Blackbird Tavern — Restaurant in Keremeos

Its with a heavy heart I write this review. The Wrong Turn Tavern was one of my favourite pub/restaurants to eat out in the Okanagan/Similkameen valleys. The food was delicious, the servers were friendly and the atmosphere was great for what was a small town bar.

Unfortunately, there has been a noticeable decrease in quality when I last ate here. There have been new owners with this place and I will not speculate on their experience or difficulties with the transfer of management.

Sevice: Service was slow. It took a while for us to be seated or even be noticed that we were there. They were obviously understaffed for how many people there. The couple of servers were trying their best but were quite overwhelmed by the amount of people. Our table did not feel we received the attention we needed. It was very busy that night but its no excuse when management should account for such situations.

Food: Prices have gone up. 2 years ago the K Burger was roughly 14.50 with fries. Now its 17 dollars. I understand prices are going up but this is a steep increase with not much better quality. Fries are not the same quality as before. Our buns came cold and servers forgot salad dressing and gravy. The burger itself was okay despite the cold bun; the patty was very delicious. They had run out of their on tap pale ales. This is kinda inexcusable and I would expect more from a so called 'tavern'. They still had IPAs on tap however.

Atmosphere: The place was clean and bustling. No complaints here with the place albeit it was a bit crowded. There was a band playing the night. If that's your thing, then its great, otherwise it will be a bit loud. Personally I can appreciate keeping a local music scene here and I applaud the owner's efforts for it.

tl;dr service was slow and mildly friendly, food was okay but more expensive, on tap beer was lacking. If you had come here before, don't expect it to be the same as 2 years ago with the previous owners. Its not terrible, but its a noticeable drop in quality. 2.5/5 stars I would encourage the owners to implement better quality control with their food and perhaps ask their servers to be a bit...

Horrible service.

#1 - Bartender snatched my cocktail away before I was finished with it - I'd finished my salad so I guess she thought I'd finished with my drink too? That alone would grant them a bad review, but sadly they messed up in other ways as well.

-No one once checked in with me after bringing my food. Totally ignored. Wanted to order something but I did not exist.

-They display bottles of wine behind the bar, but ask for a glass and they have BOXED WINE to serve! This is in wine country!

-The young man who took my drink order walked by 13 times while my card was overtly displayed to pay - he wouldn't make eye contact. He was eating behind the bar, making sodas for himself...wow...when I mentioned this to the ONE other person behind the bar her response was, "He's just a busboy." Then why is he taking drink orders from behind the bar? No apology for my lengthy wait to leave (I had to walk to the register to get some attention to pay).

-I had only a salad (wanted something more but was ignored until I just wanted to get the heck out of there), but it was good. It was also seemed expensive for...

We went on a pretty crazy day! The night we went was the night before their shipment was in so unfortunately they were out of a lot of their menu!

We had a superstar server! Tanya was friendly and made you feel comfortable. She took all four of our orders and was able to remember it all.

My only complaint was that our two friends ordered appetizers and two of us did not - We ended up waiting about an hour for our food and ended up watching the people that came after us finish, and then pay for their dinner.. but there was only one cook on and we were able to snack on our friends appy.

I ordered the Veggie burger, added a few veggies, they were out of fries but had the yam fries and got them at no extra charge!

So with them being out of a lot of the selection on their menu, the strenuous wait time. I was very pleased with how well Tanya kept us informed and her upbeat attitude. The cook ended up leaving this happy face on my patty - who could be upset with that? Everything was delicious and will definitely have to try again when I'm...