The Keg Steakhouse + Bar - Ajax — Restaurant in Ajax

Preface: I have been dining at this location bi-weekly for about 5 years. We have regularly been served by Tristan, and before he moved to BC, sat plenty of times with Marcus and had fantastic nights at this location. More recently, we had wonderful experiences with Andrew, as well as with Dorion. All of them have been great, professional staff. This is the level of representation one would expect at The Keg.

Last evening (NYE), my family of 5 and I had an appalling encounter with an unpolished and smug bartender. He lacked situational intelligence with a blatant lack of warmth and refinement; truck stop demeanor.

Long story short, our round of drinks at the bar (while waiting for our table) had been done for exactly 27 minutes and no one at the bar had asked if we were OK or needed another round. I actually saw multiple bartenders look over, as there were 5 of us at the bar top. Mind you, there were 5 empty tables in the lounge, a completely empty countertop adjacent to the bar, and 3 empty bar seats, but I digress...

I finally caught this bartender's attention and kindly asked if someone could please tend to us - and while chewing food, he rudely and dismissively answered, "we're busy." At that point, obviously bothered, I replied, "I understand that, but isn't it your job to tend to folks at the bar? Our drinks have been empty for half an hour." To which he replied, "it's your job to be patient." That was utter disrespect with certain undertones and microaggressions that were completely unwarranted. Make of that what you may...

The Dining Room manager made a valiant effort to pacify the situation and regularly checked on us through the course of the already soured dinner, along with covering a round of drinks, which was appreciated - to an extent. That said, the overarching principle was more important as I would've gladly paid for those drinks ten times over if the service was normal from start to finish. Frankly, our entire bill for the rest of the evening should have been covered with how uncomfortable and disrespected my entire party felt after the interaction at the bar.

A true reconciliation would have been to have brought him off the bar to apologize to the table, as he could've certainly afforded a two minute break from eating and taking shots behind the bar.

The level of arrogance and rudeness displayed by this bartender was nauseating and I've escalated the matter up the chain at The Keg corporate. What a joke of an experience and a crappy way to end 2024. We should have stayed home or went elsewhere.

Thanks again to our server for salvaging a subpar evening and addressing our table with empathy (Check # 674401).

TLDR: Pompous bartender is rude and selective in communications with patrons and decided to disrespect the wrong party. A lesson in how to treat people will come of this ordeal.

Abysmal experience on multiple fronts. Wishing I just went straight to my table as I normally do when dining here. *1/3/25 Update: I had two in depth conversations with the Keg Operations Director for the region and she has assured me that this was an anomaly and steps are in place to ensure this won't happen again. I am pleased with the disposition and relieved that they have people of her caliber at higher levels of management. Thank you.

To the bartender in question here: I suggest you think before you try to dismiss people, and never play ego games like that with anyone again - because you just never know who you might be...

We went to the keg Ajax to celebrate my husband birthday with our two children. When I made the reservations I stated it was for his birthday and when our server asked if we were celebrating a special occasion I let him know if was for my husbands birthday. We have gone to the keg many times over the years but mostly to the Leslie location and have never had an issue with the service or quality of food. It had been about a year or so since we had last gone to the keg for dinner and I was extremely disappointed in the quality of the food to the point of debating if we will ever go back again. When we got our meals I noticed right away the presentation was not there. The mash potatoes was one with the plate probably due to sitting under a heat lamp for who knows how long. Our steak came with mushrooms which is a good pairing but carrots and broccoli? If I wanted to eat cafeteria food I would have gone to a cafeteria. But the most disappointing thing was all of our steaks were tough and not tender as they should have been pointing to using lower quality beef. They were hard to cut into when I was cutting into my sons steaks, my husband commented on it as well. My steak was exceptionally bad as they didn’t even bother to sear it. It looked like a Mc Donald’s beef patty …grey and unappetizing. I didn’t want to complain but there was no way I was paying $47 to eat some lettuce, carrots and a steak I could have got for $15 at a cafeteria. I told the server and even remarked how did this even leave the kitchen???. He proceeded to take just my steak away using one of the side plates and for a moment I questioned if he was going to bring back to me that same steak! . After about 5 minutes the manger came to the table to apologize and to tell me they will be bringing me out another plate and that my meal will be comped. My steak took a while to come and by that time my family had finished eating their dinner. My husband tried to wait but his steak was getting cold and who wants to eat a cold steak. I ended up eating my dinner alone..not to mention unhappy. No cake/happy birthday like we were accustomed to and there were a few birthdays going on as well. I’m not sure how many times you need to mention it but at that point we were both pretty upset and we paid the...

I had made reservations for my husbands birthday and had requested a dinning room table instead of a lounge table because I wanted something more quieter especially with a four year old. When we got there at our reservation time we were asked to wait an extra 15 minutes for a table to open up. 15 minutes passed and a lady comes up and says, “sorry we don’t have a table available for awhile in the dinning room but I have a high rise table available in the Lounge.” We were already very hungry as it was way past our time so we took the table. Our waitress was very friendly and polite however whenever we needed her for any concerns, refills etc she was too busy with the bigger tables chit chatting for minutes! We all had medium steaks. My daughter’s steak came out perfect. No complaints 6oz. My husbands and mines steak were well done 8oz’s. I was already agitated so I just sucked it up and ate the meal. My husband sent his steak back. Manager comes over and says sorry and that she will stand beside the cook while he cooks him a new steak and that it was in fact well done and not cooked properly. By the time my husbands food got back to the table, my daughter and I were both done our meals, drinks and were ready to go. The manager gives my husband his meal and the steak wasn’t cooked properly again, she also sent out my husbands meal the second time around with half of his cooked veggies missing and the sauce we always order with our steak. She apologized again and went to go grab the missing items! I told her that this is unacceptable especially being a manager and the fact that she told us she was going to stand beside him to make sure the accuracy is correct yet his meal was more messed up then the first time it was sent out to us. The garlic mashed potatoes for both myself and my husband tasted like boxed mashed potatoes they were extremely runny and zero taste of garlic to them. By the time my husband could enjoy his birthday dessert he was already so overwhelmed that he wanted to take it home. Dinner was a failure at this location. I do not recommend. Management for the kitchen is very poor. 1 star for our waitress for not being rude as she was very polite. 0 stars for the quality of food...