Whistle Stop Neighbourhood Pub — Restaurant in Courtenay

Just STOP at the Whistle Stop! This under-rated, 80% locals nice-little-pub has some CRAZY hidden gems. We had the steak-n-prawns special ($15 😯) and the (you’ll need to sit down for this) STONEGRILL halibut. I can’t even. This seemed like an item that would be comfortable in any upscale urban restaurant. Pardon me going in and on about this menu item… it is a hot stone, 6”x6” (or maybe 6”x4”?) at 800 degrees, with lemons and then the halibut (raw) that cooks as you get oriented to your meal. You get salad or soup, an entire potato with fixins, and veggies. Add your butter to your veggies and then put them on the stone too! It is the freshest, hottest food you’ll have in a long time. 100% recommend this and there are steak options too. We had some good Guinness/ Kilkenny and hope the pub will feature even some cans of very local beer. Vancouver Island draft choices are good, but as always more would be better. Our server has been with the pub for 17 years and pretty much knows everyone which is saying something good. It’s down home, not fancy, keep your decor expectations low, but the menu and smiling faces mights surprise you in a good way. 👍 Sorry I ate all the food before I took the pictures....

Today, on March 5, 2025, I attended a Celebration of Life for my friend, followed by an after-party. I ordered a virgin Caesar drink and coffee, both of which were amazing. A friend sitting next to me ordered a Cajun Calamari Caesar Salad that looked incredible. After some debate about spending $20, I finally decided to order the salad as well.

It was fantastic! The Caesar Salad was delightful, and you couldn’t even taste the purple onions. The Cajun Calamari, however, was on another level—it was crispy, perfectly seasoned, and not chewy at all. Their homemade tzatziki sauce complemented the dish beautifully.

This entire meal was to die for, and it even came with a piece of garlic toast that was toasted perfectly; it wasn’t too garlicky. I highly recommend this dish to anyone who enjoys seafood—it's phenomenal!

I had never been to the Whistle Stop Pub before, despite living here for 11 years, but I will definitely go back. Our waitress, Sahara, was fantastic; she didn’t even charge me for the coffee, which was greatly appreciated...

If I could I would leave a -100 stars for service today, I understand at times they are short staffed and our servers before today have been amazing apologizing if their service is slow and are always friendly no matter how crazy busy it is. Today it was fairly slow far less people than usual we had to go order our own drinks from the bar, get our own menus and in the 25 minutes we were there no sign of a server, when she finally came she looked at us and said oh everything’s okay at your table, did not ask if we would like to order breakfast. At that point I asked for our bill, the server Lisa actually got snotty and rude with my husband when he mentioned that we were there for breakfast but were ignored. We usually frequent this establishment weekly because the Sunday breakfast are delicious and inexpensive we like supporting local business especially in our neighborhood, next time we will go somewhere else. Very...