Symposium Café Restaurant & Lounge – Waterloo

I would recommend this place mostly for the atmosphere and perhaps dessert. Everything else is average to mediocre and fairly pricey. Service is friendly but not exceptionally fast.
As a person of habit, I always get the Mediterranean Tilapia with mashed potatoes instead of rice. Occasionally the potatoes are too creamy but otherwise I’m satisfied with it. On the other hand, my boyfriend has tried several different pastas from the Pad Thai to Chicken Parm and is consistently disappointed. The sauce tastes like just canned tomatoes and the meat/​seafood like it was from a box in the supermarket’s frozen section, which would be ok if it cost half the price. To avoid such disappointment, I would recommend sticking to simpler dishes like burgers, wraps and salads.

We have been to this restaurant on 3 occasions over quite a few years. This is a restaurant that is known for it’s desserts. Our first two visits only involved expensive coffee, and tasty takes forever for no reason pre-​prepared desserts. This trip we tried menu food…
The food is certified terrible. On Valentines day this year my husband booked a table in advance. The hostess seemed to not be able to find out reservation, but after some rude confusion, it turned out they were taking reservations in two different books. I pointed our name out to them on the «other» list when the two girls working hostess figured out they were not using the same book to take the reservations.
They seated us at a table in the middle of the restaurant, with two kind of walk ways around it. My husband mentioned he specifically asked for a booth when he made the reservation, but since we were already feeling iffy with the staff we did not mention it.
We had been there an extremely long time without any waiter stop bys or hellos. The gentleman (I think owner/​manager) came to our table and asked us if we were ready to order food.
We had not ordered drinks, but included them at the end of the food order. He asked me how I would like my steak cooked «medium please» and I selected to have fries instead of the potato/​veg combo. We ordered drinks, I ordered a french martini (it is on the menu) and my husband ordered a wheat beer, brand unknown.
I received a Vodka Classic Martini (even an olive in that bad boy — wrong drink) and my husband received what he thinks was a light domestic beer (maybe coors?) Not the right drinks. I told the girl who dropped them off (I think she was the bartender? it was the only time we saw her) that they were someone else’s drinks and she said «French Martini, Wheat Beer» *I can not recall the name of the wheat beer* We were kind of shocked, but again Valentines Day and maybe she isn’t feeling the love?
Anyway, my husbands food arrived first, 1 hr after we ordered. He had his food sitting there for a while, mine came out maybe three minutes later which isn’t too bad. I was hungry and immediately filled my fork with the chopped steak and a bit of fries and stuffed it in my mouth. I should start off by saying It is very dark in this restaurant, and the lights were super dim due to it being Valentines Day.
Well to my absolute displeasure the steak was cold, completely raw/​with some freezerish elements, and this was initially masked by the hot french fries, so I swallowed half before I could realize what was in my mouth (Eating too fast, my lesson) Some blood runs down the corner of my mouth, onto my dress, I feel it, I wipe it, I spit out the rest into my napkin, eyes watering, gagging. My husband called the waiter over… He brought this to the owners attention right away. The owner/​manager said nothing, took the plate and went into the kitchen. He came back and reported as to what happened. It turns out, they had a miscommunication in the kitchen, and that marinated steak out of the fridge went from the fridge, onto a plate and was prepped to serve without ever touching a grill. The fries were hot and crisp, to their credit.
It was appalling, Raw Beef, I am also a celiac and have an ultra sensitive stomach. I gagged several times before shifting quickly to throwing up in their bathroom. I ruined my dress. We had to leave immediately. The owner told us that he would not be charging us for tonight, but wanted to offer us a coupon for a free dessert for next time? NO APOLOGY.
You ruined our Valentines Day and my dress, I ate raw/​cold meat in your restaurant, I was sick all night and blew a bunch of blood vessels in my face dry heaving and vomiting throughout the night. My husband made a reservation, so they had our telephone number. They did not even call to check on us, or really apologize with some conviction, or even ask us more details about our experience.
A Free Dessert?
FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL — 6 FAILS!!!
I can not give MINUS stars, but this is the first time ever that I have wanted to.

This restaurant has a nice atmosphere with a great selection on the menu, the atmosphere was nice and that of a café however the menu didn’t match. With items like butter chicken and steak. The food itself if quite good but it is pricey with even soft drinks starting at $ 3.25 and coffees going up to $ 6. The tip is also already included in the bill at a 20% tip. I went here for a friends birthday and the service was a little slow. But the waitress was very friendly and made no mistakes. There was a fruit fly in one of the drinks that we realized at the end of the meal. Overall this place was good but expensive for what it was.

