Crave

Had a ‘light dinner’ special. Spetzel (sp?) was tasteless. Turkey club was ok. Sweet potato fries were pretty good.

It’s not just a buffet, regrettably.
We had a coupon and went there midweek at 5pm; I anticipated that would be a time when it wouldn’t be busy and I was correct, but that didn’t help at all.
The décor is pretty standard «Sheraton chic»; verging on tacky, but just managing to avoid it.
The apps came promptly and were the very best part of the meal; my charcuterie board was actually very nice. Too bad the platter it came on was bigger than our table, literally. It looked like a visual, food-​based representation of canada… a lot of land, and not many people. My wife had to rest her shrimp on it.
25 minutes [yes, 25 minutes] after the waiter removed our appetizers my wife got tired of waiting for the mains and went to find the washroom. I’m guessing the [new] waiter was hiding around the corner in anticipation, because the second she disappeared our steaks arrived. Turns out the washrooms are for the entire hotel and you need to change buses to get to them. By the time she got back about ten minutes later, our food was stone cold [although it had only been lukewarm when it arrived], but we dreaded the thought of asking for new plates and waiting for who knows how long. So we had cold steak and instant mashed potatoes you could use to apply wallpaper.
45 minutes [yes, 45 minutes] after they removed our mains, the desserts arrived. Typical Sysco stuff, not surprisingly.
There was one source of entertainment that was ongoing during this excruciating experience, however. We amused ourselves by watching a solitary guest send his meal back three times. He was livid! Ironically, he arrived after us and still made it out before we did.
The problem with the service appeared to be that our waiter had two other people «helping» him. They were all equipped with remote mics but I don’t think they spoke the same language; the lack of communication was astonishing.
At the end, we got the bill three times from three different people, and guess what? Each and every bill was exactly the same as the other ones, and none of them took the coupon into account.
The two «helpers» were astonished to hear that we had a coupon, since the first waiter had taken it away at the start of the meal and they both asked us to produce it… that’s when I almost lost it, but my wife restrained me. I guess they thought we were lying? Our original waiter then arrived with the third bill, informing us that we paid full price now and the discount would be taken off the final bill when we checked out of the hotel. When we politely pointed out we weren’t staying at the hotel, he didn’t know what to do.
After more than two and a half hours in «The Twilight Zone», it took us a few minutes to get accustomed to the natural light out in the parking lot.
Quite possibly the worst experience I have ever had at a restaurant, and that’s saying a lot.