Judge Begbie's Tavern — Restaurant in British Columbia

It's nice to know that others have had a good experience in this place.. we did not. Right off the hop, it smelled like old fryer oil.. another reviewer mentioned this and the owner response was this, "Our kitchen does not have a grill or fryer and everything is cooked in the oven. We do not use oil". Not sure what could be causing it but it was gross. It was karaoke night, the place was packed, which was great! The crowd was happy, the server was not. She walked past our table at least 6 times... We are experienced bartender/servers and totally get it when the server is smoked.. ANY acknowledgement (hey ladies, be with you in a moment, eye contact and a nod) would have been better than none at all. We had to get drinks from the bartender who was super nice and helped us right away. The weirdness happened when we couldn't get the water we ordered along with the drinks.. it was for our other friend at the table who was our sober driver. Bartender stated she would bring it out, we waited.. nothing. Went back up to the bar, paid for the round and politely asked for the water again. Again she stated she'd bring it. We were a little confused as to why we could not just get a glass of water! Finally my friend went up to the bar herself to get it.. when she asked for it, the waitress shouted in her face, "We LOVE serving water here", all nasty.. did not seem like she was joking. Wow. We'll...

The waitress was nice but the cook needs to watch a few episodes of Bar Rescue in my opinion.

Our Hamburger was really pink and seemed uncooked in the middle so we sent it back. She got us a new one and as you can see from the picture, it was similar.

I know you can eat hamburger like this but it would nice to know they checked that it was at least 160 degrees in the middle before serving it.

Considering how difficult it is with COVID for restaurants to get traffic I certainly wouldn't want to keep customers away. In Summary, the waitress was great but I will never go there again unless it's for a beer.

She said we got the burger for staff price. That ended up being $33 or so before tip for 1 burger with fries, 1 soup and two Ginger Beer. hmmmm.

Perhaps a little thing poked into the center of the burger to confirm the temp and then something with the burger would be a smart improvement?

The science behind this: The only way to accurately determine whether ground beef has reached a safe internal temperature is to use a meat thermometer. If you’re served a pink burger, you should always check first to see if it’s reached...

If I had to describe this pub by using a colour it would be: Taupe.

Allow me to explain: It's not a matter of like or dislike with this pub simply because it's really not noteworthy or remarkable on any level and yet not unremarkable at the same time.

I am not a huge drinker by any means. On the occassions that I have been to judge begbies I have always been treated wonderfully by the all the staff.

The pub is very clean, well stocked and has a refreshingly eclectic and diverse selection of beverages. The food is great and prices are on par with its peers.

There are two incredibly bright stars stand out and keep me coming back which are the owner of the pub who is simply a wonderful person to talk to and is totally in his element when it comes to customer service.

The other is a dark haired male bartender that I've had the pleasure of meeting on many of my visits but I have never asked him his name (I will be updating this ASAP)

I guarantee you won't be sorry for making this a stop on...