The Factory Southshore

The food here is delicious, and the drinks are great, we went on Tuesday and had wonderful and fast service!

Went to dinner before a Gateway Clipper dance cruise. We had a reservation for 4 and were seated promptly. Server was attentive and pleasant, food was good, worked out perfectly for our evening plans.

We have come to The Factory for Easter Brunch three years in a row, and highly recommend it. The service is 5 stars! The food is very good, especially the omelet bar. There's also a carving station, as well as a hot buffet. We have a family member with a food allergy, and they go above and beyond to make sure he has a safe, and amazing experience by going out of their way to put aside an allergy-safe dessert for him. Our server and rest of the staff is always extremely friendly, even though they have been there since the wee hours to prep. The overall ambiance, with an amazing view of the river is top notch! My only minor "ding" is that the desserts on the buffet could be a little better for the $60 per person price. The little carrot cake and tiramisu petit fours and cupcakes were very nice, and honestly we were so full after the main courses we were probably too full to each much more.

I'm sorry to say our brunch experience here was very disappointing. The staff seemed incredibly unprepared, overwhelmed and not sufficiently supported. The Factory was not very busy during our visit, but the Sheraton hotel was. There was a packed lobby, a dance competition and a conference all adjacent to The Factory. It seemed like we arrived shortly after a huge rush of business. There also appeared to be literally just one woman waiting on everyone and every single table. However, these reasons alone are not enough to justify a poor experience.
Staff attentiveness was just not enough. And I don't just mean our waitress, who I want to recognize (Betina) was trying her very best, but the hostess was incredibly inattentive and unprofessional. There's just no excuse for the flippant way she greeted us and seated us at an undressed table missing three out of the four chairs... She haphazardly retrieved two additional chairs for our party of three but never bothered to get us water glasses and place settings.
The food was good enough, but nothing special. I could have made the same dishes the same way at home. My brioche French toast wasn't prepared as described. It wasn't served with sugared berries and walnuts. I didn't taste orange in the batter that the toast was dredged in. It's unfortunate when there is absolutely no effort made to make a dish stand out or to be special. It's menu description was completely ignored and disregarded.
This may not have been the best time to visit The Factory but if this is what happens when the staff is under pressure I won't be back. There just wasn't enough effort to redeem any mistakes. I'm sure The Factory is just good enough for out of town travelers but it's certainly not worth a visit for the meal for the locals.

Atmosphere: 4

Food: 3

Service: 4

Overall not a good experience. Inattentive staff, lackluster atmosphere, unappealing food. There was a complete disregard of menu descriptions and our meal wasn't prepared as described. With the hotel being busy there was no separation between the lobby and The Factory. Kids were running in between both and then to and from a dance competition that was being held in an adjacent ballroom. There was no effort to control this chaos and to create a pleasant dining experience.

Nice option for hotel guests. The food and service was very good both times we ate there. Not sure how I would feel about the experience if I was not already staying at the hotel? But I enjoyed it!

Went for Valentine dinner... didn't know it was a ‘lobby' restaurant. (Last restaurant that was in this hotel was intimate and delicious.) Super loud with kids running around everywhere. Service VERY slow and food cold. Will not go back!

It took 25 minutes to get drinks. 25 more minutes just to order dinner. My husband ordered a bottle of wine. It came as a glass and he told the manager helping us he wanted a bottle because our waitress was busy. She said we'll drink this glass and see how you feel. He said no I want the bottle! Then the glass she pours it into was so dirty with lipstick all over it. He had to grab a clean water glass from the table next to us to use. My dinner came and the crab cake smelled so fishy I couldn't eat it. The Brussels sprouts seemed like they were microwaved.

Give 1 star to the environment and view.

The lunch experience was disappointing and ruined what was supposed to be a special Christmas

I ordered a $38 steak and it’s like charcoal.

When I requested a replacement, I expected an improvement. However, the second steak was no better—still bitter. And the entire restaurant seem didn’t care about the it.

If you decide to dine here, I strongly recommend you do not order any of the more expensive dishes and just order some cheap options.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 2

Service: 4

Complete incompetence. We had a 6:30 reservation, arrived early, and were asked at 6:35 what we wanted! At 7:10 we grabbed two seats at the bar and neither bartender checked on us. By 7:20 we walked out. Not the way to operate a restaurant. Several people continued to wait up front but no one ever came to communicate the wait or fact they were never going to be served.

Atmosphere: 1

Food: 1

Service: 1

Food and atmosphere were amazing. Service was baseline of what you would expect at any restaurant. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you're ok with asking your server for things like utensils and refills and stumping them when you have legitimate preparation inquiries then you won't even realize the service doesn't meet the standards of fine dining.

The place could benefit from a bread basket.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 5

Service: 2

The food was a disappointment. My wife’s breakfast bowl literally was swimming in grease, sitting in about a half inch of it. We weren’t the only table that sent the food back because it wasn’t good. They need a new cook staff.

One waiter smelled very strongly of smoke, but apart from that the service was good.

Overall not the best experience. I really hope they turn this place around because it does have a cool atmosphere and potentially a lot going for it.

Atmosphere: 5

Food: 2

Service: 3

Unfortunately we were never seated. We knew Christmas night would be busy, so we booked weeks in advance. After 45 minutes of waiting - with no one at the host desk - we left, hungry. Very disappointed since the restaurant confirmed our reservation two days before.

We had a table overlooking the city, which was lovely. Our waitress, Betina, was fantastic!! She was attentive, kind, and genuine. Very personal and made our dining experience amazing!! The food was delicious, as well! My Mom and I already talked about doing back!

The place was decorated very pretty for the holidays. We waited over 30 minutes for someone to acknowledge our table. We finally flagged down a server (Chris) who apologized and mentioned it was only him and another server for the entire place. He said he would take our table and the poor guy did his best. I don't fault him at all because it was obvious he was working his butt off. But we were seated at 6:20 and left around 9:00 because everything took so long. Chris needs fat bonus and they need to get more staff! Food was good. I had the endive salad topped with salmon. I asked for no blue cheese and it came with blue cheese but there was no way i was sending it back after waiting so long for it. Salmon was cooked well and was tasty.