Shoeless Joe's Sports Grill — Restaurant in Burlington

All in all a very weird experience for us this evening at Shoeless Joes. When you arrive, the front doors were clearly quickly thrown together as it was 2 plain white doors which were shoved in the main entrance way with a piece of plywood above it and the one door was broken and stuck open. I noticed as we went to leave that 2/3 of the hinges of this makeshift door were broken and it was clearly not a safe entrance way. When we got in the restaurant, you could tell right off the bat they were short staffed, they also told us as much when we got there. We sat at the back by the pool tables which was a really nice area honestly. Our server was very nice but the service was quite slow, took 10 minutes for our drinks to come out (granted we ordered cocktails) and when one of the soda waters came out the cup it came out in was visibly dirty with food particles stuck to the inside of it. The serving staff was very quick to fix this and replaced the drink instantly. We ordered our starters and entrees at the same time thinking the starters would come out before the entrees but we were clearly wrong for thinking that. Our starters arrived at the exact same time as our entrees but it was the weirdest thing, all of our entrees were clearly cold and the starters were very hot and fresh. They also messed up our Philly Cheesesteak and didn't put the cheese or peppers on it. Our Buffalo chicken wrap also didn't arrive so we had to go to the bar to ask about it (as our poor server was running all over the place and we were in such a weird spot for her section) and they said they'd look into it. Our server came over and apologized about the missing entree and took the Philly Cheesesteak back to get fixed. About 10 minutes later the wrap arrived (bone cold) and a new Philly arrived too (hot but with the wrong fries [regular fries instead of sweet potato]). As we went to pay, another Buffalo Chicken Wrap arrived and we told them we didn't order two and they said they'd go look into it. We paid but then checked our bill and realized we were billed for two wraps when we had only ordered the one (I think this was our mistake however as we went to the bar about the wrap instead of talking to our server). Emma (I believe that was the managers name) and our server got it all sorted out very quickly and they were all very apologetic about the mix-up. Taste wise the food was very good but I can't rate it high as everything that arrived was at varying temperatures and there was no consistency. Another thing that was concerning was the state of the bathrooms. The men's washroom door handle was practically falling off the door on the inside, the urinal was broken and leaking and one of the toilets was out of order, leaving the washroom with only one working stall. All in all, service was great, everyone in the front of the house was a pleasure to interact with and had great customer service! Kitchen was very slow and clearly disorganized (took 45 minutes for our food to arrive) and lacking communication with the front of house team. Honestly, the make shift front door should have been our first sign of how the evening was going to run for us. The bathrooms should have been the second indicator that something screwy was going on. Clearly the owners don't care about the state of their restaurant so why would they care about anything else to do with the operations of this place? Honestly, avoid this place for the time being unless you're coming in for a drink, in which case Emma and the front of house team will take good...

This place is atrocious. Not only was there a gas leak problem for months on end, there’s an infestation of rodents, sewage coming up from the basement WHERE THE FOOD IS PREPARED but all they see is dollar signs - so of course, why fix any of these problems... This place was great two years ago. I was an avid customer. After Covid, and a change of management… I was offered a job by the amazing General Manager at the time (who was the only reason this place remained operating somewhat well in my opinion) and began working here. They fired the GM and hired another manager whom they paid half his salary under the table (probably using the cash they take from servers from the tips).

After seeing how food is prepared and handled - I wouldn’t want anyone to eat it. Kitchen staff have no hair nets… no gloves…. and who pick at the food being prepared with their bare hands and eating before being sent out for the customer. photo proof attached

Remove everything else - sure it’s a nice building with a good patio… but the management team is constantly getting new staff (some of whom aren’t even legal to serve alcohol with no smart serve) because they don’t care about their employees. Some girls were working there for 5+ years and finally left after our tips being taken for their own personal use. Every restaurant was hurt by Covid. Most PEOPLE in general were financially hurt by Covid…. Doesn’t give anyone a right to take such a large chunk of employees tips when people think they’re giving it purely to the server.. not realizing it’s being taken from us and we’re lucky to see a quarter of what we made that day. Not to mention, being fired because I brought up that it’s unsanitary for servers to be plating fries with unwashed and ungloved hands. I was let go with a phone call, no write up… no termination paper of any type…. Because they knew it was wrong and literally don’t care. After being wrongfully dismissed, 10 other staff quit the very next day. If that doesn’t say DONT SUPPORT THIS ESTABLISHMENT - I don’t know what does.

I very much agree with this review posted below. “Instead of working on their poor food handling, the rat problem, high turnover of employees and acquiring proper management, Owners spam Google reviews with fake 5 star ratings and mindless replies. It’s a shame that ownership was changed during COVID. This place used to be busy, management was amazing, servers did their jobs happily, food used to be properly prepared/handled and the restaurant used to be clean. It’s hard to believe that this restaurant is still operating, especially with the increasingly horrific reputation they have in the city, particularly in regards to not paying their employees for the hours that they work and then wrongfully dismissing them. Please don’t support this...

Please note our server was the ONLY positive experience. Alright well! Where do I begin? We made a reso for 6:30 for 6 people. Upon arrival, we noticed immediately that the restaurant was NOT busy whatsoever. Our table was not ready and the hostess was miserable to the point we asked her how her night was and she smirked and literally didn’t reply. Once we got to our table it was wet from being quickly wiped but crumbs from the previous people were still there. We wiped it with the napkins that was left on the table for us to dine with. When we went to order our drinks we were told there wasn’t ANY red wine in the whole restaurant. Furthermore, no cherries for a cocktail on the drink menu and no espresso for espresso martinis. After deciding on alternative drinks, it took easily 20-25 mins for the drinks to arrive. Once we got our drinks, we knew the apps we wanted and ordered those immediately. 2 French onion dips, captain crunch chicken tenders and one calamari. We got them relatively quickly but the 2 French onion dips were literally just baked cheese with pita and nacho chips. No onions whatsoever in the French ONION dip. And the chicken tenders were extremely overcooked. We inhaled the apps as the six of us were starving. We assumed while we were eating our apps we would’ve been able to order our mains but didn’t as no one came to our table. So we waited to order our food for a while and 20 mins later we eventually did. After another 40 mins of waiting for our entrees (at this point approx an hour from finishing our apps) one of us asked for when our food would come out, and unfortunately the waitress thought someone had brought it out and apologized. Another couple mins later it came out. Surprise surprise. One meal was cold and soggy, the other meal was a hamburger and was overcooked and hard like a hockey puck, the Philly cheese steak had no onions or peppers on it despite the menu clearly describing those items on the Philly cheese steak. And the fries were upgraded to sweet potato fries and it was the TINIEST portion that would be more fitting for a child’s menu.

We immediately ask for the manager who seemed less than interested in the issue but was extremely apologetic. She comped all the food (apps included). The manager offered a free spinach dip which would “come out in a few short minutes” and we reluctantly agreed as we were really hungry. Needless to say, 20 mins later NO spinach dip came out (which at this point was just pathetically comical) so we paid only for our drinks and left.

I’m not even going to get into details of the gross washrooms with little to no toilet paper and soap.

Very unfortunate to see what used to be such a great establishment be run so poorly. This place needs...