Original Joe's — Restaurant in Calgary

Last night we visited this specific location of Original Joe’s - not all OJ’s are evidently created equal. I had been visiting in Lethbridge Nov/21, March/April/22 and just this past week May/22. I live in Pittsburgh. The OJ’s on the north side in Lethbridge is one of our favorites. So when my friend said she was craving poutine, I said OJ’s has the best ever Buffalo chicken poutine. What a huge disappointment! Fries were soggy; half the amount of chicken-maybe 4-5 strips for each of us; and it was hard to find the Quebec curd -which is supposed to be the star on the fries. The Lethbridge north location version of this dish was piled high with chicken and curds. It was picture worthy. When the waitress brought the order last night, that we had told her we were sharing, I asked where the other half was. I sincerely thought she had already split the order. That’s how big a difference there was between the order in Lethbridge to this 64th Ave location in Calgary . On the plus side, flavor was good. Sweet chili wings were really good. My brother’s fish was good.

Then the drinks. We had a Tito mule. Awful! They don’t use ginger beer but ginger syrup with club soda or something. Waitress did bring a syrupy-ginger that we added to improve the drink. But a disappointment. Next time just say you don’t have ginger beer. Club soda is nasty.

So we tried a Mojito. The mint was not ‘muddled’ and again not sure what the bartender used for the actual drink but not wanting to complain again, we both finished it.

So a final try for a good drink, we both had an Irish coffee. Fail again. I had asked for decaf and my friend had regular. However both tasted like burnt coffee and the whiskey was pretty much non-existent. So I am doubtful I actually had decaf but only the bartender knows for sure. Waite staff was pleasant. Atmosphere was busy but not...

I have been going to The Original Original Joe's in Kensington and Mardaloop for over 20 years. And I often go to this location, probably about 10 times. A waitress came and took our order, that was the first and last time we interacted, then the male bartender served us for the rest of the evening. I usually order the Beef Dip, Before COVID it cost $17 but 2 weeks ago it cost $21. And I spoke with the bartender about there being a lack of Beef, Beef can't be that expensive to skimp out on it after all it a Beef Dip isn't it. I told him that I have been a loyal customer for over 25 years. And I felt like they were cheating out on the Beef, I suggested to him that they could charge a bit more and add more Beef, the Bartender went and called the manager and told him/her what I said the he returned and said they wouldn't raise the price and instead said that the cook was new and probably didn't know how much Beef it should have had. My friend ordered a pound of wings, but it didn't look like a pound, he said that 8 wings were normally a pound, but I later looked it up online and read that 10 to 12 wings were considered a pound before cooking with equal Flats and drums. I wasn't complaining but instead giving feedback from a loyal customer. The bartender acted professionally and gave me $8 off the bill. I gave him a $20 tip for being Professional and for the good service, but he was on the phone when I put it beside him at the bar, so I didn't get to see his response. I own my own service business and I often receive $100 in just tips from my 3 customers per day total so I like to treat the servers well for good service in return that show me good...

Not the worst service we've ever had, but pretty close. This was our last evening in Calgary and we were hoping for another great experience like we'd had for the past week all over the place, disappointing it didn't work out that way.

Our dinner arrived, what was put in front of my wife was the spicy Shanghai beef bowl. Unfortunately that's not what she ordered. Our server did not come back for over 10 minutes after we tried to wave her over multiple times. Explained to her that what was actually ordered was the spicy steak burrito bowl. She was apologetic but it took almost 15 minutes for the replacement to appear.

I had asked for another beer, but that never arrived. I reminded her about the beer when the replacement meal showed up. Considering this was bottled Corona Cero, it took a lot longer than it should have. Meanwhile the remainder of my fish tacos got cold while I was waiting for that beer to arrive.

All the food was actually pretty good.

But there was a fly that kept nagging us, kind of annoying. It actually landed on our servers hand when she brought the machine to pay, but apparently just ignored it.

Although we were annoyed very much with this place, the food was good and it would be unfair to not tip, so we did. I thought the bill was a bit high but we just wanted to get out of there.

When we got to the car my wife pointed out that our server did not remove the incorrect meal item. We were furious, but I just didn't want to deal with her so we walked away, I definitely would not have been polite or understanding.

We would never be back to this original Joe's...