On Saturday, July 24th, my family went to The Brickhouse Kitchen and Bar in Charlottetown just before 5:00 p.m. for an early dinner. There were 5 of us, 4 adults and a baby. While the family waited outside, I entered to enquire if there was...room to set up our granddaughter’s stroller during dinner. I was told by the young man working there that there wasn’t space available for a stroller so I asked if a high chair was available and I was told that there was. I went outside to tell the rest of the party to come in, but when we came inside together, we were told by the young man working at the door, the host, we presume, “You know what? I don’t think that we can make it work.” The restaurant was almost empty at the time, with one table occupied on the bottom floor and, it appeared that only one was occupied on the upper level. When we brought this to his attention, he said that they had a number of reservations coming in, starting at 6:00 (over an hour from the current time). Another young man, a server, we believe, said to the young man at the front, “What about table 40 (I think)?”. The host said no. My daughter asked how long a wait for a table would be and was told that he couldn’t give us a wait time because people with reservations would start to arrive at 6:00. We were not even told that we could have a table but we would have to leave by a certain time. We obviously left, very discouraged by the treatment received as it felt as if, until the family appeared at the door, we were welcome. We left the restaurant and while only a few minutes away, I called the restaurant and the phone was answered by a young lady. I asked if there were any tables available immediately for 5 people. She confirmed that yes, we could come in. We didn’t come in, of course, as we weren’t welcome, but I would have liked to have heard the young man’s excuse when we showed up at the door.
The man at the door (no name tag but was young with dark, longish hair) is not the person who should be employed in that position unless you are comfortable having potential patrons judged at the door.
As it turns out, we did give the Murphy Hospitality Group our business while on PEI that weekend. We ate at The Gahan House on the 23rd and ended up at The Merchantman after we weren’t welcomed into The Brickhouse on Saturday night. Our food and service at the other establishments were great and, until now, we have always felt that if we chose a restaurant in the Murphy Group, we could be confident that we would have a good experience. Because of one employee at one of your restaurants, our overall impression has changed.More
