Brickwell Taphouse — Restaurant in Calgary

My fiancé and I came to this pub a few weeks ago for the first time and it was excellent. Wings were awesome, service was awesome, atmosphere was awesome, everything just 10/10.

This experience last Wednesday was awful. The first time we went, I had the sole sister cocktail, which is a cherry whisky paralyzer. It was so yummy I was looking forward to having it again. When I ordered it again, it didn’t have as much of a cherry flavour as the first time. It also didn’t have the same pink-tinge. I kindly asked the server if it was indeed the sole sister and not just a regular paralyzer. She confirmed with the bartender that it was correct. I figured then that the fist time I had it, the server might have just had a heavy hand pouring. No big deal whatsoever and I was in no way being a ‘difficult’ customer, just clarifying since I was so excited for this drink and it didn’t quite taste the same.

Now if the staff had dropped it like I did, I wouldn’t be writing this review. But the bartender felt the need to come up to our table, aggressively show me the alcohol and measurement, and walk away before I could even respond. He literally just came up to us to prove he was right. Then another server who dropped our food off glared at me while wordlessly placing the food on the table. When our own server came back to ask if I wanted another drink, I asked for a water, and the bartender and her started laughing while she went to get it. Not sure if that was about me or not but the timing was pretty uncanny.

I’ve never felt so uncomfortable as a guest before. I’m a server myself and this was ridiculous. I have dealt with much worse guests and I never sh*t talk them right in front of everyone, or feel the need to aggressively approach someone just to prove I’m right. The wings were not very good this time either, quite oily and burnt.

It’s very disappointing because the service and food were so great the first time, and we live close so we really wanted to make this a place we can frequent. We came at 4pm the first time so maybe that’s the secret to fresh wings and no brash bartender there yet. Btw the two servers with the long dark hair are both fabulous. One of them even remembered us from the first time and said hi. So sweet. Really wish the others hadn’t...

The previous bar in this location was getting a little tired so we were keen to see what the management from Captain's would do with the location. We went for lunch and it certainly is cleaner and a better atmosphere though we were a little worried that we were the only customers at noon on a Friday. A couple other tables came in over the lunch hour but it was very quiet.

I like an actual "pint" of beer and like many other establishments, you can't get a pint here, but you can get a pint-priced 16oz glass of beer here. There's a small handful of craft-ish beer here (Granville Island Pale ale but we were warned that other customers had been sending it back due to it being flat) so I had the Wild Rose IPA which disappeared in no time flat due to it missing 4oz. Another member of our party had an Innis&Gunn but it was flat so he sent it back.

I'm sure the Bud, Miller, Coors and Keith's is fresh and I don't think the regulars stray too far from the main stream beer.

I ordered a Sen's burger because I was intrigued. A burger with mushrooms, onions, and cheese... How can you go wrong? Turns out the mushrooms, onions and cheese are part of the patty, not layered on top. It probably said that in the menu so the fault is all mine. I admit to my eyes glazing over after reading the ingredients that I didn't pay too much attention to the rest of the description. In any event, there was a slight taste of onion and I saw a couple small chunks of mushroom hiding in the patty but the burger was generally lackluster. My other peeve is when you get a tossed salad instead of fries and it's clear the salad bag hasn't been cleaned out in a while. My lettuce had lots of brown slimey/wilted pieces that I removed after which there wasn't much left of my salad.

My friend reports the lasagna wasn't anything special. Some noodles tossed in sauce and baked with some cheese on top. Typical bar lasagna I guess though we did like the previous bar's lasagna better.

I assume it's a happening place in the evenings when there's live bands and the clientele enjoys BigBreweryBeer. I'll let you decide if it's the...

The stage was the most amazing part of this facility. We were there for my son’s rock band concert performance. Loved the lighting, sound on stage. I understand they were busy but the attitude of our server was exceptionally rude and unprofessional. She appeared to be either hated her job or just didn’t have it together at all and didn’t know how to communicate with a professional manner other than showing her frustrations. We were hungry with young kids and when asked, she told us she wasn’t taking any orders for food at that moment and then we didn’t see her for another 40 minutes or so. The coffee she brought us was not drinkable. Watered down lukewarm warm drink. We have asked for few menus and when she finally brought them it felt like we have asked her for a favour she wasn’t supposed to be doing. When I showed my frustration as she was impossible to speak to without her being frustrated, she returned and said, sorry once. We waited for foods for long time. She didn’t even go around the table to take the rest of our orders. Some other server finally just came around and took other of 7 members of our table. I went closer to the stage while my son was performing and finally after waiting for so long when food arrived and some of us were not at the table, my son told me that she wasn’t taking any not only frustrated but also told my som where is the person that got mad at me? I have watched other tables being served was getting cleared up. But we again never received the 3 take out boxes we asked for. We had to ask someone else. Overall, the experience was very unpleasant with the service. I hope they figure out number of employees to assign jobs to during a packed event like this. Unless there’s another show, we have to go, otherwise I will not go there. The food was pretty average which isn’t a big deal but this was a different...