Montana’s BBQ & Bar — Restaurant in Saanich

My experience here wasn’t the greatest. It’s not the food, it’s not the waitresses or waiters. it’s not even the mix up, it was the attitude of the manager.

I had been waiting for over an hour and asked the lady at the front if she could please look again for my order. She apologizes immediately and goes to look. The next time she comes out it’s with her manager comes out with her and tells me to sit at the bar and order… I tell him, like the waitress behind him probably already had, that I had ordered already and had been waiting an hour.

He disappeared for a while and came back with a bag in hand telling me it had been here all along and I should have spoken with a waitress. Which I had, but it was fine, again busy long weekend.

I took the food but realized it was almost completely cold and finally just asked him for a refund as I didn’t want to wait longer for them to recook it and drive the half an hour back home. He then argued that bag was still warm.. I open the bag to feel the food container to confirm the shrimp were soggy and the ribs were barely above room temperate.

He disappeared in the back and came out with a gift card, I decline and just ask for the refund. This time he takes the bag of lukewarm food into the back before I can stop him and doesn’t come out for a while.

I ask the lady at the front desk if she could go check on him and to remind him I would like to take home the food and the refund. 15 minutes more and he’s back apologizing for his staff and telling me he’s going to give me the food for free and the staff will be spoken to and retrained.

The staff were nothing but lovely, helpful, and very apologetic. A few had looked out for my order, made sympathetic small talk about the situation, and unfortunately my bag was lost in the busyness of the night.

I understand these things happen and that’s not my issue. Having the manager argue with me about if the hour old food was cold, disappearing for multiple not short periods of time, only to finally come back and blame everything on his staff without taking a smidge of responsibility for himself, that’s a huge issue for me. I know a bad manger when I see one.

Please be nice to the waitresses and treat them well, especially when it‘s busy, sometimes mishaps...

My daughter and I went at 5:45 pm on a Friday and had a really disappointing dinner in every aspect. Greeter denied our request for a booth seat stating it would be a 20-minute minimum wait. We took a table, and our server put drink menus and meal menus in a pile on the middle of the table without even recognizing our existence. She came 3 mins later, taking our drink order and meal order. We both decided on the rips because it's their signature meal, and we were both disappointed in multiple ways. I ordered a large serving, and my daughter a medium. Mine wasn't even a full rack of ribs, and to top it off there deep fryers need changing bad. My side order was sweet potato fries, and there in a big massive pile nuggets of someone elses meal accompanying ours. When I mentioned to the server, she played it off like it was from the ribs. I suggested to her that it wasn't because ribs don't like like massive rocks of ground beef. I was still hungry upon finishing meal and had to ask my server 5 times for napkins because they were messy and she's only providing us with 2 napkins at a time. This particular establishment uses think brown paper to cover tables to minimize cleaning and keep tables flowing however every 2.5 minutes another employee would pull the roll down and tear the paper making a very loud uncomfortable environment to enjoy your meal, that wasn't very good mind you. I've made better ribs in my oven from Walmart. Seriously! This next bizarre, never seen, tactic really tops it off. Upon getting your bill and after payment processing, there's a notification that pops up asking you if I'd recommend Montanas to a fried in big block letters clearly visible to iur waitress. Like put us on the spot and add more bs to a already disappointing place. Do...

We were disappointed with our visit.

We sat for quite a while and no server appeared. I had to ask another person if we could get some help at the table and she seemed surprised no one had served us yet. The server that did appear said "she did not see us".

The sign at the door advertised appetizers 2 for 1, but once we were ready to order the server said we had to give a "5 star" google review (that she had to see and check) before she could apply the discount to get the second appy for free. This felt like a bait-and-switch tactic to us. There was nothing on the signs saying you had to give a review to get the deal. She stood there waiting for us to do it before she would get our bill.

We also asked if the hot-wings were thickly breaded (I prefer the non-breaded ones) and she said it was very thin. Not true. There had a heavy, very thick breaded coating which was not to our liking.

We asked about what ciders they had and she did not know (none are listed on the drink menu), she returned and told us what they have, but then did not know what the prices were for any of them. My wife ordered one and was served a different flavour than what she ordered (the can was opened, so we did not ask for an exchange) - no glass with ice was offered. We had to ask.

Finally, there were mice running around the restaurant. Not just one. The server said they knew about it but it was hard to catch...