Reviews for Reader's Garden Cafe

Reviews

• Dan B. Sent on 01/03/2023
  3 out of 5 rating

  3.0
  • Quality of service
    2.0 out of 5 rating
    2.0
  • Response time
    3.0 out of 5 rating
    3.0
  • Professionalism
    3.0 out of 5 rating
    3.0
  • Value
    5.0 out of 5 rating
    5.0
  • Flexibility
    2.0 out of 5 rating
    2.0

  Really cute venue, but so many challenges for a wedding and reception.

  We booked our wedding at Reader Rock Garden, and our reception at Reader's Garden Cafe. We were really excited to book our big day at a favorite place of ours, and loved the idea of having the ceremony and reception all in one place. There were a few great things about Reader's Garden Cafe. The cocktails and the appetizers were really wonderful, and they were served out on the lawn, with nice little cocktail tables set up.
  
  However, there were many challenges with the cafe. Logistically, our wedding was on a hot day, and there is no air conditioning in the cafe, which was something we didn't think of initially. If you book the bride's room to get ready upstairs, it is even more uncomfortable up there. Right from the start, the management of the cafe was difficult to work with and inflexible in almost all aspects of our reception. This included where we could have tables and our seating chart, whether we could provide our own wine for a corkage fee, whether we could have a projector and small screen inside the building, and other small things. They offered us a corkage fee, but later increased it on us after the wine had been ordered, and were very difficult to communicate with about why this had happened. We had to really fight for them to honour the original price they had provided us, and it was not a great situation. Ultimately, one of our guests had a cardiac arrest during our cocktail hour and the cafe did not have an AED on site. This has been rectified now by the City of Calgary, but it was a very bad situation.
  
  It is too bad, because we really loved the idea of having our reception on site after our ceremony, and partnering with Reader's Garden Cafe for it. But, after the fact, we really felt like the cafe didn't have much interest in weddings, and were not eager to accommodate much of our day. A wedding is a stressful enough day without having to field so many constant, small issues leading up to it, and on the day of. I hope that others who decide to book here have a better experience than we did.

  We booked our wedding at Reader Rock Garden, and our reception at Reader's Garden Cafe. We were really excited to book our big day at a favorite place of ours, and loved the idea of having the ceremony and reception all in one place. There were a few great things about Reader's Garden Cafe. The cocktails and the appetizers were really wonderful, and they were served out on the lawn, with nice little cocktail tables set up.
  
  However, there were many challenges with the cafe. Logistically, our wedding was on a hot day, and there is no air conditioning in the cafe, which was something we didn't think of initially. If you book the bride's room to get ready upstairs, it is even more uncomfortable up there. Right from the start, the management of the cafe was difficult to work with and inflexible in almost all aspects of our reception. This included where we could have tables and our seating chart, whether we could provide our own wine for a corkage fee, whether we could have a projector and small screen inside the building, and other small things. They offered us a corkage fee, but later increased it on us after the wine had been ordered, and were very difficult to communicate with about why this had happened. We had to really fight for them to honour the original price they had provided us, and it was not a great situation. Ultimately, one of our guests had a cardiac arrest during our cocktail hour and the cafe did not have an AED on site. This has been rectified now by the City of Calgary, but it was a very bad situation.
  
  It is too bad, because we really loved the idea of having our reception on site after our ceremony, and partnering with Reader's Garden Cafe for it. But, after the fact, we really felt like the cafe didn't have much interest in weddings, and were not eager to accommodate much of our day. A wedding is a stressful enough day without having to field so many constant, small issues leading up to it, and on the day of. I hope that others who decide to book here have a better experience than we did.

  Reader's Garden Cafe's reply:

  Thank you for taking the time to write a review.
  
  You are right that your wedding day happened to be an extremely hot day and yes, Reader’s is a historic building without air conditioning. I assumed, you are aware of that and didn’t indicate that beforehand. However most days, our ceiling vents and open windows allow a reasonable indoor temperature.
  
  In addition, after increasing your guest numbers from originally about 20 ppl to 30-40 and finally to our maximum capacity of 52 guests was creating an additional challenge for both, room climate and space. I certainly made you aware, that utilizing our maximum seating capacity doesn’t let us with many options regarding table layout or additional equipment like screen and projector or seating chart.
  
  As already mentioned, it was a really hot day and I felt very sorry for what happened on the lawn with one of your guests (cardiac arrest). I would have wished to have an AED available, but I don’t think it is fair to blame it on us. It would be desirable to have more AEDs in public spaces, but you probably won’t find many restaurants having those devices available. I want to thank the City, that they immediately reacted to this unfortunate incident and installed an AED in our building.
  
  In one of our meetings I mentioned, that I try to avoid corkage fee, as our bottled wine is very popular with our guests over years and pricing is reasonable. When you still wanted to go with your personal wine, I made a mistake by mentioning a wrong corkage fee and asked you at our next meeting, if you would mind, if I correct this mistake in my summary (no price increase, just a correction). However, when you insisted on my original quote, I agreed, without long discussions.
  
  We host weddings and private events almost every weekend for now 6 years and we love to serve and assist our customers, wherever we can. We are sorry, and want to apologize, as this did obviously not work the way we are used to with your event. We’ll do our best to improve and provide our valuable customers further on with exceptional service.
• Janet W. Sent on 18/08/2021
  4.8 out of 5 rating

  4.8
  • Quality of service
    5.0 out of 5 rating
    5.0
  • Response time
    5.0 out of 5 rating
    5.0
  • Professionalism
    5.0 out of 5 rating
    5.0
  • Value
    5.0 out of 5 rating
    5.0
  • Flexibility
    4.0 out of 5 rating
    4.0

  Reader's Garden Cafe

  Excellent communication, the food & service was outstanding. It was a beautiful venue for our special day. The only negative was that it was a very hot day & they don't have central air conditioning.

  Excellent communication, the food & service was outstanding. It was a beautiful venue for our special day. The only negative was that it was a very hot day & they don't have central air conditioning.

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