Blackburn Beer Company — Restaurant in Niagara Falls

I gave this a 4 star My brother and sister in law live very close to Blackburn, and rave about this place but to be honest it was more of a 3.5. Now let me mention that we live in Beamsville and frequent Bench Brewery quite a bit because we love the Beer, food, service and atmosphere- especially the view on the patio so we wanted to see what this new are of NF had to offer in comparison. Blackburn is quite nice inside, beautiful windows, TVs to watch the games if that's your thing and nice seating. The patio has big picnic tables which we sat at and the set up beanbag toss and disc frisbee games which was cool, but the view was pretty much a parking lot otherwise. The tables were not covered and the tables were getting bombed by seagulls - out of their control I know but maybe someone could go around and make sure the tables are cleaned before people sit there. We ended up grabbing a table outside ourselves and the young hostess who came to bring us menu's looked miserable, she walked over dragging her feet and looked like she hated her life. Not very welcoming. Our server was personalable, I didn't catch his name, young guy, very nice but obviously quite new and not super knowledgeable. The beers were very good, the Seltzer not so much - the raspberry one was awful. Now for the food. We ordered the Black and Blue burger and it was pretty small, a little over cooked for it's size I think but had good flavor and came with the tiniest basket of fries. We also ordered the nachos which were not good at all. They came at the recommendation of my sister in law who had them on their previous visit and loved them. We both ordered them and they were a huge disappointment. The chips were stale, and although it's a large portion, they basically put all the toppings on the top and in the middle so after that top layer we were left with nothing but a huge pile of dry stale chips. The wings looked good and the Buffalo cauliflower looked good. For me over all the experience at Blackburn was OK. I guess I'm spoiled because we are used to Bench where all of the staff although also mostly young are knowledgeable, friendly welcoming etc, the views are amazing, the food is always good and the vibe is killer. Also explains why anyway of the week they have a huge line up to get a table. I think Blackburn has potential but the food and service need to be improved to become a...

I'm not one to usually write about negative experiences but we had a disappointing experience here today at Blackburn. We came here to celebrate Father's Day and my Dad's 70th Birthday. There was room for us on the patio around 12:30pm and everything seemed to be running smoothly when we arrived. I knew it would be a bit busy because of Father's Day so we were okay with waiting for our food.

We ordered drinks shortly after we arrived. Our waiter mentioned there was a party of 100 coming in soon after us so we made the quick decision to order right away. We all ordered twisted chicken sandwiches. It seemed like the restaurant was short staffed and the kitchen was backed up. There were many tables without any food and we almost finished our drinks before our food arrived. No refills were offered to us. It looked like there were maybe 3 servers for the entire place. You could tell the servers were stretched thin. We only saw our server twice the whole time. He took our order and brought us drinks that's the only time we saw him. He was running around like crazy and we couldn't get his attention for service.

Our food came out after 1 hour and 40 minutes. All our chicken sandwiches and fries were stone cold. The food looked like it was slapped together quickly without much care and the fries looked to have been reheated a few times since they were hard and flavourless. The chicken was pretty bland. My mom went to the server at the bar to complain since we couldn't find our server.

I brought a cake in as well but we were so disappointed and we ran out of time that we didn't end up having the cake at all.

The server was nice enough to compensate our meals because they felt bad about the service and food quality. I felt bad for those who arrived after us. I'm sure they would be waiting 2 hours for food !!

It's a poor reflection on management for not having extra staff on Father's Day. Apparently the staff didn't know the owner booked a party of 100 and didn't bring in any extra staff to support the business. It's a shame. I'm hoping to give this place another try and perhaps today was a one off. People are paying good money for food and drinks and it's sad to see this happen. I hope the owners realize their mistakes...

UPDATE: AND I WILL LEAVE MY PREVIOUS REVIEW.

This is something I absolutely hate doing, but tried Blackburn out again last night for the Caesar debut. The Caesars were TERRIFIC. The service on the other hand was subpar at best ( just like last time we were not served for 20 mins and walked out). Ordered the Caesars, great options to add. Looking at the dinner menu, my girlfriend and I ordered the steak sandwich. When the food came out, we noticed a hair in the fries right away. They were taken back. Then we tried the steak sandwich. Came to us cold as if it had been sitting and waiting for a little bit. Although they did offer to remake it, we had a movie to catch. Even if we did have time. They dropped the ball twice with 1 order. Would even have been nice if it was brought to the managers attention, they came over to talk. Maybe I should have said something at the time, but at that point I was no longer interested in being there or spending any more money there. As a local and a BIG craft beer guy, I do love supporting local places like this. Unfortunately I think this will be my last time trying Blackburn. There are many more places in the area that make you feel welcome and serve you with a smile. I really hope things turn around for them because it is a cool location. Improvements do need to be made. I do hate writing negative reviews when I'm such a strong supporter of local businesses especially craft breweries.

Went to cruise night last night, loved it. Great idea to bring people together and enjoy themselves. Great beer selection, always impressed with the quality and selection. The building is amazing, our server was great.

Now after all the good, my bone to pick and only complaint would be on the food pricing. Its Niagara, not Toronto. Fish and chips were good, pizza I can borderline justify, BUT THE WINGS.... $21 FOR 7 WINGS (1 LBS) is ridiculous. I think some serious proce adjustment needs to be made for those. So many better places to get better wings at a fraction of the price. They were good tho, good sauce, but not $21 good. I think they would fly out the door at a better price point.

Overall a good place to go...