A lot of people have been complaining about the way they got treated badly when they tried to purchase food from certain restaurants. These people claim to have been rudely treated at certain restaurants in Toronto. This was something that I found very hard to believe at first until I got a first-hand experience of such treatment at the Gabardine Restaurant – an experience I will never forget easily. It is therefore not surprising to find out that most people consider some of the restaurants in Toronto as being pretentious.

One very noticeable characteristic that is very prevalent among restaurants in Toronto when compared to restaurants in other parts of Canada is the apparent penchant for pretentiousness. There are restaurants in Toronto that really have very little or no regard for their customers and a clear example of this pretentious nature can be found at the Gabardine Restaurant.  My recent experience at The Gabardine was enough proof of their potenital for rudeness to customers. I went there just at the beginning of the dinner hour when the restaurant was mostly empty.

Three servers/staff were standing near the door. I asked to get a slice of their German apple pie packaged as ‘takeaway’. Their response was "We don't normally do take-out during dinner1". So, I think to myself, "Excuse me, but it's not like you're running from table to table right now taking orders. In Toronto it seems that restaurants that aspire to be "exclusive" in some way try to integrate rudeness and an overall lack of customer service accessibility.

The restaurant industry is a very competitive business. But it seems that many restaurants in Toronto have opted for rude behaviour and poor customer services as a means of coping with a competitive environment for restaurants.

The attitude of staff at the Gabardine that day is just a tip of the iceberg as there are daily reports by people who patronize restaurants, giving accounts of how they got treated negatively at one restaurant or the other in Toronto. It is about time that something is done about this pretentious nature where certain restaurants are portrayed as being first class in terms of how they render their services to customers on various advertising sites whilst the direct opposite is done in reality. The Gabardine has had some nice customer reviews online where they are portrayed as being customer-friendly. However, that brief experience just brought to light how they can preach virtue but practice vice when it comes to rendering services to its customers.