Hardy John's Bar & Grill Oshawa — Restaurant in Oshawa

My girlfriend and I went last night to celebrate our 1 year anniversary. We know it's not that fancy of a place but we are broke university students so we decided it was nice enough. When we first went in it seemed like it was going to be a good night. We got our menus and drinks relatively quickly and even the wait for our food wasn't to bad. This is where it all went down hill. I wouldn't say I'm a picky eater, especially since I am paying for the food and as I mentioned before, a broke uni student. Despite this I still couldn't finish my salad or burger. My salad was the most bland caesar salad I have ever had, and I love caesar salad so that was disappointing. And my burger was so covered in sauce that it fell out of my bun multiple times. I even tried to take some of the sauce off it with my fork, still fell out so I gave up on it. My girlfriends chicken parm was okay, she had giant chunks of onion and tomato in hers but she didn't mind it and brought it home to pick out the onion and tomato there. The only GOOD thing we ordered was the truffle fries. Then we were done "eating" out food we decided to order dessert. We ordered the brownie with ice cream. What wasn't disclosed on the menu is that the brownie had nuts in it and I'm allergic to nuts so I couldn't eat the dessert we were supposed to share. At this point the time between our server coming to check on us was taking longer and longer, which as weird because we had like 3 servers and there were maybe 7 people in the restaurant total at the time. When our waiter eventually came to see how things were going I asked him if I could get a partial refund since I didn't finish either of my dinner items and couldn't eat my dessert. He went and got the manager to come talk to us which gave me a little bit of hope, that didn't last. The manager came and talked to us and so I told him the situation and he offered to get us something in compensation for the food I didn't eat. Since we liked the truffle fries we ordered that and the white brownie since it didn't have nuts in it. Now when a manager asks if there is something they can get you to compensate for you bad experiences you think that would mean they are free, that would be wrong. As you can see from the picture below I was charged for both of them. Now they did take the brownie off the bill and discounted my burger, but after doing the math I still payed them an extra $1.50 from the fries and brownie. Then we spent, not kidding or dramatizing, 30-40 minutes simply waiting for our server to come over so we could ask for the bill. We spent a total of 2.5 hours in that place, half of which was spent waiting for our water so we could proceed to our next step of our night (finished eating and waiting for dessert, finished dessert and waiting on the bill, things like that). Over all this was the worst experience I have ever had at a restaurant and will be telling people not...

The absolute worst experience I’ve ever had at a bar/restaurant, happened here tonight.

We decided to try this place again with some friends. We went during Covid and didn’t have the greatest experience; food was mediocre, staff wasn’t very friendly, and it was way too loud. My husband called first to ask what time their kitchen closed, and we asked if it was super loud. We were told 1:45 am and no, not super loud. We’re obviously expecting it to be moderately loud, but not crazy (especially if they’re dead.) we show up, and there’s a DJ who we can here from outside, in our cars. We decide to try it. It was so loud that we had to scream at our server, and she still barely heard us. We had to repeat ourselves 3-4 times. Literally maybe 10 people in there, and this guy is playing the music so loud, we can’t talk or even read the menu. The whole table is shaking from the base. We didn’t want to to try anywhere else because it was late and we’d already driven to the north end and didn’t have many options that late. We asked the waitress what time the DJ was there until; figuring maybe the person on the phone said it wasn’t bad because he was leaving soon. He was there until close. Maybe something to mention to someone on the phone, who inquired about the volume?

The waitress takes our drink orders. I take a sip of my coke and it’s completely flat and warm. I ask her for a new one because of this, and she gives me attitude! Then proceeds to ask everyone else to try their drinks to see if they’re flat. Not in a nice way, as if she wants to make it right. But as if she didn’t believe me. Sure enough, all drinks were flat. I ask for an iced tea just to play it safe instead. She brings back the drinks after 5 minutes. Everyone else’s cokes are still flat. By this time, I’m feeling sick because of how loud it is from the DJ. We say we have to leave because I’m not feeling well. She makes us pay for the drinks, THAT WE DIDN’T DRINK! And that weren’t even correct!! $8 for 2 fountain drinks, both of which weren’t touched.

Spent $8 on warm, un-carbonated drinks, received horrible service, felt sick and got a lovely headache from the excessive noise, and we left hungry. If I could give 0 stars, I would. I’ll make sure to tell friends and family to steer clear of this place...

I work 2 weeks days and 2 weeks afternoons, on the afternoons I never get to see my kids because they’re gone before I get up and I leave before they get home. Tonight when I got home I decided I was spending time with them and I didn’t care if it was a school night, we decided on checking out Hardy johns. The moment we walked in we were greeted happily and seated in a very comfortable booth with a TV inside it( my kids thought that was absolutely amazing). I am ashamed to admit that I can’t remember the gentleman’s name that served us because he was absolutely amazing. He took our drink order and we started going through the menu to see what we wanted with wings on our mind. We had NO idea that this place had steak and lobster, pastas , several authentic curry dishes, ribs and wings, Indian food, a section on poutines alone that were all so creative and sounded delicious….. I’m not going to spoil it by naming the entire menu but there was still a lot more. We didn’t have mom with us so we decided not to go all out fancy and just get some wings and hardy fries. I have to throw in that my son and I are big fans of NY fries but tonight we found fries that put NY fries to shame “ Hardy fries” OMG!!! They were the best fries we ever had.

Chapter 2 lol, I could honestly go on forever and this was all in about 90 minutes that we were there. The owner came over to our table to welcome us as he knew we were new to his establishment and being a previous restaurant owner myself ( Novara Ristorante in Whitby ) … that is an extremely classy move that just added to our experience. We watched some sports, bopped our heads a bit to the music and just chatted about our days. The food was amazing and I honestly can’t wait to go back again with mom this time as well. I am so glad we chose Hardy Johns tonight because it will most definitely be our new favourite spot. Thank you for the great experience tonight to the gentleman that served us and the owner coming to our table …. I’d give you guys 6 stars if I could because it was well deserved...