I’m definitely a believer in first impressions.

I’m also a believer in giving people a second chance.

Connecting the dots then, we found ourselves once again congregating in the back room of Vancouver’s Tomato Fresh Food Café (if you want a primer, check out our first review of Tomato Fresh Food Café from last Fall).

As I navigated through the masses of Kitisilano’s Greek Days on my way to the restaurant, I couldn’t help but wonder if the service was still the same.  Were we actually going to have to sit through another circus of errors and timing miscues?  I certainly hoped not.  Unfortunately, you don’t always get what you hope for.

Bit of background for you – as our party was very large (close to 20), I had gone so far as to call ahead a week in advance.  I have to say that I was very impressed with how I was treated, particularly given that they were happy to add to my reservation later in the week (increased it by 5) despite the fact that we were trying to land our jumbo brunch jet on Tomato Fresh Food Cafe’s brunch landing strip:

1) on the same morning as the Scotiabank half marathon; and

2) right in the heart of Kitsilano’s Greek Days.

So…to the management on this point – tick in the box!

Unfortunately, the same tick cannot be boxed for Tomato Fresh Food Cafe’s service.  Short story short…nothing really had changed since September.  Here’s a high level summary as to why I am putting the hammer down here:

• our server, although very pleasant to deal with, did not check on us as often as she probably should have;
• there was a human hair in the creamer;
• one of the guest received a glass of water that had a fairly noticeable chip off the rim (which actually played a part in introducing itself to the guest’s lip);
• cold coffee was served to one of the guests (and was replaced with an empty cup (while he waited for a ‘new pot to brew’);
• one of the guests got up and grabbed themselves some cutlery from the server station (whilst our server stood there, not noticing – she was too busy quickly putting together a plate for one of our group whose order was not taken/remembered); and finally
• the food, once again, took a LONG time to get to our table (the conversation helped us not notice ’so much’);

I’m not going to bash Tomato Fresh Food Cafe into a customer service black hole (yet) as I don’t think they really deserve it.  Why?  Good question.  The way I see it is that Tomato Fresh Food Cafe tries really hard.  They just don’t execute very well.

As I’m not really into giving third chances, it’s probably going to be some time before I steer our group (or myself) towards 2486 Bayswater any time soon.  I wish them well and I hope they get it (and all of the leaves that fell on our table during brunch from the two trees growing inside) cleaned up.

Brunch at your own risk.

darren