Walk into a restaurant and get a facial of cake scents that will cause you to climax. For a chain that sets itself from any other chain, Symposium is a cut above the rest. Service is gracious, educated on the menu and willing to help you even make off menu selections. The food reminds you why you went out of your home for a bite to eat. Food that is fresh ingredients that blend flavours so you may enjoy and not worry about purchasing the over bearing amount of said ingredients to great such delicious food yourself.
All in all. I would recommend this venue for a date night or drinks with friends.

food was meh for the price. drinks are cheap, but also meh. I like the atmosphere though, it’s like something pulled out of the old days. service was kinda slow. don’t get the Caesar lol

This is unfortunately one of the few places to go in town for a dessert fix. Though, like many other reviewers of this restaurant I feel that the service is appallingly bad. For some reason I have gone to this place 3 – 4 times and each and every time I have gone the service seems to have gotten worse. The last time I went we were seated in the back of the restaurant and were not served at all or approached for a full 45 minutes so we ended up just walking out.
I don’t know what the issue is with the staff there but they seem to take insanely long periods of time to get anything done from getting bills, to bringing food and even slices of cake. One of the occasions I visited this restaurant was for a friend’s birthday, her boyfriend called ahead and they told him that he could bring in a Portugese cake he bought elsewhere for after dinner (which is odd considering they sell cake). Though when he brought it out he was told that he cannot do that and if he does he will be charged the price of a cake. So he ended up paying for the price of a cake at Symposium and the waiters squashed the cake (maybe on purpose maybe not). They were extremely rude and snappy towards the table, despite getting their way and charging the table for the cake. Will not be going here again no matter how much I like cheese cake. I have had way to many bad experiences. Would not recommend this place to my worst enemy.

Food was terrible. When we got there we were told to order within 5 minutes otherwise we would not get our food for 2 hours because they were busy. It seemed ridiculous to me coming from the server to give us such request. Ok fine we ordered right away, but still ended up waiting for our food for 45 minutes. The food was cold. I ordered the Swiss mushroom burger — the pattie was burned and fries were cold.
I would never come back here and would not recommend anyone either.

Nice atmosphere. Service is pleasant but very slow. Never got the hot sauce asked for. Second coffee took 15 min, etc.
The food was decent but that was all.
If a friend wanted to go I wouldn’t say no, but I would not recommend.

I got the seafood pasta which ended up being a horrible choice before a night at PHILS, but whatever it was delicious despite the fact that it only spent roughly 5 hours in my stomach.lol.
Great food, drinks, and service!

Such a large cake selection! They change it up every day. I’m most impressed by how the servers memorize the choices every day. For the longest time I also didn’t realize they had a patio in the back, but it’s quite nice.
Would definitely recommend symposium for the desserts, the food is so-​so.

I had a great time there with friends. Love the interior style, and those Christmas lights really give the place a home feel. There were a lot tables of two, so perfect environment for a date as well. Although their foods are very average, the cake tour provided really resembles their great costumer service! Worth a try!

We came here on a busy night so the service wasn’t the fastest. The place seems a little understaffed in general, but the server took a good amount of time to explain all the desserts once we got down to it. The cheesecake was good like cheesecake should be. The mango juice I got was outstanding. Very real and fresh tasting. I’m hoping it was at least.

This is now my second review for Symposium, I unfortunately ended up leaving quite underwhelmed. Ive bragged about this place to my parents for years and when we finally had a chance to go last Sunday March 8^th our experience was mediocre at best, food was ok but the service was awful…
I can understand the waitress as a large area and many tables to cover, but if you screw up an order and we have to reminded you twice about the missing drink
I would not be so non-​challant about it… I doubt they will ever let me take them there again… Too bad…

We’d heard good things about Symposium but ended up leaving quite underwhelmed. The service was extremely slow — we waited almost an hour for our food to arrive (even though the place was far from packed), and then ended up waiting another 30 minutes after we got our bills for the waitress to bring the card machine over.
One of the other servers was quite rude when we first arrived as well.
The food itself was okay — it tasted good, but was definitely not worth an hours wait.

Love it! Dessert was absolutely delicious! A bit towards the sweet side. Overall, it’s a bit pricey though.

Went here today and had a really, really, great experience.
I don’t get why people don’t like this place. The waitresses were excellent, super attentive, and always checked up on us to see how we were doing. I found to the prices to be very fair, as I had a fairly large portion (we couldn’t finish the last of our fries, sorry)! Had the Swiss Mushroom Burger — very tender, juicy and well done. Sweet potato fries were great as well!
The atmosphere is really amazing. Very cozy, friendly, and I honestly can’t love this place anymore.
I only regret not getting dessert.

Excellent desserts, coffee and atmosphere. Might be a little dear on the wallet, but a great time ensured.

