Fat Albert's — Restaurant in Ottawa

Absolutely terrible no ... DISGUSTING! While in ottawa, all I wanted was a good hot submarine. I searched google for a joint nearby and Fat Albert's came up and my wife remarked on how she loved going there as a kid. The online menu hit home and mentioned tons of beef stacked high and loaded with mushrooms and onions and a special blend of seasoning. I was so excited to go. Walking in, the restaurant ambience was alright, the beer was cold and the waitress, although polite and friendly was practically half asleep. Even after our meal she cleaned up and never returned with the bill and left us wondering how and where to pay, we had to get up and approach her at the main entrance where she was hunched over resting her head on the entry station. She made no apologies for the rudeness and even took a few seconds once we approached to raise her head and acknowledge us. Once the food arrived and was placed in front of us, we instantly looked at one another knowing exactly what each was thinking, YUCK. The first bite proved to be the same. The sub was served open faced on a plate as if proud of what they made. It was horrible and they should be ashamed. There was a minuscule layer of beef which seemed to have freezer burned edges, topped with maybe 6-7 thin slices of mushrooms (tasted like canned and soggy) almost raw onions and an ok layer of cheese. No "special" seasoning anywhere to be found unless they consider the 3 tablespoons of salt they drown the sub in a seasoning. The sub tasted equally terrible the meat was cool to the touch in some places and I'm sure the beef is frozen and then microwaved to order. What I thought to be freezer burned meat was most likely a white dryed out edge from being microwaved. The only bright side to our experience is that we didn't get sick afterwards. The fries were ok but nothing more than the standard crispy cavendish fries that most cheap restaurants get from their suppliers. No reason for any restaurant to serve frozen fries when it's so easy to please customers and make fresh fries with a nice seasoning. Stay away and spend your money somewhere,...

Customer for ~30 years. Have been going for subs twice a week for decades. No more, i won't be going back. While the subs are mostly great, Fat Alberts has just gotten greedier and greedier. Barely any meat on the subs, and as everyone mentioned, the meat that is there, is the thinnest i've ever seen on any sub anywhere. If thats not bad enough, the prices just keep going up. While i understand everything has went up in price, paying close or over $20 for a mediocre sub is a bit ridiculous. The last straw for me was going in and finding that they have now decided to charge for extra anything. Extra onions - upcharge. Add mayo (to a sub that doesnt come with it) - upcharge. extra SPICE... upcharge. Seriously?? It costs what?... maybe 1 or 2 cents for a sprinkle of spices, and you get charged more for that? AND they expect a tip for pickup now? Insane. As much as i love their subs, i refuse to give my money to this company any longer. Reading other reviews, it seems the owner reads the reviews and apologizes a lot to customers, promising to look into and fix the issues.... however obviously nothing has changed in years to address the common issues seen in all the reviews. Sad that such a long standing Ottawa restaurant has turned to such garbage, with an owner that just...

I debated whether or not to post this review as Fat Albert's used to make one of my favorite foods, but in the end I feel what they've become is an insult to what they were. A little over a month ago, I visited the Elmvale location with my son to enjoy a couple of subs before catching a movie. I ordered a #2 steak sub on white while my son had a meatball sub. Our server was friendly and attentive, but brought a pizza sub instead of a steak sub. No big deal; I waited a few more minutes until my steak sub arrived. Oh, Fat Alberts. How your quality has dropped. What I received was a parody of one of my favorite foods. There were barely any toppings; hardly any lettuce, no tomato slices, no shredded white onion. I had asked for extra oil and spices, but there were none. I could have complained again, but by this time we had to finish up quickly to catch our show. All in all, the food was a pale shadow of what I used to enjoy at this location, barely palatable. While I can't be sure, I think the location has either changed management or ownership, but not for the better, and while the quality of the food has definitely diminished over the last few years, this was a new low. I will not visit again, and the only reason I gave this review 2 stars and not 1 was because the server...