Montana’s BBQ & Bar — Restaurant in Hamilton

Went to this location as we typically enjoy the Montana’s on Upper James but this one happened to be closer at the time.

Everything started off fairly normal, the server came over and he was very pleasant. He took the kids food orders as my wife and I hadn’t decided yet. He said he would come back in a couple of minutes to give us time to decide.

We did not see another server again for almost half an hour and that was a different server to bring out the kids food. She asked my wife and I if our order had been taken yet and I said no. She apologized and I said that its fine, not a big deal and we gave her our order.

My wifes and my food came about another half hour after that. The restaurant was empty besides us and a couple sitting behind us so im not sure what the delay in the kitchen was but again, not worried about it, I just want to have a nice family dinner, delays arent the end of the world.

I ordered the steak (medium rare), a baked potato and coleslaw. I got a steak that was tougher than shoe leather. Well done and then some. It also wasnt seasoned that well and seemed to be mostly salty. I took a few bites and it wasnt really edible, super tough to chew and the flavour was bad. I had a long day at work and was really looking forward to a family dinner, so this was incredibly disappointing, but I was determined to not let anything spoil this family dinner so I decided to just eat the baked potato and coleslaw instead.

The baked potato was very tough as well and it was absolutely COVERED in salt to the point that I had to scrape a ton of it off just so I could choke down a few bites. I gave up on that as well and last ditch tried to enjoy the coleslaw and it was just pure salt as well.

My wife got the burger and fries and she could not stomach it either. We politely asked for our bill as it was now late on a school night and we sat for over an hour for some of the worst food we've ever eaten. We paid the bill which was in the neighbourhood of $150 plus tip and left without a fuss. We ended up grabbing Mcdonalds on the way home so that we could at least have something to eat before bed.

I am a manager in the customer service industry and I have to deal with customer concerns all day long so I am the last person in the world that wants to leave a negative review, but I leave this review in the hopes that it can be used constructively and not taken as a negative or a plea for a gift card.

This location has a rating of 4.3 stars so im sure it was...

We came on a Monday night. Decent dinner rush but no long line up. Got wait listed was told it would be 20 min. Great it's a plaza we will go to Michael's. 40 minutes pass and we didn't get a text message, we go to the restaurant the place was half empty and they didn't even have any decency to text I was unhappy and the hostess gave me a half asked apology said "let me talk to your server" obviously didn't. We get our app, had to ask for cutlery because we weren't given any, when received cutlery the cutlery had a nice bi thumb print on the fork, I asked our server Cory if they polish they're cutlery, he said they did and fetched me a new set, you can tell they don't; if they used water and vinegar the residue spots from the dish machine wouldn't be present. I then received my wings and my partner did not get her main. The server then asked if everything here was good, meaning they forgot to ring in my partner's food, sure enough minutes later she got her SP fries and pulled pork, blamed it on kitchen issiues, so either your expo person let the food without a complete chit or you didn't ring in. I get the bill despite and my horrendous experience and with no acknowledgement of the inconveniences I got the pleasure of paying thw full bill with a 15%tip, I know 18% is a standard but at least I tipped something for the layered problems I had. Lastly I can tell this restaurant is poorly managed. First the host didn't have the proper training, and was not even at the host station, believe it or not you can polish cutlery standing up. You also discuss issiue s with your manager not the server, if you have a feeling about a disgruntled guest refer to your manager or supervisor, you are a chain there are training standards. I can tell how lax the restaurant is as the host has a nice glass of ice tea at the hostess stand, and yes you can say your thirsty but I'm sure most franchises have a rule where drinks should be kept in the back. I didn't see a manager/supervisor checking on quality control either. It might just be because it was a Monday night but holy heck what a horrendous mess. Wouldn't recommend here at all unless you want to be treated like a piggy bank and...

Night manager saved the day

It's not often you can write a positive restaurant review after the kitchen disappoints, but that was my experience last night.

My daughter and I found ourselves in the area with a bit of time to kill, and decided to pop into Montana's and grab some nachos. It was around 9 on a weeknight, so things were very slow and the night manager offered us a booth near the bar, which was fine.

The bartender/server was pleasant and quick to get us menus and take our orders. We knew exactly what we wanted and our soft drinks and order of pulled pork nachos was on the table within 10 minutes.

There was a healthy pile of nachos, with a sufficient amount of the standard toppings but little evidence of the pulled pork we had paid a few bucks extra for. I kept thinking we'd come across more pulled pork as we dug down deeper into the pile of nachos, but except for a couple of small shreds here and there, we never did.

Of course I was not thrilled, and considered complaining but at that point we didn't have time to wait for them to prepare another order and I really didn't have the time or energy to deal with things if it became a hassle. Basically I was going to write it off and just vote with my dollars by never coming back.

Right at that point the night manager came over to our table and asked how everything was. I said the service was great but pointed out the pulled pork situation with our half finished plate of nachos. He took one look, said I was absolutely right and apologized. He was super nice, very sincere, and said he would make it right. At the end of the day, he only charged us 50% for the nachos, comped our drinks, and sent us on our way with a complimentary bottle of Montana's BBQ sauce.

The kitchen screwed up here for sure, but the way this night manager (who said he was new on the job) took a proactive approach to checking in with us and addressing the quality issue means that instead of me never going back there I'll be happy to give them another chance...