Typical of Canadian suburbs, Kanata is replete with strip malls. Principle amongst them is the Kanata Centrum, a sprawling retail and entertainment hub for residents of the west end of the greater Ottawa area. Centrum is strategically located at the intersection of two major arteries, Terry Fox Drive and Kanata Avenue. Ottawa's Queensway (Highway 417) also exits onto Kanata Avenue within seconds of Centrum.

Typical of big strip malls, Centrum hosts a number of large chain restaurants. Here is a somewhat incomplete listing as new eateries seem to appear every 6 months, including a soon to open Montana's Cookhouse:

• Baton Rouge
• Boston Pizza
• Extreme Pita
• Harvey's
• Jack Astor's
• Joey's Only Seafood Restaurant
• Kelsey's
• Mexicali Rosa's
• McDonald's (inside of Walmart)
• O'Connor's Irish Pub
• Pizza Pizza
• Quizno's
• Scores Rotisserie and Ribs
• Starbuck's (inside of Chapter's)

Interestingly, Centrum once hosted one of Ottawa's 5 Denney's. Today, only 2 survive. The Centrum's closed shortly after 2004/2005 NHL lockout, blaming slumping sales on lower patronage during the hockey season. Scotiabank Place, home of the Ottawa Senators, is a 5 minute drive from Centrum.

What few family run restaurants at the Centrum serve ethnic fare and seat far fewer patrons than the large chain restaurants. They include Sushi Kanata, Ox Head Restaurant (a Vietnamese Pho house), and Thi Fusion (a higher end Asian fusion restaurant).

Recently, another large chain restaurant, popular in Western Canada, joined the fray, Moxie's Classic Grill. Previously, Ottawa's only exposure to Moxie's was in the form of a small establishment at the Bayshore Shopping Mall. The Moxie's restaurant at Centrum is much larger and more elaborate, capable of hosting approximately 200 patrons at any time in its dining room and lounge areas.

At the Centrum Moxie's, the atmosphere is intended to be sophisticated with dark coloured furniture, high seated tables, and an otherwise low light interior. It also features a very long bar with hundreds of bottles of 5 major brand liqueurs neatly displayed in a back lit floor-to-ceiling display case.

Jenn and I tried to go to the newly opened Moxie's at Centrum three times since the summer. Each time was with her family to celebrate a birthday. Each time we were given unreasonable wait times for a table to seat six people for dinner. Like the other 21 Moxie's establishments across Canada, the Centrum location does not take reservations for dinner on Fridays or Saturdays. This is problematic Friday and Saturday evenings when Kanata suburbanites tend to swarm the Centrum's eateries for dinner.

One Saturday afternoon, I accompanied a number of Jenn's colleagues to Moxie's for a celebratory lunch to mark the end of the fall semester. There, we discovered that Moxie's has a slightly modified front-of-house line-up.

According to its human resources (HR) website, the Centrum Moxie's employs, managers, supervisors, servers, lounger servers, bartenders, and hosts. To match its high end decore, Moxies employs multiple hosts and hostesses to create the "first impression", greet guests, "determine tables", "manage guest flow", take care of waiting guests, "create anticipation", seat guests, create the "last impression" and be the "last line of defense." At the Centrum Moxies, hosts are all female, blonde, skinny, and provocatively dressed. Waiters are all female, blonde, skinny, and provocatively dressed. This also seems to be the trend at other Moxie's as well. Take the Moxie's at the Yorkdale Mall in Toronto. Seven of the ten reviews on the restoronto-reviews.com website mention "stunning" female staff whose uniforms leave little to the imagination: "very short skirts" and "low cut tops." One, even likens the restaurant to a "top notch Hooters."

In Ottawa, there are rumors floating around that Moxie's contracts for its hosts differ from those for its waiters. Resembling more modeling contracts, there are specific clauses that involve weight gain and pregnancy. While I could find no evidence of such in the job descriptions from its HR website, all server positions mention "Quality, Service & Cleanliness (QSC) criteria " as duties. Hosts and hostesses have no such criteria listed.

This said, service during our lunch was replete with mistakes. Each was unforgivable because it was lunch time, there was no lunch rush, the majority of the tables were empty, and there was little turnover.

Mistake 1:
My better half ordered a glass of 7-up before we ordered our dishes. One of her colleagues ordered a club soda. The drink Jenn was served tasted like club soda, carbonated, but not sweetened. When we inquired, we were told that there was no mix up. The waitress then left to inquire about the odd taste. She returned telling us that "someone" had mistakenly not added any sugar to the batch made. She then dutifully took back the unsweetened glass and informed us that another will be forthcoming. When she returned, she told us that they were out of 7-up. This culminated in apology number 1.

More after the jump...