Smilie's Place — Restaurant in Edmonton

I've been coming to the vault for about 8 years now, enormous fan of the bartender Carla.

Recently the bar has been taken over by new management, they have started doing renos and not a single person is mad about this, they really do need it. Along with these Renos, they have changed the entire system however. When I say "system" I mean;

The Vault has karaoke most nights in a week and is known for its amazing karaoke. They have a new karaoke system itself which isnt that bad (once my husband had fixed the sound as no one working there knew how), but that's not the issue. The problem that The Vault has now, is their new Karaoke host, Jay P, He doesn't care about the sound (ironic being a karaoke music host, I know) he has all of the excuses you could possibly imagine to try and get away with it. On-top of this, he is genuinely the rudest host I've ever met. He has talked down to everyone at my table (who are also regulars of 8 years) aswell as new guests coming to The Vault. On-top of this, The Vault has cut the hours of some of its dedicated Karaoke hosts who have been working here for years.

All around, The Vault has lost our business, aswell as alot of their other regulars for disregarding the people who love this bar.

The only thing that will be missed & the only reason we may return, will not be to promote and bring in business (which we have been happily doing for a long time), it will be only to see Carla.

Carla is the only reason that this business is still a business, she is attentive and loving and truly cares about her patrons... Unlike the...

The place looks the same as it did 10 to 15 years ago , it’s so run down , the washrooms are always a mess and run down even if the place isn’t busy it looks so old and not pleasant , the sign outside is barely visible so faded , the place is called smilies but there really isn’t anything to smile about , I’ve gone by the place almost every night from work and it’s never really busy maybe the most I’ve seen on a regular basis is between 10 to 20 people even on the weekends , I’ve also gone inside on the weekends even on game night and I fear to stay because the atmosphere inside I’m worried that a fight may break out , there isn’t even one security door person there on weekends at least to feel somewhat safe , my wife said she saw drug activity happening in the washroom , and no I don’t mean weed , I mean cocaine was being snorted and a couple people shooting up with needles and not in a diabetic sort of way either.

In my opinion the place needs a face lift , a new sign for sure for people to see the place , at least a door person on the weekends to feel somewhat safe , better serving staff with friendly attitudes that has a bartender and a walk around waitress for the tables. Anyways I hope some changes will be made soon so we can come back to our neighborhood bar once again……if not then turn it into a Chinese restaurant instead cause the food is great. Good Luck...

Some of my friends got assaulted here, the atmosphere after completely changed, it was traumatic and dont think i could ever go back after how staff treated the situation. Edit to add response to owner; i was there and watched it all happen, she was getting pushed around first and got assaulted by 4 different men at the same time because she pushed back, yet as seen by your reply it is clear that you back up 4 men beating on a woman, regardless of situation and its pretty sad even the owner condones it, and my other friend got assaulted as well, when he was a bystander. I heard her say we were all leaving multiple times but the men kept pushing her anyways which was self defense at that point, non of us were looking for a fight by any means. Bartender is sleeping with the man who assaulted them so its pretty obvious why she was chosing sides. Weve been regulars at this bar for a long time, yet were treated very poorly amongst this situation, bartender is an addict herself just like the guy who assaulted my friends, he actually just got out of jail from what ive heard and she was on house arrest herself. Not a great atmosphere in my opinion, hire better people. It was traumatic for all of us, which is why im writing a review. Id hope if a situation rises like this again that the victims would be treated better. Thanks...