Captain's Cabin Neighbourhood Pub — Restaurant in Mission

Abysmal: really weird staff, mediocre food and terrible service.

I and some friends came in for a late lunch on a Sunday afternoon. We didn't see any servers so we seated ourselves. After about 10 minutes a waitress came by and handed us menus and also brought us some cutlery (6 knives, 7 napkins and 4 forks for a group of 5). We ordered some drinks which came about 5 minutes later. The drinks were mixed up so we sorted it ourselves (no big deal) and the waitress took our order.

As we went around placing our orders, my girlfriend asked about the soups but was politely told they didn't have any soup that day. She then asked about curly fries and was told they had also run out of those. She ordered a quesadilla instead. I placed my order for a club sandwich and onion rings. The waitress then told me that they were also out of onion rings. I asked for some regular fries and thankfully they had some. The other orders were a Greek salad, nachos, and a deluxe burger. The person with the deluxe burger also asked for something else which we were told they had run out of.

As we were waiting for the food, my girlfriend spotted a waitress go by with a side of onion rings that had supposedly run out for another table. I dismissed it assuming it had been the last batch. A few minutes later we saw another plate go by with curly fries, and then later a bowl of soup. So...they just ran out of everything exactly as we arrived or was the waitress that incompetent???

As we were wondering aloud about this our own food arrived (mostly). The Greek salad didn't show up until much later. The person who had ordered the burger found it had too much extra pepper sprinkled on it for his liking so he waved the waitress over and asked her to take it away (he had been there several times previously and said it wasn't like that in the past). The nachos seemed ok, and the quesadilla actually looked good. I tried a few of my fries and found them to be horribly salty. It was like they had salted them normally and then dumped a bunch of seasoning salt on them as well.

About 5 minutes went by and man appeared whom I assume is the owner or manager to talk about the peppered burger. Rather than introducing himself and starting out by saying something like "I understand the food wasn't to your liking, how can I make this right for you?" he rudely interrupted our conversation with "Just so you know, the burgers are always like that, we always put pepper in them." Burger guy attempted to explain the previous times he had visited there was no extra pepper sprinkled on top but was interrupted repeatedly. Rather than argue, burger guy decided to leave. The Greek salad still hadn't shown up so salad guy left with him.

Rather than eat with only half of our group the rest of us decided to just take our food with us so a few minutes later when the Greek salad finally showed up we had them box up our food (I left the fries behind), paid the...

"NOW THAT'S SERVICE!" is exactly what I yelled to my friend.

You see, for the past several weeks, I have been going to the Cabin every Friday for karaoke, which is AWESOME, by the way. I have also been going on random Mondays for Jam night, which is awesome as well, but not as much as my "thing" as karaoke is (it is tough trying to do interpretive dance alongside musicians who are actually talented).

I have had no complaints about the service or the food (nor about the karaoke or jam night, but this review is focussed on the performance of those of the Cabin itself).

Last night, however, I was amazed at how awesome the sandwich special was. My server, Tialer, apologised for there being no soup available. I told her that I did not care about soup, anyway, but she insisted that I order a side (I guess that is simply reasonable), so I asked for coleslaw.

The sandwich was awesome and the coleslaw blew me away--smelled and tasted so fresh, like it had been made right in front of me, right then and there. Also, it was not like a "kid's-sized" sandwich or just a dinky portion of coleslaw--it was a real meal! When Tialer asked me how it was, I told her it was so good that I would order another one if I worked up the appetite.

I do not know if what I said meant anything, but while we were both just minding our own business, enjoying our club sodas, Tialer the superstar server just brought us two more large glasses of club soda--just like that, before we were even done our first ones. That is when I yelled.

So, while I had been on the fence about ordering another sandwich special, Tialer secured the deal with that action. I ordered another one later, and it seemed even more awesome than the first!

The value was awesome, too: two-for-the-cost-of-one regular meal for this fat guy!

Yeah. Everything was...awesome.

As an epilogue of sorts, I will add that the fact that ordering club soda at a pub CAN be and HAS been a contentious issue for me is sad. At several places, I have at least been made to at least FEEL like I am cheap and the server does not give a crap about me or my friends, because we drink club soda, even when it is not busy, but I always try to order extra things when I get good service. By the way, Tialer the superstar server continued with the club sodas.

It...

Instead of writing another "copy and paste with new details" update, I have decided to amalgamate all of the highlights, from most recent on:

Tonight, Shaylyn not only brought me the basket of condiments, but she also pulled out the salt and pepper and handed them to me, even though they were within my reach. I felt like royalty--again.

A few Fridays ago, Breanna was great, but she did something "not-so-perfect"; even though I did not complain, I was (in a sense) compensated.

Several Mondays ago, Julie was our official server. There were three of us at the table. When our meals came out, it was a parade of three servers bringing our dishes (in hindsight, I recall one of them being Shaylyn). I felt like royalty.

I feel not only welcome there, but also wanted--to the point where I feel like I have to go there.

The service, the food, the Almost Famous karaoke nights on Fridays, and the Dirk Diggler jam nights on every second-or-so Monday are all worthy...