Lakeside Bala Restaurant

Slow service but where do you have to be while up in cottage country .. Well worth the wait - steak was one of the best I’ve had in my life.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Service is very slow and inadequate for a self-claiming fine dining restaurant (e.g. 30 mins wait for water, 50 mins+ wait for food, wobbly and slippery table top, etc.) In addition, common sense was not so common, such as food was served before utensils were finally brought forward, waiting stuff was constantly distracted by chit chatting with other customers. Restaurant is also not very family friendly for young kids (e.g. not kids friendly utensils, etc.). Food is decent but over priced for what it can offer. The only positive is the beautiful water front view, but it will not warrant us to ever return again.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 3

Service: 2

Hi, update! You need to put one star not two or three. Google only counts one star reviews and 5 stars. 2,3, and 4 dont count. Put 1 star so nobody comes here and gets screwed over. The rating is still at 4.2 stars?? How

So, where do i start. The food and service are horrendous. Came here last night, we ordered three steaks and a pasta. The food took over an hour to come out. We were sitting there watching tables that had come after us enjoying their appetizers. We asked where our food was. We were told the steaks were taking awhile to cook. All steaks were ordered medium or medium rare. Max these steaks should have taken was 6-10 minutes. The vegetables that came with the steaks were so bland and hard. All the steaks were overcooked, flavorless, and thin. The pasta was also flavorless as was the chicken in it. The place was dead on a saturday night, guess that should have been a good indication. The location has potential but the kitchen staff and servers need to go. No discounts or free desserts were offered for the abysmal service. Our original server never even came back after forgetting our drinks. Some other women started taking care of us. I could keep going on with the negatives of the night, but why bother. Save you money and go else where. The prices are so high and the quality of food is awful. Check out other local places. This place is a definite skip.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 1

First, we waited 20 mins to be served water and for someone to take our order.

Once we got our food, we then waited another 5 minutes, AFTER we were served food to get utensils, the waitress came over, but spent another 2 minutes talking with another table while literally, holding our utensils in her hand. Unbelievable!!
Place is way too expensive for such terrible, terrible service!

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 2

Service: 1

I went to lakeside bala Aug 16th, the night i purposed to my girlfriend hoping for a special night and was COMPLETLY DISAPOINTED. The only thing this restaurant has going for it is the view. We arrived at the restaurant at 6:20pm as a group of 4. There was only four tables in the whole restaurant on a Saturday night. They had 2 servers, 2 hosts and a bartender working. So more staff than tables. We ordered our food with our drinks because we were hungry and wanted to go to the concert venue after around 7:30-8. Which would give us 1 hour and 40 min to eat. We ordered 3 steaks and a pasta. As we were waiting for our food my fiance ordered another drink. Which our server completely forgot about. After one hour of waiting for our food I asked our server when it would be out. She said the steaks were taking a while and it would be out in a few minutes. We proceeded to wait another 30 minutes for our food to come out. It was 7:50!!! It took an hour and a half to cook 3 steaks and a pasta. At this point our server stopped coming to the table and the bartender was serving us. Our original server never talked to us again the whole night. We had 3 steaks, 2 were supposed to be medium, a ribeye and a new york strip which both come out well done. Zero pink! The other steak was ordered rare and it came out medium. Some pink. At this point we couldn't send it back because we had already waited an hour and a half for what we received. We were also starving watching tables that came after us get their food. The steak and vegetables also had zero seasoning what so ever. When we received the bill all we got was a sorry for you're experience. No discount for delay, missing drink or messing up every steak. $422 for what we received felt like a slap in the face. This service occurred with only a few tables in the entire restaurant. Please do not book here. I honestly don't know how this restaurant is still in business

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 1

Service: 1

Great food and service. Expect it to be expensive. Beautiful patio. Shame it was understaffed and they had to turn people away.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Given the price point, the dining experience was underwhelming. The dishes—specifically the pasta and salmon—lacked flavor and originality. Service was notably slow, and the staff appeared inexperienced; for instance, our server was unfamiliar with operating a basic pepper mill. Overall, the meal did not justify the cost.

Atmosphere: 2

Food: 3

Service: 3

Wouldn’t recommend. Although it being a beautiful setting inside, the food has gone extremely down hill for quite some time as well as the service. I would skip out on this place and try some of the better options Bala has to offer!

Atmosphere: 3

Food: 1

Service: 1

Great food and incredible Lakeview at dinner. However we felt that the service was disingenuous for a quality restaurant like this. Service was transactional vs caring. Still worth going.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 3

Our experience was great! I loved the cauliflower steak and my husband enjoyed the blackened chicken sandwich. Nice patio on the water. Ashley our server was super sweet. All good!

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 5

Every time we're in Bala, dinner here is a must. The food is always incredible. Bartender is amazing! And all the servers are top notch. Love this place!!

Awful service. Good took forever and had to leave. Way over what should have been capacity.

The only thing possibly better than the food is the chair in the bathroom

First thing said to us when we walked in was “you look like you were abused as a child” by the OWNER as he asked us about our reservation and walked us to our table. (It was a bachelorette group?)

Our service was super slow, half of our drinks didn’t come, only half of the appetizers came out. Half of my meal was missing, my friends steak was supposed to be medium and it was grey/ super well done, seasonal vegetables were raw (and not seasonal? Corn, carrots, beans, and broccoli are not a May thing… maybe some asparagus or fiddleheads would’ve been nice?) When the server FINALLY came around to ask how we were, we expressed our concerns and were still charged full price when the bill came, then she disappeared after the first bill was paid and didn’t come back for the rest of my group to pay.
No one came around when our drinks were empty… wine was good and necessary. Food was slow, tables around us all got their mains at different times.. such an awful experience. We asked for missing elements of our meal and they took a long time to arrive and were almost inedible. None of us were happy, I have had better steak dinners at Chucks.

TO TOP IT ALL OFF, we are taking my friend to the hospital right now because she is having an allergic reaction. We told the manager she was having an allergic reaction and it took a long time before we could finally settle our bill and leave. They did comp the soups and gave a discount after a lot of back and forth, but we will never be going back.

Good food, good service, def recommended place to go..