Original Joe's — Restaurant in Langford

We went here Tuesday night and it was not only the worst service I've ever had the food was terrible. We have never been to the one in Langford but used to frequent the one in Duncan often and usually order the same thing, theTruffle parmesan Potato crisps, Lettuce boats, calamari and wings. We get the Truffle potato crisps and they tasted plain, no truffle oil and barely any parmesan cheese, I mention it to the waiter and he's response was "well that's what they always look like" 🤔 doesn't mean the taste is the same. My daughter gets embarrassed and says "they're fine" the waiter just walks away says nothing. We try the calamari and it was incredibly over cooked to the point of being dry and tasteless. I ask to speak to the manager, she comes over with  attitude like it's our fault it wasn't cooked right. I explain and she asks if we want it re cooked, no apology, nothing! I said we are over the calamari 🤢 but the truffle chips we will take to go. With attitude she grabs them off the table and walks away. Then I ask our waiter for a to go container and he brings me this tiny one it would barely fit in, I asked for another one or bigger one, he's response "it'll fit" I show him, he continues to argue with me over it, I then ask him why he's even arguing about this and he replies "you're arguing with me". He was incredibly arrogant and has absolutely no waiter skills what's so ever. He then walks away and grabs me a little one. Then we get a new waitress cause I'm guess he refused to come back. She's great gives us out food to go, we pay our bill, which they only took the calamari off, fair, then we get home and thermy neglected to put any parmesan cheese on our new order of truffle chips which at that point I was just over it. Instead of this restaurant taking any sort of constructive criticism they basically blammed us from the beginning with huge attitude. I didn't even bring up the dry wings cause I was picking my battles at that point. We left angry, unsatisfied, and felt disrespected as a customer in a restaurant. I waitressed for years and know how the restaurant industry works and this was far from it.

Update:

So a year later we decided to try it again...wrong choice. Our hot wings has no sauce on them and were incredibly dry, I ask the waitress if they're supposed to have sauce on them she responds "a little bit" with huge attitude, I then explain that they just taste like plain chicken, she grabs the plate and says "I'll put more sauce on them" and walks away, she comes back slams them down on the table and says "there I also put sauce on the side" so now I have plate of wings swimming in cold hot sauce and a sieof hot sauce that's just going to be wasted. She turns around walks away. The other waitress noticed there was an issue and came over to smooth things over, I explained to her now there's cold sauce on cold wings and the wings were so over cooked there was no meat on them and incredibly dry and same with my friends, she offered a box to go🤦‍♀️ terrible food and terrible service. Don't bother wasting your money. But the one in the Cowichan Valley is really good so that'll be our go to...

I hadn't been to OJ's in a very long time but decided to go for wings with the family and a friend last night. The service was absolutely terrible. She was clearly having a bad day or just didn't care and shouldn't have been working. There were no smiles and it was anything but friendly. She never offered to grab a booster seat for our tiny toddler, rarely came by to check drinks and didn't ask if we wanted any more food. We had to catch her if we wanted anything as she walked by or ask other servers. Dirty plates were left on the end of the table as she walked back empty-handed many times, and as another server was helping us pay, she walked by and barely glanced at us as she said "Thank you, have a good night" and continued walking. Not even slowing down. I worked in the restaurant industry for years and this was absolutely embarrassing. We are anything but high maintenance, the kids were well behaved, and there was no reason for this lack of service. If tips are expected or wanted, the level of service has to make me want to return. I live very close and will once again probably avoid this place. They also seem to be cutting costs by seasoning wings less and not adding any veggies on the side (maybe they could ask if we want them instead of just not adding to anyone's plates?). The calamari was dry and not something I'd order again. We all work hard for our money, and this doesn't seem like the type of place I'd like to spend mine again...

It felt like we didn't matter. It took twenty or more minutes for our server to take our order. Nothing complicated, just asked for the burger sauce on the side because the people at the next table had a lot more sauce than we prefer.

Then we waited again. I didn't time it so this is only a guess, but another table came in after we ordered and recieved their food before we got ours. We waited more than a half hour. The place was busy but not at capacity.

When we did get our food, it looked good. However, it was barely warm. The burger was well done and dry so I think it was sitting under the heat lamps for a while. Burger, warm but dry (the sauce on the side helped). Fries, just warm, onion rings, again just warm.

However, the portions were generous and I was happy with the side selections. My veggies and dip were crispy and fresh and the ceasar salad was exceptional.

Then there was another long wait, at least twenty more minutes waiting for the bill even though the server looked our way at least four times after our plates were cleared. Maybe she was waiting to see if we would hang around for supper where she might offer better service. Not likely.

Overall, I was disappointed enough that the next time I'm in the area I will choose...