to another so it was hard to get her attention. What pissed me off was that while our server was struggling, I had a bird’s eye view that first server who tried to seat us and she was yapping it away with whom I’m guessing was the manager, just about the entire time we were there. Enjoy the yapping and the lack of tipping, lady!
On our way out, we ordered my Dad a Cheeseburger to go. When we brought it to him, he said he enjoyed it very much. Hmm, well it did smell quite good in the car ride back!
Overall, Swiss Chalet seems like a nice spot for a standard, inexpensive meal.