Royal Electric Bar & Public Eatery — Restaurant in Guelph

My wife and I went to Royal electric based upon a recommendation from friends of ours.

To begin the service was great, our waitress was attentive and was able to take our drink and appetizer order. Upon receiving our drinks & apps we ordered from the menu and that's where our service and food took a drastic turn.

I ordered the chicken sandwich with a Caesar salad as the side for an extra $3. My wife ordered the lobster roll with sweet potato fries as a side for an extra $3. Our waitress took down our order and went to the table right next to us.

Before our food arrived (which took a long time, but I assumed it would take longer due to covid). Our waitress informed my wife that her lobster roll wasn't available anymore (again, not a major problem. Assumed it was due to covid) so she ordered the Calzone.

When our food finally arrived, I received my chicken sandwich with a regular house salad on the side and my wife received her calzone with a house salad on the side. I went to confirm with the individual who brought out our food that these weren't the correct sides that we had ordered.

We were told "Well they weren't on the order so we can't give them to you." Then "if we were to make them for you we would have to charge you for them." Which was completely fine to my wife and I as we were already prepared to pay extra for those sides. Before even giving us an opportunity to answer he just walked away.

So after starting our meal which was incorrect, our waitress comes over about 5-10 minutes later and asks if everything is ok. Which we then tell her that no, it isn't because our sides weren't correct which she then proceeds to tell us no, that's not what we had asked for (even though after confirming with my wife that we did order those sides), but she can have them made up for an extra cost. At this point, I just wanted to finish my food, pay and leave. I said don't bother as we were almost done our food, and she said to us "It won't be a big problem, I can have them make it up right now." My wife also asked for a better knife to cut her calzone as they only provided a butter knife to cut through it and the waitress went back into the restaurant. After a 5-10 minute wait she comes out with a Caesar salad and in a condescending tone says to me "see, not a problem at all". Then leaves before we can ask again for a better knife to cut my wife's dinner with.

At the end of our meal we asked for a box for my wife's leftovers and were met with the most obnoxious eye roll. After receiving the bill we were charged for 2 caesar salad sides and a side of sweet potato fries. At this point I just wanted to leave so I paid for it and we left.

For the food, the chicken sandwich definitely didn't meet expectations as it was on the smaller side and similar to something you could get from 7/11. The slushies that we ordered were okay and my wife wasn't impressed with the calzone. The best part of our meal was our appetizer which was the loaded fries.

Highly unlikely that we give this place another chance if we are in town.

TL;DR - Food is average at best & Staff will place blame on customers and charge you for food you...

Perhaps one of the worst venues I have visited downtown Guelph by a landslide. I did not enjoy any part of my visit to Royal Electric, which was rather disappointing as I had high hopes for this popular bar. When I arrived at this location I was greeted by a woman who informed me that I would be charged a $5 cover to enter the venue. I asked politely if there was an ATM inside as I was not carrying cash. She said no, I would have to walk across the street to Double Dragon and attempt to use their ATM (This ATM was out of order and barricaded behind a table). After eventually finding a working ATM in a nearby convenient store I returned to Royal Electric and was finally allowed inside the venue. The first thing I saw when I walked into the bar was, in plain sight, a perfectly working ATM machine! I'm not sure why the employee would lie about such a seemingly trivia detail, but I had a good laugh at this staff member's ignorance and tried not to let this negative experience bother me.

I then sat down at a table on the patio with 5 of my friends and was turned off by the large amount of what appeared to be bird poop on our table.

After waiting approximately 15 minutes for a staff member to serve us and clean our table, I realized that if I desired any sort of customer service whatsoever I would have to walk up to the bar and demand it.

The bartender saw me pull out a credit card and quickly informed me that the bar was "cash only". This seemed a little unprofessional, especially considering the fact that the employees didn't seem to realize an ATM machine within their own facility existed. I proceeded to take out cash for a second time, this time at the bar's ATM. (It definitely exists)

I walked back up to the counter with my cash, ready to finally place my drink order, just to find out that my friends had paid for their drinks with a credit card and did not run into the frustration I did. At this point I left without ordering anything and promised myself I would never come back to a bar in which the employees are utterly infuriating. The entire process at this restaurant is staggeringly useless and flawed down to its very core.

P.S. The venue did not have more than 10 people inside it when I arrived. It was not busy at all, there was no live music playing yet, nobody was standing at the bar, nobody was in line at the door. Myself and those accompanying me were nearly the only customers the staff were required to focus on and we still did not receive anything close to an adequate level of...

Nine of us arrived here as part of a friend’s Christmas celebration and ordered drinks. A few tables were marked reserved so we found a small table at which we could place our coats/jackets and a few members of our group could sit, which was notably not marked reserved. Their sole security person at this time (9.30pm) came to the table and advised us this was part of the reserved larger table next to it. In the time it took three people to shuffle out of the booth, with one person from the back of the booth now sitting at the exit of the booth, the security came back with a towel and a confrontional attitude.

As we had not cleared the empty table in the short time frame he deemed appropriate, despite having no waiting patrons for this unmarked table, he informed us we could be invited to leave after finishing our drinks. A member of our party spoke with him regarding same and the security became more irate, departing the table which he had by then pushed against the table which was marked reserved, called us “f**king losers” before taking his leave.

A member of our party followed him to attempt to address the issue and his extremely poor customer service which resulted in his expulsion from the bar. I remained with my friend to listen to the conversation, the security stood by his position to call customers “f**king losers” and affirmed his comment. A member of staff stood with him, presumably as witness, as he remained outside the conversation.

Some bars don’t care about their customer service if they’re busy and that’s their prerogative; but having agitated and confrontational staff is a sure way to guarantee at least 9 people won’t be returning.

Otherwise the bar service was prompt, interior was lovely and the inside is immaculate. Would have liked to spend...