Cactus Club Cafe — Restaurant in Burnaby

You know, I remember back in the day when Cactus Club was known for their cow-themeed decor… seems like those days are long gone now (probably for the best). You just have to look at their recently opened location in Station Square. You can tell that they must have spent a lot of moolah here. That being said, I can’t say that I was very impressed by our visit.

The interior here seems to be very carefully crafted to showcase their brand… that means dim, warm lighting and a little too much attention paid to looks instead of substance. The first thing that I noticed when we were seated was that each table had only 1 menu. Given that there were two of us, you would have thought they would have offered to get us another menu so we could both look it over at the same time. Instead, I had to steal one from one of the nearby empty tables. Once I actually got to look over the menu, I noticed that they’ve pared things down quite a bit and don’t offer many of the dishes that I used to like (seems they had to make room on their menu for the current trend of plant-based items instead).

We decided to share the Tuna Stack ($18.75) and Chicken Wings ($15.75). Both items (long-standing menu offerings) were pretty tasty. Service, however, was pretty non-existent… no water refills, no one to check in on us… I remember (a long time ago) when we used to have hot wings at Cactus Club and they actually brought you out wet wipes and even finger bowls… I don’t think we even received extra napkins here. These are basically finger food items, you’d think that they would realize that people will get their fingers dirty, sigh.

I think, if anything, I was just disappointed with how things have gone downhill for Cactus Club (I really liked the direction they were taking when Rob Feenie initially came on board years ago). However, it seems like they’re just resting on the past laurels and pumping out cookie-cutter concepts that cut down on service for the sake of maximizing profits. That being said, they must be doing something right because they sure seem super busy. Maybe I’m just expecting more from them because I know they could do better if they tried.

We actually wound up coming back here the following month for a family dinner and ordered their $42 Christmas Special which includes your appy and dessert. For my appy, I opted for the Starter Spicy Chicken with Wontons – a fairly meaty serving with noticeable sweet and spicy flavours to the sauce.

For my main, I upgrade to the filet for an extra $11 and I have to admit that this turned out pretty good. The steak had nice cross-hatching on the exterior (wish they had better lighting in here).

My steak was prepared perfectly to my order and those creamy mashed potatoes were pretty on point as well. All that being said, they did get some of our dinner orders wrong. I’m not sure why it’s so difficult to get orders correct… write it down if you have to and make sure you give it to the right person.

Speaking of which, I ordered the Caramel Chocolate Mousse Duo for dessert but they wound up giving me the Key Lime Pie by mistake but we didn’t want to make a fuss about this. Actually, I found the key lime pie was actually much better than the other dessert.

As my second visit to this location confirmed, service here could be improved.

UPDATE - July 2025: We don't come here as often as previously (mainly because they keep getting rid of their best items from their menu). This time, had a Virgin Mojito and Little Pearl (it anyone at Cactus is reading this, those little pearls don't fit in the skinny straw you give us making it impossible to get to). Tried the Truffle Parmesan Chicken (not bad but the the chicken was a bit dry). Preferred the Blackened Creole Chicken which we also had because of the better flavor and the chicken which...

Went for dinner to celebrate my sister's birthday today with 3 other people and it was an experience we will never forget.

Our server was Zach - he was very cheerful and friendly. When he took our order, he double checked what we wanted and also was happy to accommodate some requests we had (ie: water refills, additional cutlery and plates). He was also really patient with us when we needed additional time to order.

We started with the Salmon Aburi Roll; Prawn Crunch roll; yam fries; Four Mushroom steak; and two millionaire's cut, one being the striploin the other being the filet. We asked for medium rare, and unfortunately the steak came out as rare, with some parts close to blue rare. However, the flavours of the sauce + the texture made up for that, as the steak was very succulent and also melted in my mouth. In addition, the mashed potatoes were creamy and warm; the grilled eggplant was nice and crunchy, and every bite of the cajun shrimp was a burst of delicious flavours.

The Salmon Aburi and Prawn Crunch roll were phenomenal. The way they presented it was unique and beautiful. The piece of salmon was juicy and tender; the piece of prawn was crunchy and had a good texture in my mouth.

Yam fries were sweet and crunchy with an amazing dipping sauce.

After we were done with the steaks, we decided to order the mini burgers and the Ravioli + Prawn trio. The mini burgers had great sauce accompanied with it and the patty was delicious - it was bursting with flavour. The Ravioli + Prawn trio was presented beautifully and blew me away - the flavours of the cheese melted in my mouth; the doneness of the ravioli was soft and the garnishes were amazing. The shrimp was a bit sour.

I really enjoy the vibes of the restaurant. It is very cozy and modern. The paintings on the wall were beautiful; the lights used in the dining room were very artistic. I even got to see the head chef expediting the cooks; I could feel the stress the kitchen team was going through, which made me respect the dishes I was ordering more.

It was very expensive - the total of these dishes we ordered was around $258, but it was worth it. I would 10/10 recommend and will definitely be...

Very nice location and easy accessible, this cactus club is brand new and you can tell, our server told us it was only her 2nd time serving brunch. This is exactly why we drove all the way here, for the brunch. This location is the only one trial testing a weekend brunch menu and it’s pretty good.

If you arrive here before noon, which we unfortunately didn’t, you can get all brunch menu items for $9.75, it’s called their power brunch hour, good deal. Had we known that we probably would have come earlier, nevertheless the food is tasty and although the portion sizes aren’t big it’s pretty filling. I would probably recommend coming before noon otherwise it can be a little pricey, $3-$7 more per dish.

I understand this is a new location and they need to obviously work through all the growing pains, but it was pretty obviously that it was a new location. Apart from our server telling us she had only previously done 2 brunch services, there was a server who dropped a few plates, and I was told that they can’t make any order modifications, which I could not understand. I didn’t ask for anything over the moon, I simply asked for my egg to be cooked over easy and somehow that wasn’t really an option, at least when ordering the breakfast sandwich. After convincing our server to speak to her manager she came back and told us that it was actually possible. When we received our food I was told that the sandwich is actually normally cooked with an over easy egg anyways, but when I took a bite the yolk was over hard. Naturally I complained saying I asked for it over easy, she apologized and said she would bring us a new one. At this point my fiancée had already finished her food before my new sandwich arrived and that’s when they mentioned that they actually break the yolk while cooking so when the customer bites into it the yolk doesn’t get everywhere. Except that is exactly what I wanted. Very confusing.

All in all the food was very good and I would come back here, maybe once all the kinks have been...