Eglinton West Gallery (EWG)

I had my wedding here and we absolutely loved the space! The rustic industrial decor was open and inviting. However, there are many areas that need improvement.

The contact we were paired with spoke to us rudely and really fast when when communicating over email or phone. A nearly racist comment was made by the staff member to me over the phone. This was resolved but left me feeling uneasy with their staff. In person, the contact was more polite and seemingly more patient but lacked professionalism (ie: went on tangents about other unhappy patrons or her family life).

When discussing the layout of the lobby area, I handed in my floorplan on time. We discussed removing a lot of unnecessary furniture in the lobby as our guests still wanted to feel comfortable enough with social distancing, as some Covid19 rules had just been lifted. When it was further discussed with our contact from EWG1, she said aloud that she "didn't like our layout and it was not going to work." She insisted on adding many more sofas. I was taken aback - as a vendor, we understand if you as staff don't like the layout, but it is not professional to tell your patron. She kept insisting to place couches in areas that we already reserved for our own decor (ie: photobooth). I compromised with her that we would add one more sofa.

When I went in person to finalize the agreement, I met with an entirely different associate, I reviewed the lobby floorplan and it had been changed AGAIN. They reverted to adding more sofas and coffee tables when we never even spoke about coffee tables. I had to repeat myself and once again provide this new associate with the layout I sent in the contract. This was a very frustrating error on their part that I had to endure as a patron.

On the day of the wedding, the General Manager of my wedding and some helpers arrived on time in the morning to EWG1 (at a time that was previously discussed with their staff and my team), and no one at the venue was there to open the doors. They waited for 20min until another staff member, whom we've never met, came to open the door. When my GM entered, she saw that the lobby had coffee tables and sofas all over the place and it didn't match our layout. Once again, the venue did not adhere to the floorplan that was agreed upon in our contract which was finalized one week beforehand. These errors that kept repeating made realize how inflexible EWG1 office staff were and how communication within the EWG1 members needs a lot of improvement. My layout was simple and clean, yet our EWG1 contact kept adding furniture like coffee tables and sofas that cluttered the area which would not have made room for social distancing. I felt that the respect for my guests' comfort levels were not addressed on the venue's part.

This venue is paired with SolePower Productions. They seemed professional and communicating with them before the wedding was alright. In EWG1 there are two tvs and two projector screens. We had two different slideshows prepared: one separate for the tvs and one different slideshow for the screens. SolePower ended up erroneously playing the same slideshow on all the tvs and projectors. This was very unfortunate.

During the reception, the slideshow that was supposed to be played on the screens blacked out for half of the evening which was a big disappointment for our guests and ourselves. Our Maid of Honor's speech included a slideshow and our General Manager and other guests had to help the SolePower staff scramble to get the screen & projector working properly. They eventually got it to work and the speech was perfect, but it was really unfortunate that our own guests had to help the SolePower staff person to get the equipment working.

The food was wonderful, the kitchen staff & waiters/waitresses were great! Our guests loved the hors d'oeuvres and the timing of each course was spot on despite any minor delay. We really appreciated this part of the service!

All in all, if you are planning your own wedding and have to communicate with their office staff, I wish you good luck. If you have a wedding planner, hopefully they can manage expectations with the EWG1 staff so you don't have to! Also, make sure you have at least one guest that is competent to work screens and projectors ;)

Attendant A wedding here. Enjoyed the food and beverage. Especially the bar. The rooftop open for pictures.

What an absolutely incredible event! The EWG is stunning and offers so much flexibility for events. The multi-room offering allows for more dynamic events. The food is absolutely incredible! Highly recommend! A+++

We had our wedding at Eglinton West Gallery on May 22, 2022 and it was catered by Catertrendz, which is the in house catering company affiliated with EWG. Our primary concern is that we paid $1,133 for an extra hour of premium bar and we feel like the service we got was not representative of what we paid for. Me (the bride) was approached by the manager and informed that our guests were drinking too much and that the bar was going to have to close for 30 minutes. This confused me because I was under the impression that the bartenders would provide drinks according to smart serve training and that if certain individuals were over-consuming then it would be dealt with on an individual's basis. Instead, all 145 of our wedding attendants - regardless of whether they had any drinks that night yet - could not access the bar for 30 minutes during the shut down. Our contract does not state anywhere that the bar can be shut down by management. After requesting a partial refund for the 30 minutes of service we feel we did not receive, we were met with a phone call from the manager and we felt like they were not responsive to wanting to resolve the situation as we were denied a partial refund.

Aside from the 30 minutes of bar closure, we also felt like there is room for improvement in the customer service and efficiencies in the bar staff. Our package included two servers and it was unclear at times if both individuals were serving or if one was in a support role as the groom did request a drink from the second bartender and was advised to approach the other bartender instead.

While the food was tasty, we also feel like the amount of hors d'oeuvres present were not appropriate for the amount of guests at the event. There certainly did seem to be fewer hors d'oeuvres than we were expecting based on our contract. 
We also saw many of our guests cutting their steak with butter knives as steak knives were not present on all tables. - When this was brought up with management post-wedding, the manager stated that steak knives weren’t included in our contract. We thought this would be a given, since we had ribeye steak on the menu and the contract stated “inclusive of all cutlery”.

Reflecting on our interactions and experiences with the catering manager and venue as a whole, we ultimately feel like our satisfaction with our experience was not prioritized in the way we expected it to be given the importance of a day like a wedding day. We feel very let down with our experience both during and after the wedding and I cannot, in good faith, recommend this venue and caterer based on my experience with them.

We had our wedding at EWG this past Saturday night and I wanted to send you a quick note about it.

Let me start by telling you that I’m an Area Manager for a large Hospitatlity group and have worked in the hospitality industry my entire life. Meaning, I hardly ever relax when we go out to eat and attend events like ours.

EWG team knocked it out of the park this weekend! From Rosa (our hostess) going to a store to get me Coke Zero because there was none in house to the entire team taking such great care of us. The drinks were flowing and the food was so delicious that I actually had guests tell me “I know this may sound crazy but this is the best salad I’ve ever had!”.

Our wedding was as successful as it was because of the entire EWG team!

From the very initial tour of the venue until the day after the wedding. Top notch customer service, food and beverage in a very unique rustic venue. Highly recommending. Headache free process.

Our wedding was on November 20th 2021. It was a dream come true and ALL the staff at EWG are amazing to work with from start to finish.

Frances & Alison- You were both absolutely amazing to work with. We cannot thank you enough for a smooth transition after our last venue flaked on us.

From the beautiful ceremony, venue, food and incredible staff, everything was perfect! Our wedding day was a dream come true. Thank you for all your help and support!

Thank you to the EWG team for making our wedding day magical. They helped bring our vision to life and made it a truly memorable experience for us and all our guests.
The staff and owners really went above and beyond to make every detail count. A special thank you to SolePower and CaterTrendz. You both did an exceptional job.
If you are looking for a wedding venue, look no further!

A beautiful venue with delicious food and an amazing management. We are extremely happy with our experience and recommend it to everyone.