Bill Mattick’s Restaurant & Lounge

Environment — very spacious, nice seating, good décor, BEAUTIFUL lights twined around the trees outside.
Food — ordered the red snapper with rice and veggies. Took a bite and after a couple of chews wanted to spit it out since it tasted as if it were drenched in salt (however there was no napkin at the time to do so) so forced myself to eat it. My friend also tried it after me and she said there was no way she would be able to finish the red snapper and almost couldn’t even eat it due to how overly salty it was. I have never in my life returned food to the kitchen (I hate wasting food and consider myself a very non-​picky person) however there was absolutely no way I could stomach how much salt was on the fish. Instead, ordered the chicken with rice and veggies, which was very tender! Mid-​way through the chicken I started tasting more salt (must have been shaken on inconsistently) however it was not anywhere near as salty as the fish was so I was able to eat it and still enjoy the stronger yet still tolerable saltiness. Also has the starter salad which had the tiniest (literally) bit of dressing on it (one of my other friends actually had to ask the server for more right from the start). I didn’t mind the plain salad since I usually like to keep away from creamy dressings anyway.
Desserts — Amazing rhubarb pie and banana cream pastry! Chocolate cake was average (could have been mistaken for grocery store cake — didn’t finish this as it was not worth the extra calories). Good crème caramel and mixed berry pie — enjoyable desserts. However two of the dessert plates were dirty (very noticeable — looked as if plates were put in the dishwasher but with residues of soap blobs all over when dried out… tough to explain, but my friend also noticed without effort). However utensils, glasses, and main plates seemed clean.
Overall, if this place cut down on the salt and took more care in clean dishes, I can definitely see lots of potential here. The atmosphere is great which is a huge contribution to a restaurant’s success. However, a few important improvements to be made until then.
Give this place a try — you might like it! If I had ordered the chicken rather than the red snapper to begin with, I could have overlooked the dishes and more-​than-​usual saltiness. Your experience may be great — my recommendation is to request for the kitchen to ease up on the salt and you’ll be good to go.

This remains a good patio restaurant for sun, relaxation and beautiful viewscapes to the golf course, gardens and ocean…
Easter Monday I enjoyed a 4-​star entrée salad that is no longer on the menu: halibut-​prawn salad with various fresh greens and a wonderful blueberry-​ginger dressing, with tiny blueberries throughout, for $ 19. It was big and addictively good, with the fresh grilled fish and prawns skewered on top. I ate the whole thing, while my partner enjoyed the chicken and mushroom crêpe and salad.
A recent Saturday on the patio, the menu had changed such that the same salad I wanted was replaced with a Bay Salad ($ 23). It had delicious scallops and prawns, with papaya and toasted almonds, but the dressing was thin and not enticing in flavour with cranberries and orange. Too astringent and I didn’t finish the greens, advising the server why accordingly. Not worth the price. My friend enjoyed the half sandwich and soup for a good value, under $ 10. Still the menu has a lot of variety, I’d return. Service is friendly and caring.
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2013:
Breakfast on the patio on a sunny day is beautiful and relaxing.
I’ve been coming here with friends for meals since it opened. It’s relaxing after a game of golf, nice atmosphere, generally good food.
A recent breakfast after 9 holes of golf found attentive, friendly service on the patio.
The plus was the homemade raisin bread toasted, bacon done well, not too crispy, and good quality jam and peanut butter packets on the table. The minus is the «scrambled eggs» with the full breakfast, as they are actually hard fried eggs, chopped up. You know, they’ve been serving «scrambled» like this for years, and I brought it up some years ago, but was told that that is what the chef calls scrambled eggs. So, be warned, they are not fluffy and light, whisked with milk, or water. I gave up and know what I am getting now. I use the ketchup offered on the plate!
Noted, the fresh fruit accompaniment: cherries on friends’ plates had small bug holes in them. Oops, I ate mine too fast. Prep attention to detail needed.
Giving 3 stars for overall food and service through the years. It’s a golf course so I don’t expect gourmet. Two stars for this recent breakfast; the sun and patio still makes me come back because I know to keep my expectations average.

Very good service, excellent value and good food. Ate here a couple of times and it was consistent. Salads were fresh and a good size. Sandwiches were tasty as well.

I love Bill Mattick’s. There’s a nice patio where sunny days can be spent watching golfers get into the swing of things. Their menu is decent and prices are reasonable. The servers are super friendly and the staff super nice. The wine list is good for a golf club restaurant and I can always find something to drink. There’s plenty of parking and a quaint shopping center is nestled just the other side of the parking lot.
It’s not four-​star cuisine, but it’s a golf course. If you want steak, go to a steakhouse. Otherwise, come to Bill Mattick’s, hang out on the patio, have a few drinks and an appie while watching some golf. Fore!!!

A friend of mine took 4 of us out to eat here on Tuesday for lunch as a thank you for volunteering and since 2 people were leaving. The server came by and took our drink and food orders and we enjoyed the patio, which is pretty nice. They have umbrellas to keep the sun out of your eyes and it sort of overlooks the Cadboro Bay golfing area.
I ordered the veggie panini, which comes with feta cheese, but I am not a cheese fan and asked the server to put no cheese and they could just add extra veggies instead or something. She told me they probably couldn’t add extra veggies, but she’ll write down no cheese. Totally fine and great!
Well, I had gone to the bathroom and was unhappily surprised when I came back to find my panini came, two triangle pieces, loaded with cheese. Not feta cheese, mind you, but they had instead put some marble cheese or something like that. We had waited a decent amount of time for the food to come though and, being a slow eater, I didn’t want to ask for them to make another one and wait for that while everybody else would probably eat and finish their food. So I did sit there and pick out the cheese as best and discreetly as I could (I seriously don’t like cheese!). Once I got the cheese out, the panini was pretty delicious. I haven’t run into many paninis I didn’t like though.
The thing that I didn’t get is that the server didn’t once throughout the meal come by and ask if everything was ok. She even came by to fill up glasses at one point and she looked at my plate with the pile of cheese on the side and didn’t ask if everything was alright. I wouldn’t have asked her to order another one, but it would have been nice for her to acknowledge that they screwed up and she still served it to me, when it was clear that there was cheese on it.
Lucky for her my friend picked up the bill for all of us or she would have gotten zero tip from me. Bill was put down once she cleared our plates and she didn’t come back to fill up our glasses, which sat empty for the next half an hour as we chatted. Bad service from a place I though would have higher standards, being at a golf club after all.