MR MIKES SteakhouseCasual — Restaurant in North Cowichan

This place has a nice atmosphere and ambiance, but the food, and service is terrible. We have gone here a few times. Each time, hoping that it would be better than the last, but each time we have been sadly disappointed. We finally stopped going there. Three times is enough to be convinced that this place doesn't deserve our business.

Food: Eat time the food has been either under done or over done or served cold or one person's food is hot and the other person's food is cold. I guess they don't time their meal preparation properly and leave the one meal under the heat lamps waiting for the cooks to get to the other meal. Or the server simply leaves all the meals under the lights, getting cold, while she serves other people.

As for the "cooks". They seem to be inexperienced. All of them! One time I got a rare hamburger....that isn't safe to eat. Jack In The Box fast food restaurants killed two kids in the 80s with E-Coli poisoning, because they were under cooking their burgers. Now Mr. Mikes is serving rare burgers? Another time I ordered a steak, "media rare" and received a "well done" steak. Just as a side note, you don't send food back at a place like this, because you don't know what they'll do to it when it comes back. So I just don't eat it and don't pay for it. The food over all is really ...unappetizing. It's either dried out, cold, not cooked properly and/or bad tasting. As an example, they serve a brown powered gravy which is different every time you order it, because they aren't sure how much water to ad.

The service is slow. Very slow. Even when there is hardly anyone in the place. The servers seem nice and polite, but are very inefficient. I've seen our server chatting with other servers while we wait for our meals...that came to us cold. Also, they'll come by once you start eating to ask how everything is, but that is just a rhetorical question. You tell them and their eyes seem to glaze over. Like you are boring them. Then you never see them again. Forget about asking for anther coffee or fountain drink and it take forever to get the check. You sit there quite a while waiting for your check after your table has been cleared, waiting for the server to finally come back over and let you leave. Then you are expected to tip and we do...like suckers.

So, why did we keep going back if it was/is so bad? Because there are very few places in Duncan BC where you can get a good meal out at a place that looks nice. So we kept trying to give Mr Mikes a chance. We kept thinking that it would get...

Haven’t eaten out in a while but was driving through last week and decided to come here. I was a bit surprised at the portions. Beef dip was $22 and $4 for onion rings instead of fries. So $26. I got 7 onion rings of various sizes and the beef dip was half a hoagie bun. I was a bit shocked. This was the first place I’ve ever had a beef dip that was half the size and it cost $22. Most places it’s around $18 for a full one. Kind of disappointed. Also the waitress was a bit curt. The kid meal billing was a bit odd as they gave a random charge for a drink on the bill. She tried to argue that we ordered a full size burger for an 8 year old (kid had a steak and not a burger) and that we were charged for the drink cause it is not included in adult meals (kid had a kid meal). She had no idea what our meals even were and didn’t understand the billing system which had nothing to do with her. We just were asking why there was a random and small charge for a drink when it stated it was included with the meal. We figured out it’s just how they make the bill. But this girl had no idea and was trying to accuse us how bad we were to question things and blamed it on being “a long night” and “short staffed”. Felt super awkward. I should be able to question my bill and the charges and not be told by staff we ordered things we didn’t. She had no idea what was going on. Stars are only for the cook. The food was really good for what little we got. The steak my spouse ordered was also smaller than the kids one. Cost was over $30 for that and a handful of fries. There are pictures posted on here. I should have looked at pictures first. Good thing my kid didn’t eat it all so hubby got...

The dinner double date began like most do.. waiting for a table to free up. "Well this place seems popular" I thought. A short while later we were seated and reading menus full of tasty sounding foods. The menu had many recognizable choices that all seemed to have some type of twist that made me want to try them all. I went with my classic; a burger. The fiancée got the veggie burger, a risky choice but one we felt sounded hopeful. In the spirit of our double date, we decided to splurge a tad on a "SociaBowl", a cleverly named tasty drink in a fishbowl. The food arrived before we ran out of things to talk about. The fishbowl was a large drink, roughly the size of a fishbowl, that was served into smaller cups via a ladle. I had pictured long curly straws, but I have to admit the ladle was fun too. The BBQ bourbon burger I ordered came with lodge chips in place of French fries. At first disappointed, my opinion immediately reversed when I tasted the most amazing chip/sauce combination I have ever tasted. The burger held up well too. I mentioned burgers are my go to. Now I don't want to say connoisseur but as you can imagine, I've eaten a lot of burgers. I would definitely order the BBQ bourbon again. The veggie burger dice roll paid off and the fiancée gave it a 9 out of 10. Realistically the service wasn't bad but it wasn't amazing either. They were busy and the staff seemed slightly stressed, but the fun appealing menu and delicious food easily made up for it The prices were fair/competitive All in all I will dream about the day they set up a Mr Mike's in my hometown and until then look forward to my next visit to...