The Bro'Kin Yolk — Restaurant in Calgary

Disappointing first experience here. I’ll start with what was good:

The food was tasty. My eggs were cooked perfectly. The lime curd and salted caramel with the mini waffles was delicious. The coffee was good . The bacon had a delicious flavour. The menu selection and quality of food conveys an above-average brunch experience. I read the menu in advance which is why I selected this place, and my expectations were set for an above-average brunch experience. I think that is where the disappointment comes in. The atmosphere and the quality of service we received did not align with the above-average quality menu options.

The negative:

Our server took our drink order( which was coffee for me and orange juice for my guest). His orange juice came quickly, but no coffee came for me at the same time. I was left waiting for 15 minutes for the coffee I ordered, and also waiting for a server to come back to take our order. I recognize it was a busy time, but pouring a customer coffee while they wait another 15 mins for a server to come by to take their order is the bare minimum. If I had a coffee to sip on while I waited , then the wait of 15 mins would have not been as much of an issue.

when the server finally came to take our order, still no coffee and I had to ask for it again. She then took our order (which was an appetizer of mini waffles with different sauces), which were supposed to come first, and then our main dishes to come afterwards. Standard practice when ordering an appetizer.

-My coffee was finally poured after we placed our order.. I was hoping things were on track at this point and that the rest of the experience would make up for it. However when the food came out, it came out all at once. Waffles and both meals all together. So disappointing. Plus the tables for two are small so it’s a lot of plates on a small space.

We ate the mini waffles while our main dish got cold. Once ready to start our main dish I noticed there was no jam or condiments for our toast, and no hot sauce or ketchup for the hash. So we had to wait for the server to come back and let her know we needed some condiments AND I had to ask for more coffee again. Disappointing.

condiments were brought and more coffee was served. However the ketchup and jam ‘packets’ were giving ‘diner/fast food’ , not ‘above average brunch-fare’. Mini bottles/jars in glass containers would have been more appropriate and aligned with the menu.

the space is small, extremely noisy and over crowded.

I feel a bit duped into thinking this was an above-average brunch establishment when the actual experience was giving ‘noisy overcrowded diner with sub-par service’ . I would rather pay more money and get a calmer quieter brunch experience with excellent service. There are plenty of brunch places that do this well, but unfortunately this is not one of them.

I won’t be back and this is why the overall rating...

My fiancée and I have been regulars at Bro’Kin Yolk ever since 2018 and have always raved about the food and quality service. We understand that this is a great spot to eat and for good reason. Of course, with it being popular, it would lead to high traffic and wait times. Perfectly understandable. However our latest experience led us to believe that there may be issues with staffing, and the current waiting system being implemented.

We called in to be put into the waitlist for a party of 3 at 10:30am on a Sunday. They advised that the estimated seating time would be around 12:30pm—which we were okay with. Usually by the time you call in you receive a text confirmation that you’re added to the waitlist, as well as a hyperlink showing your spot in real time. I did not receive this text confirmation until 11:40, so this makes me wonder if we were even put into the waitlist when we had called an hour before. I also did not receive a link showing my spot—which is helpful for planning when it would be appropriate to come to the restaurant. Anyways, we come to the restaurant around 12:30 just to follow-up on our spot, and we were advised that it would be another 10-15 minutes. No problem, it happens.

We follow-up again around 12:50, and we were told that “We have to sit a couple people ahead of you for now and then we’ll get you seated.” Eventually we got seated after another 10 minutes, by now we waited an extra 30 minutes (on top of the two hours from when we had placed ourselves in the queue), which at that point we could have been seated and ordered at the kinjo behind the restaurant. Good thing coffee service was quick.

I don’t know what was in the air but I think there was also a lot of tension between staff, it was almost palpable. Pretty unprofessional, with one of the staff asking the hostess from across the restaurant right over our table: “why are we seating them” in regard to another set of customers. Which if I was the customer they were talking about that would be pretty frustrating to hear considering the long wait times already…

This review is not meant to be critical of the food (which was still consistently delicious), nor the staff, nor the service (I’m sure the people working did all they could at that moment). I understand that sometimes good restaurants have bad days, and sometimes people call in sick, or that there is not enough people to come into work. After today, we feel hesitant to come back, but hopefully this was a one off because we would hate to...

We went to this location for the first time today to have breakfast with some family that were passing through town and wanted to meet our newest addition for the first time. I’ll start by saying the food was wonderful and the service was very timely as far as our food coming but - at the end of our meal, we wanted to finish our coffees and chat for 10 to 15 minutes which in my mind is not a long time at all and is very normal when eating at a restaurant. We paid our bills and we were all finishing our coffees up, and I could see the manager (I think she’s the manager) walking back-and-forth past our table, looking at us. My partner had gotten up and left us to visit while he pulled our vehicle around front and by this time only about five minutes had passed since we paid our bill. A server then came over and took all of our glasses, including our coffee cups that we were still drinking from and about two minutes after that, the manager proceeded to come and ask us to leave as they needed someone else to sit in our table. We were seated at 10:45 and asked to leave by 11:35. Not even an hour at our table for six people to order drinks, eat and pay. I know the restaurant is super busy, but in my mind if I am coming here to sit and eat, it should not be a super rush in and out. If I wanted to be in and out in 30 minutes I could go to a drive through.

I will also mention that when I checked in at the restaurant, I did mention that our infant was in a stroller as she is very young, as the person who checked us in asked if she needed a high chair. When we sat at our table, we were then asked if we could take our baby’s car seat off of the stroller and place her on the floor while we ate so they could move our stroller. There was more than enough walking room behind our stroller and the table behind us - and multiple servers passed through the entire time we were there with no trouble.

Lastly - Our waitress was lovely, and as mentioned the food was great. It’s just unfortunate that we had to rush our visit with our family and could not even have 10 minutes to talk and let them hold our baby while we enjoyed our delicious coffee. It’s extremely unfortunate and cold and due to this, we will not ever be back nor will we recommend this place.

also - after checking the low star rated reviews on this place, it seems this is a very common issue. Sad to know this...