As I stepped in, I was transported to an «old school cool» pub/​café/​restaurant, where I could imagine Humphrey Bogart swilling his martini and Cary Grant cracking witty jokes at a beautiful Ingrid Bergman. Alas, the décor and atmosphere is all that shines here.
It’s hopelessly understaffed. The food is just mediocre. In general, the prices are high relative to what you get, except for the discount days ($ 4 beer/​$ 4 burger Mondays). This is a chain of restaurants in the Southern Ontario area. I’ve heard good things about the branch in Guelph, but the Waterloo one is managed a bit differently.
They served my «European» latte in a tall hot drink highball glass. I’ve been through Europe, and they never served a latte in anything but a small cappucino cup. The only places where I got a latte in a glass highball is at asian cafes and asia in general. It felt quite incongruous.
I think there was supposed to be fruit cup with my french toast, but that somehow got missed. Also, on the front, it said that coffees were discounted if ordered with a full breakfast, but I paid the full price for it.
My server was very nice though, and made the best of a relatively bad situation. This doesn’t seem like a place for students, unfortunately, even though I wish it could be. All that seating and atmosphere would be great for studying.

Not my favorite of dining experiences, but nothing was _​awful_​.
Came here around 2 on a Tuesday, only a handful of other patrons in the place, so getting a seat was very easy.
The food – salmon greek salad, penne in vodka sauce, and cesar salad – was fine. Nothing to write home about.
Our waiter forgot the coffee and was somewhat hard to flag down.
All in all, it was kind of pricey for what it was.
The good: decent food literally next door to our hotel.
The bad: meh.

I’ve been here twice more, having been convinced by friends.
Sometimes I forget I have a Unilocal account, but then experiences like these remind me of why I created one in the first place: to warn people!
I feel like the servers don’t really know what they’re doing. We were almost charged twice for our cakes and he didn’t know how to fix it so he asked us to just pay each other back. Fantastic, now I just wish we could have served ourselves the cakes so we didn’t have to wait half an hour just to get them. I still don’t know what he did to make it so complicated and I don’t know whether I paid extra or even ended up getting the Sunday cake special they advertise.
Also, the pulled pork sandwich (on another occasion) was disgusting. I hate to say that about food, but please please do not order it. Hard top, soggy bottom. The meat was very sweet but otherwise tasteless. I can’t even describe the texture; you can just tell they slapped some meat in an old bun then microwaved it. I didn’t finish it and I am not a picky eater.

Went there with ma sista after her exam. so it was around 10 pm. There were PLENTY… PLENTYYYYY of empty but dirty tables. So of course they made us wait. There was a party of 6 in front of us and they had to wait also. You’d think that the waitresses would know to CLEAR THE TABLES after the customers have left so it doesn’t make the place seem like a mess!
Anyway, we didn’t have to wait too long so I’ll let it go.
We shared the SKY HIGH CARROT CAKE and it was the best damn carrot came we’ve ever tasted: D I LOVE THEIR CAKES!!! I’ve been there once before and also ordered a slice of cake and it was also amazing.
We also had 2 chai lattes… Those were mediocre. Nothing special about them. You should wait until martini Wed to get their $ 5 martinis instead ;).
It’s cozy inside and the staff were nice, although there could’ve been more of them.

I’ve been here on a few occasions. Mixed feelings for sure. Once for a birthday party (group of ~17) and once for 2-​for-​1 cake on Sunday. Both times, they took forever. I am appalled by the fact that we needed to wait 15 minutes for someone just to cut 2 pieces of cake for us. They need more wait staff, obviously.
Also went more recently with a group of 6 on a Monday night. The wait wasn’t as bad. Their pastas and quesadillas are actually quite delicious. though I came to realize that their menu is actually kind of pricey for the quality. There are a few daily specials that you can take advantage though, i.e. burgers are $ 3.75 on Mondays, and pastas are $ 10 on Tuesdays (all viewable on their website). They DO have a huge variety of cakes which is quite appealing to young people.
The quality of food isn’t too bad, and the atmosphere is fitting.

Mixed feelings about this Symposium location since the times I’ve been here it has been good and it has been terrible.
Good: Came here once or twice with the boy and we both got breakfast since that’s what I go to symposium for. Those occasions it was great, food was hot and fresh and service was prompt.
Bad: Came here with my girl friends and okay completely different experience. Getting service was a hassle. Our food took forever to come, and that was apparently b/​c the chef didn’t come in. Okay, understandable. Then the food we were served was cold, overcooked and quite frankly awful. How do you mess up a simple breakfast platter I do not know. They also got one of my friend’s orders wrong since she asked for no meat and it came with a pile of bacon. Our waitress was I’m sure stressed but she wasn’t handling the situation the greatest (made it awkward in fact…).
So it seems this location (compared to the guelph one which I’ve never had a problem with) has some management or staffing issues. Hit or miss it seems, so proceed with cautious I say.