The WORKS Craft Burgers & Beer — Restaurant in Guelph

Update 2: First pic is when my friend called to tell me they sat down, I was a minute away and we ordered within five mins of that call. Second pic is us with still no water at the table and a time stamp. That is almost a half hour later (and it was still another good chunk of time before water came), so no, drinks did not come within ten minutes, let alone water. Management responded to my friends email saying they can confirm the food arrive within 30 minutes.. if you can "confirm it", than please show us the evidence you had to confirm this because that's a joke. Also, we DID let our waitress know one guest had to leave early, so this manager truly has no idea what they are talking about. They apologize but then accuse us of lying in the same email. I never plan to go here again so I know it seems ridiculous to make a big deal out of this but the lie after lie after lie from management is what has us all fired up.

Update: How are you possibly going to lie and say the drinks were served in 10 minutes when we hadn't even been greeted in 10 minutes??Water came at around 45 minutes and drinks after almost an hour- this is not an exaggeration, we were constantly checking the time because we were so stunned at how slow the service was despite their only being five tables. Literally roll the cameras.

Our food did not go cold because we went outside, we went outside BECAUSE we saw that our order had been forgotten and was only just placed.

The poor service is one thing but to now blatantly lie about it is actually crazy. The whole situation could have been rectified if at any point someone communicated to us the mishap. A few people in our group are servers themselves and we would have understood. Shocked at this response, the lies are actually laughable.

New management should NOT get to keep the five star reviews that the old management collected from providing good service.

Would like to preface this by saying we have had a decent experience at the Works before in the past but the service we had tonight was by far the WORST service any of us have ever had at a restaurant. Although we didn't speak with management, it is obvious the works is under new management after reading similar reviews. It's been a few hours since we left and we still can't stop talking about. We were a party of 6 and it wasn't slammed at all, we were one of 5 tables. We ordered our drinks and food and our drinks didn't come for 55 minutes, even water took 45 minutes. Our friends beer was handed to her in the uncracked can, which is illegal. More time passed and our friend had to leave for an appointment still without food. About 40 or so mins go by and we're all stunned at how long it's taking for food, when we see them finally put our chit up in the kitchen, meaning our order was forgotten about, but never communicated to us. The food finally comes almost two hours into being there and it's so cold.. not just not hot, legitimately cold, which made no sense since they obviously rushed to get it to us since we were forgotten. The meat was the driest meat any of us have ever had. We communicated this to our server and we werent rude about it because we felt bad for her and she says "oh, I'm sorry" and walks away... Doesn't tell her manager or anyone because she obviously was aware this mixup had been her fault and didn't want to get in trouble. Just own your mistakes, we truly would not have cared. But to wait almost 2 hours, have the coldest driest food ever, nothing comped and no communication. That was the ONLY time I have ever tipped 0 dollars, even when I have bad service I'll do minimum 15%. I wish we refused the food honestly, but we were all way too starving. Waste of money and calories. Will...

** Update - literal lies to say the drinks were on the table within 10 minutes - we sat in the restaurant for a solid 10-20 minutes before the server even came over to greet us and we waited much longer to finally get water. Y’all it wasn’t even busy at all. There were 4 other tables.

While smoking outside we had a clear view of the food window so we definitely did not see our food up at all. We went for a smoke when we saw our server freak out and tell the kitchen she forgot to place our order. Y’all were waiting for the burger patty’s to cook cause they were the only hot things on the plate. The fries were colddddd.

Your response honestly just proves the lack of accountability the management here has. The copy and pasted responses are whack. There was no management in sight that night and if there was they certainly weren’t helping the young waitress at all.

I could literally keep going with how bad the experience was.

Also it’s a huge no to hand an unopened can to a customer. We are all servers and all did our smart serve, we know this. Doesn’t matter about customer preference.

**

Honestly this was a terrible experience. The service was terrible. Took a literal 50 minutes to get drinks. Took another 30 minutes to get food. The server clearly forgot to ring our orders (we were sitting at the table and saw the interaction she had with the kitchen when she realized the mistake) to preface, I am a server and did feel bad for her at a point. On the other hand, we told her the food was cold - no offer to remake the fries, no discount was offered. Absolutely no communication on the servers end. Customer service was severely lacking. It was sooooo frustrating. We were a bunch of stoned hungry people so we did eat it most of it when it eventually got to the table. But seriously we all regretted going here. My friend took her patty home to her dog it was super dry. Clearly the place needs better management cause this wasn’t a busy night in the slightest. Thank god the dessert bar next door redeemed the experience. Literally will nevvvver go back. Management you...

Based on reviews, I decided to check out this place while I was in town. While I wasn't unhappy with my meal, the food wasn't good enough to merit a return visit.

We arrived at dinner time on a weekend, and were promptly received and taken to a seat. Our hostess came by quickly thereafter and brought drinks and menus. We ended up ordering a Tower-o-Rings, a beef Growler Five-O, and a chicken Peppercorn Broiler.

The Rings were ok: they were hot and large, though the breading lacked much seasoning. Our dips included a chipotle mayo and a curry mayo: the latter was excellent, whereas the former was mediocre at best. For the price I wouldn't recommend buying this item from the menu; choose a different starter instead.

The Growler Five-O was incredibly tasty and the meat was well done. Unfortunately, the BBQ sauce is on the top of the burger along with the other toppings. This meant that a great deal of the onions and other toppings just slid off the burger and onto the plate. Very disappointing.

The Peppercorn Broiler was good, but far from excellent. The chicken was perfectly cooked and it was well-crusted with peppercorns. I really like peppercorns, so this was fine by me! However, the peppercorns entirely overpowered the rest of the toppings; the gouda cheese and bacon didn't even serve as accents against the taste of the peppercorns. This was disappointing: why is the bacon and gouda even there if they can't be appreciably tasted? The chips that came with the Broiler were often soggy and lacked much taste without a dose of the tzatziki mayo that I ordered as a dip.

On the whole, I wouldn't say that we had a bad experience at The Works. But I also wouldn't say that we had particularly good food, and there are better restaurants like the Woolwich Arms that are within just a few minutes walking distance. Given the choice again, I'm heading to the Wooly; the food I had at the Works doesn't merit a...