Zak's Diner Kanata — Restaurant in Ottawa

UPDATE: (Sept 2024)

After my initial review (from June 2024), I was contacted by the restaurant owner to discuss the circumstances involved from our last visit. After our discussion, I agreed to give this location another try, after our initial experience (detailed in initial review).

I am very glad that we did. I came here for an evening dinner with family group of 4. We were greeted by our server (Darien), and he was fantastic.

We ordered our food and drink, and everything arrived hot and fresh - and very tasty. Large portions too. Each of us had to take a container to bring home our leftovers.

I want to thank Kate (owner) for reaching out too me to explain the staffing circumstances from our last visit, and inviting us to return to this location.

My faith has been renewed in this location and it's staff. Thank you soo much for the opportunity.

___Initial Review Below Visited this restaurant back on June 6th for dinner at 6pm for a my family group of 8. The food was ok. Our service was quite frankly the worst I have ever experienced unfortunately. Our server seemed to be very annoyed and distant. We had asked for some water for the table. After taking our orders, our food arrived maybe 25 mins later (good timing), however still no drinks for the table. When I asked the server again, they returned with a pitcher of water and no glasses. I asked if we could have glasses, and she left and returned very annoyed and slammed 3 full glasses of water on the table, and managed to spill one all over the table - including 2 of our meals and my sons phone. Returned to clean up "some" of the water spill, and that was the last time we saw her, until she returned with the bill and left immediately again before we could order any dessert or extras.

After waiting another 15 mins to pay our bill, we decided to leave the table and wait at the front of the restaurant to pay. Another server came to help us, and he was very pleasant and helpful, and even noticed a mistake on our bill (free kids meal) that he corrected for us.

This restaurant is very close to my house, and we have enjoyed other experiences here, especially for breakfast options.

This last experience was sadly very bad for us. I'm sorry, but I have no intention of...

Came for lunch at 12:30pm on Sunday Sept. 24.

Exterior: Prominent Signage, decent sized patio, looks clean. Located in a strip mall so plenty of parking

Interior: Zak's is a 50s themed diner, with red leather bound standard and rounded booths. There is ample seating and the army of staff kept things clean

First Impressions: It was very busy when we arrived, hostess was doing a stop-seat, and we were third down on the list. There were many servers and bussers and the wait was not more than 10 minutes for a table. Our server was very pleasant and attentive.

Menu/Food Quality: Very straightforward and legible, easy to read and navigate. Reflects the 50s design motif but isn't overly busy with design. Was there with my girlfriend and her son and she loved the variety on the kids menu. We ordered The kids menu Burger and fries (all kids meals come with a beverage and ice cream 👍) The Breakfast Poutine, and the Zak Attack Burger with Curly fries on the side. Little guy loved the Burger, and the fries were delicious. The Breakfast Poutine was pretty standard, about what you'd expect. The hollandaise was a pale white, though it tasted okay. The breakfast sausage was a nice touch that makes it unique. The Zak Attack is GIGANTIC, good sized patties stacked high with toppings. Curly fries are a must when eating at Zak's. The kids ice cream was topped with sprinkles and a gummy worm to the delight of the little guy, and my chocolate shake was delicious with nice presentation plus the extra little bit in the metal mixing cup

Wait Times: we waited about 10 minutes to be sat, and about 35-40 or so minutes for our food. A perfectly reasonable amount of time to wait on a very busy Sunday lunch rush.

Spent $84 dollars before tip, considering the portion sizes and quality and inflation, I feel I got my money's worth, 3 meals for about $60 plus two beers and dessert. Will...

The food was lovely and the atmosphere was fun and enjoyable, but we were very dissapointed with the customer service. We walked in, waited a few minutes while the employees talked to eachother behind a bar, then greeted the employee who walked up to us. He didn't greet us back, he just said "scan this", pointing to a QR code, and then walked away from us. While we tried to scan it, he walked to our table, set our menus down, looked back at us across the diner and said "you're right here", eventhough we couldn't see the table from where we were standing. We couldn't get the QR code to work and he had already left so we just sat down. By the time he came back, we were ready to order. We gave him our order and thanked him, and he just walked off, not smiling or talking at all. I'm assuming he was having a bad day, but it was pretty insulting especially when he dropped off our food and didn't check on us at all. He even walked past us after 30 minutes and we had to call out to him to ask for a box and our bill because we wanted to leave. He brought us a box for our food and forgot the bill. Ultimately, I'm sure he was just having a bad day, but don't eat here if you don't intend to sit for over an hour. There was only one other table with guests in the entire establishment and we were still ignored for long enough that we had to jump through hoops to get service. We were mostly dissapointed by how uninterested he seemed the entire time, it gave off a very aggressive vibe since he didn't talk to us, smile at us, check on us, or anything. It really communicated that he didn't want us to be there. Kinda dissapointed, but hopefully next time...