J C.
Yelp
First of all, Calgary has a really cool downtown, I've been to Calgary before, but it was always the fly-in-spend the night at the airport hotel-visit customer-airport hotel-fly out in the morning situation...not exactly visiting Calgary...this time, we're here for a five day technical conference...
Day Three, my colleague and I decide to ditch the conference for lunch and walked the one block from our hotel (Hyatt) to the Tower...we're glad we did...
First of all, if you book a reservation at the Sky360 restaurant and have an entree, the lift is free and includes the observation deck. We didn't have reservations, and since it was 11:15 a.m. on a weekday, the nice young lady at the ticket counter just booked us a reservation for 11:30 a.m., printed the lift tickets and off we went...
The ride up was unique, yes, the elevator is encased in the concrete column, but there are screens on either side that show a view outside as you climb as if you were looking out of a window...a short hop to the top, and we got off at the Observation Deck...
There is a Plexiglas floor that one can walk out on and look down/take a picture of one's feet, but we both passed, nah, can't do it, but the view was spectacular on all sides even on a partly cloudy day...we walked around for a few minutes, then walked two flights down to the restaurant...
The restaurant turns one rotation every 45 minutes for lunch, and one rotation per hour for dinner, but it's only the restaurant floor, so while we were waiting for our table to be prepared in the little lobby, we laughed about the restaurant moving past the doorway...
Once seated, it is a really cool experience, watching the city go by 155 meters below (~504 ft), looking off into the distance, over the river and the Stampede grounds, then off into the Canadian Rockies, one is not lacking for entertainment, both of us were pointing things out, my colleague is also a good friend, so we had a great time...
On to the food, OK, it is bit pricey, but remember, our $18.50 lift ticket per person was waived with a reservation, so taking that into account, it wasn't too bad...we both opted for the Express menu which is a three course meal designed to get you out in 45 minutes, which at $38, was a decent value given the lift ticket...we also assured the waitress we were not in a hurry to get back to discussions of passive discharges in large rotating machines, so we didn't want to be out of there in 45 minutes...
I opted for the French onion soup (an up-charge), my colleague the garden salad for the first course...the soup was very tasty, a very large portion, but heavy on the broth and light on the cheese and bread...and it was freaking incredibly hot, OK, I know a common complaint is food being lukewarm, but this was uncomfortably-wait-10-minutes-before-I- could-eat-it-hot...so I only finished half...still good, but impalpable for a while...
We both chose the crispy chicken sandwich which turned out to be a good choice - the roll was soft and fresh, the chicken crispy and tender, not greasy or overdone whatsoever, and the veggies were fresh and tasty...
For desert, one can chose the gelato of the day or vanilla ice cream, the flavor today was Canadian maple sugar gelato, score, it was very tasty, I had to stop eating as it was too much...but tasty...
Finally, the staff, our waitress could not be more attentive, nice and helpful, granted, we went at a time they had just opened for lunch, but she would point out buildings we asked about, pointed out the area where she lived, and pointed out the Olympic ski jump off in the distance...Calgary is a genuinely friendly town - she and the other staff were no exception as they were great...
My suggestion is to go at an off-peak time if you can, I am sure it fills up at night and on the weekends, but if you are going to spend some time in Calgary, make sure to go to the Tower for a meal, yes, it's not fine dining, but it's an experience you will enjoy...