Saloon Bistro Bar — Restaurant in Montreal

I was with friends in the village on a Saturday just after noon, we were verging on hangry and needed to eat, so we decided to pop in. It was a hot day and as we had been walking around for while. We chose to sit inside out of the heat, but they did not appear to have AC inside - we were tired and hungry, so we chose to stay put. We fanned ourselves with the menus like we were at church in the deep south on a Sunday.

After being seated it took about 20 minutes to get our orders taken – just prior to that we almost bailed. Within that time, we were served room temperature water from a jug, the people next to us were served iced cold water from a jug. We asked for ice water too, and got served a glass full of ice, to dump in our room temp water. Perhaps a misunderstanding, but hey, it works.

The wait for food after ordering was about 30 minutes - which isn’t outrageous, but a friend that was with me called a staff member over to ask if it would be coming out soon and she just looked at him with a dead-pan look, didn’t respond, and walked away. Stellar interpersonal skills. She did come back a short while later to say that “its almost up”, it came shortly after, but still; “I’m sorry about the wait, let me check on that for you” would have been nice.

I ordered the veggie burger and sweet potato fries, it was standard fare, to be honest it wasn’t much different than A&W. At $24 ($2 extra for sweet potatoes fries - $30 with tax and tip) I found it a bit over-priced for what it was. I don’t consider myself a cheap person and I understand value, but for the lack-luster service, lack of AC in the middle of the summer, warm water, it was a hard bill to swallow.

It’s just one of the many tourist-trap type establishments that are throughout our city – no different than a handful that are within spitting distance throughout the old port or downtown, catering to people that won’t be back anyway as they live elsewhere. Benefitting on a convenient location where tourists need to sit down to eat & drink. This seems standard throughout the world at tourist hotspots, but it’s a shame its here as there are not many places like Le Village in the world.

The guy that took our payment at the end was nice and personable, so it ended on a somewhat positive note, then again, aren’t most people nice when you are giving them money? It’s been about 10 years since the last time I went to Saloon. If I’m ever hungry in the village in the future, I’ll...

Sigh. We were very excited about this place, since we have had wonderful food on this trip. We ordered an onion soup that was bland and tiny. The nachos were very good, delicious sauces and very good tortillas, but we got the extra chicken and it had literally three small pieces of chicken. Yes, literally, three small bites. Awful.

My cocktail was weak.

The vibe of the place is great, and their front terrace was very nice. The servers were very friendly and helpful, even if the food was very slow to arrive. Edit: our last course arrived 27 minutes after we finished the appetizers, which also were slow. We complained about their chicken and to their credit, they removed the extra chicken from the nachos on the check.

The salmon was bland, very little seasoning, the potatoes were also bland and they were stingy (3 small potatoes, really) with them. The veggies that came with the salmon were very good, tho.

It's really sad that a place with such a great potential ended up being such a...

Saloon is our first stop when we get into town. We love stopping in for lunch and a cocktail or two before checking in to our Airbnb. It's right on St Catherine's. The food is always consistently good. I have noticed the menu changes often. This time I had their salmon tartar with salad. It was delicious. It's served on stone slate with a side of bread chips. The salmon was fresh and very nicely seasoned and prepared. The salad was good with slightly too much dressing. I'll ask for it on the side next time. It came with a very good vegetable soup. The quesadilla was good as well. Nice size and well prepared. The service is always welcoming and the atmosphere is fun and relaxed. They have a full bar. During the spring and summer months they have plenty of outdoor seating to people watch. Saloon is...