Lennox Irish Pub — Restaurant in Calgary

UPDATE:

Some friends and I have been back here recently, as always for wings Wednesdays (worth it). The food remains good and the vibes are on point.

Sparing the details, our waitress informed us that the waitress who served us previously (who the original review was about) was fired. While I can't remember if she said it was directly because of my review or not, I applaud Lennox for taking it seriously, and for taking action. I will continue to come back to such an honorable establishment.

I highly recommend, and applaud, Lennox.

+2 stars.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

Normally I review in batches during the summer but this incident forced me to speak up

Food: 4/5 Atmosphere: 4/5 Service: 0/5 Food is good, charming atmosphere. Very nice for a pub.

However, I recently had a very bad experience with one of the waitresses after being there multiple times beforehand, prompting me to write this more negative review.

The waitress (who never said their name), Bryn (name was on receipt) was quite rude throughout the evening, though especially at the end. I understand it was busy but that's no excuse for attitude, especially when my friends and I were especially sure to be polite and kind given how visibly stressed she was (understandably, it was busy).

The start of the evening, it took a while for her to first 'welcome' us, and some more time for menus. She was good at checking in to see if we were ready to order.

The issues started when she took our order. I wasn't sure if it was $4 wing night or not so I asked her if wings were $4 and she said "yes, but only if you tip. If you don't tip you won't be allowed back and will be banned."

Remember the wording of this response for later.

This, by the way, is ILLEGAL in Canada. You cannot ban someone for not tipping as a tip is a show of gratitude for good service and is based on such. You also cannot force someone to tip, given said definition of a tip.

We all ordered our food. The food, as always, was very good and didn't take too long to come to the table.

When paying the bill, I tipped (as I wasn't in the mood for picking a fight about it) $2 on a bill of ~$11.

After everyone paid, she said (and I quote): "thank you everyone for coming, you and you (pointing at 2 members of my group) are not allowed back as you didn't tip. I will be informing the other servers and making sure they recognize your face for the future as you are banned. Thank you".

Feeling guilty after being called out those 2 members of the table then asked if they could still tip and she allowed them too before saying "you're unbanned thank you for coming".

This was insanely disrespectful, let alone illegal. You cannot demand a tip from someone and threaten to ban them if they don't. I left out some details as this review is already long enough. The fact she also waited until AFTER everyone paid to publicly shame the table after: Not reminding anyone Not specifying that everyone was "required" to tip Shows that this is common practice and that there is no shame for the blatant law-breaking happening.

Additionally, she did not clarify that tipping was for all orders as the initial question and response was specific to the wings. Nor did she originally say that if we didn't tip she'd have to (essentially) pay our meal out of her tip (which in itself is illegal as well).

For everyone's reference, the total amount of food ordered at the table was as follows: Person 1: beer Person 2: pretzel bites and water Person 3: sticky toffy pudding and ginger ale Person 4: 2 orders wings and ginger ale Person 5: burger and ginger ale

Yes, she also forced the 2 people who only ordered one thing to tip as well. Absolutely unacceptable and I expect the establishment to correct this disgusting behavior from their servers.

After I asked around, other tables nearby with the same server, said she did not say anything of the sort to them, neither about a mandatory tip nor that they'd be banned, which is targeted...

I would normally have given a 4 or 4.5 rating but I had an unusual experience there this evening. I have been a semi-regular at this pub , once or twice a month since Covid and new owners. I’ve never had a bad experience, good food, good beer and good staff, etc. Tonight , I went in to play vlt’s and listen to live music. The Saturday night live musician was awesome. I asked the waitress , who was serving vlts and she said she was so I started a tab and had a couple beers. I decided after an hour or so to move to see the musician and have one more beer. I asked/informed the server I was moving , that I wanted one more beer and my tab, and she said okay. She brought me the beer and said , oh I forgot the tab, do you still want it? I said, no that’s fine, maybe I’ll have another. Then, two wonderful ladies walked in that I knew and hadn’t see for a long time. They ordered drinks, and I ordered another and asked for the tab. The server (the same server I had all evening) brought me the tab and I paid it. 10 minutes later, she brought me another tab and said it was earlier tab. I complained a bit as I was confused about why didn’t have a complete bill the first time. I paid her again but mentioned my concerns. I had had a few drinks now and knocked over my beer. It happens. To that point, we were just sitting, enjoying the live music and chatting. An employee (not sure of job title) came and told me I had to leave and never come back. He said they/he? had previous experience with me,every time I was there, it was trouble. Wow. As I mentioned, I was a semi-regular, once or twice a month. Nobody, in the year they opened after Covid, has ever said anything to me about my behavior or actions in their establishment. I was dumbfounded but I knew I had too much to drink to argue. I left, walked home and thought about the situation. I could not think of one reason, aside from me questioning the waitress about the two bills, why he was upset with me. The staff member never gave me an actual example of why or what I did so I am still quite confused about the whole incident. What was more confusing was that there was a fantastic musician playing with very few patrons and he was barring/ kicking out a reasonable, quiet, reasonably friendly , paying customer. Very odd , I don’t...

Love Lennox but, me and the boys went there for wings last night and I honestly never wanna go there again. We didn't even get served menu's or drinks for the first 15-20 min, Ordered our wings and got the wrong wings and I asked them to sauce them with the correct sauce which was no problem for me but the server proceeds to say to me, "well we don't have more wing, that's what you get". Then she took them back after light convincing. Didn't get a single refill the whole time as we're all eating spicy wings, just looked around hoping for some service for about 30 mins, to the point where I had to go to the bar and ask for a refill myself, when my boys went and tried to manually get a refill from the bartender swell he told them "No you guys can't keep coming to me to ask for refills" like its not his job to pour a drink. Servers and Bartender would rather spend more time standing and talking at the bar. Then server proceeded to come ask for a refill once all the food was done and we were ready for the bill and still came back with no refill. Maybe the server was just having a bad day but I've been there a few times and and served by the same server and it was never as bad as last night. Made me fully lose belief in "tipping culture" because I am not tipping if I have to get out of my seat to get another drink, I could of went to McDonalds if that was the case, also being served by someone who looks like they are being forced to work there and don't want to be there. You can scratch your name off the receipt but Lexi you gotta figure it out, your negative energy should not be getting sprayed all over your customers.

This is constructive...