David J.
Yelp
A Tale of Two Breweries
My bandmates and I had the opportunity to hop the ferry from Vancouver and play a gig in Victoria this past weekend. We looked forward to touring some of the great breweries on Vancouver Island the day after the show.
We managed to make it to two breweries: Île Sauvage, located at 2960 Bridge Street, Victoria, BC, and Driftwood Brewery which was about a five-minute drive from it. The experience couldn't have been more different between the two businesses.
Île Sauvage, was a friendly minimalistic brewery with a food truck kitchen, beautiful white tile wall of taps, and incredibly friendly staff all of whom made you feel welcome and appreciated. It had the feeling of a small independent brewery where they really wanted you to sample their various offerings and enjoy your visit. They gladly let our band put up a sticker on their post of band stickers, and it was a really nice start to what was expected to be a fun day of brewery hopping. My wife and I along with two other couples enjoyed the food, some flights of beer and then left for our next stop.
We decided to visit Driftwood Brewery. It was a mistake. While Île Sauvage felt like you were being invited into a brewmaster's tasting room, Driftwood Brewery was the opposite experience. It is clearly more of a corporate entity with a lot of money spent on branding, merchandising, and interior design. It had a spectacular themed interior reminiscent of the old Rainforest Cafés including its own "Hop Monster" hanging from the ceiling. I used to enjoy taking my daughter to Disneyland, and I have no hesitation in admitting the décor brought out the kid in me.
Unfortunately, I can honestly say that I have never been subjected to more insulting behaviour by a server than I had to endure at Driftwood Brewery. Granted, I may not be the target audience for this establishment; I am a baby-boomer with long hair past my shoulders, and probably had a little bit of eyeliner and glitter makeup left over from our gig the night before: nobody is going to mistake me for a hipster.
Driftwood Brewery does a really good business. The place was busy, but not so full that our table of six couldn't get seated immediately without waiting. After a few minutes the server came up to take our order. As my wife and I were sitting at the end of the table, he asked for my order first. Having enjoyed a nice selection of sours at Île Sauvage, I wanted to try something different. I selected the first two beers right away and then took a beat (no more than ten seconds in my estimation) to select my third. The server was instantly irritated with having to wait for this 10-ish seconds and said to our whole table, in a tone that was clearly annoyed, "Look, are you ready to order or not?" I ordered something as fast as I could and then, with pressure mounting to order my fourth, one of our group who was sitting right beside me, intervened by asking the server to describe the "smoky" beer. I chimed in with something like, "ya, what's that one" to which the server, shockingly said he would explain it to my friend, AFTER he takes my order. He refused to describe it to me. I was floored at the outright hostility and rudeness. Trying to end this uncomfortable exchange, I just ordered the first beer I could see on the menu and hoped we could leave as soon as possible.
My wife, who was watching this unfold chose not to order anything and just had a glass of water.
Then, when the waiter came back to advise one of the four beers I had ordered was not available, and not daring to risk asking for a recommendation, I just said I'll have a glass of one of the beers I had previously selected instead. He told me that was not possible as they had already poured the other three beers of the flight and it was too late to change my order. I again just ordered the first thing I saw on the beer list to end the interaction as soon as possible. He never looked or spoke to me again for the entirety of our visit, although he made a point to be particularly jovial to the rest of our group. The exclusionary intent seemed obvious.
It was a shocking experience to support an establishment only to be subjected to intentional humiliation. Not wanting to make the rest of our party uncomfortable, we just endured the experience rather than leave right away. In the end, my friend who had recommended the brewery offered to pay for my flight and we departed. I won't say the experience ruined the entire weekend, but it certainly ruined what should have been a fun day out with friends enjoying the wonderful breweries in the Victoria area. As it were, we were no longer in the mood for any more breweries and returned to our hotel.
I know there is greater permission these days to be mean to each other, and I often say we now live in the age of the "A-hole", but such behaviour by a server should still be considered unacceptable.
