Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Brews — Restaurant in Saanich

As a family we went to Red Robin on Tolmie in Victoria last night for dinner. The area that we were seated in was so filthy that we asked to be moved. Never had to do that in a restaurant before. There were paper straw covers, receipts, food and other debris all over the floor and under the tables. The carpet is so dirty that the chair legs stuck and were hard to move. The table top was greasy as you could see a line when dragging your finger across. The next area was considerably tidier. I placed my forearm on the table to have my sweater get stuck in something sticky which I got on my hand as well. Two gentlemen who were seated after us were eating their meal when we hadn’t even had someone take our order yet. My husband and daughter said that their burgers tasted good but my daughter having paid more to get yam fries had barely a handful on her plate. I also got yam fries and received twice as much as her. They were cold and so loaded with seasoning salt that they were unpleasant to eat so I left them on my plate. Finally a man came over to take our payment. My husband asked if he was the manager and he said that he was. When my husband mentioned that we had to move because the area we were first seated in was disgusting all the manager did was to say that he was aware that we had been asked to be moved and that his assistant manager in the afternoon didn’t make the staff clean up. No apology, just blame someone else. I wanted to say if he saw the place was a mess when he came in he should’ve dealt with it then. There was also a poster on the wall saying that children eat for 50% off until I believe it was November 1st. It did not specify that this only app applied to kids meals. My granddaughter had chicken wings because nothing on the children’s menu appealed to her. I asked the manager if her meal was half price as well because she was a child and he said no it only applied to the kids meals menu. This was definitely not specified in the poster, and I pointed that out to him and all he did was shrug his shoulders unconcerned. Needless to say, we won’t be going back to Red Robin restaurant again which is unfortunate because we have enjoyed it in the past. This whole experience was so negative that we have no desire to spend our money there again. We will choose to spend our money on locally owned businesses that give good service, have clean restaurants and...

We came in at opening today for a late brunch and my Wife enjoyed her "Turkey BLT" despite the mandatory substitution of chicken - we were told you were out of Turkey and understand these things happen.

My Double Avocado Bacon Burger was delicious as well, but we did notice a concerning change upon receiving the bill.

Previously during our dozens of past visits to this location we've requested "plum sauce" as a dip for our steak fries.

Today my Wife noticed a $1.99 + tax charge on our bill for this paltry tiny ramicken of plum sauce - something that has been abset on all prior bills.

We enquired about this charge as we had never seen it before and were assured it was approproate and reasonable, but had we been informed of the cost at the time of request we would have declined it, and had we realized it prior to the end of our meal we would have complained about the sauce itself because the plum sauce had an odd unfamiliar "raisen" flavor we were not fond of.

Imagine getting a portion of plum sauce the size of a small container you would expect two or three of for free from a fast-food restauant with your chicken strips - that tasted so off you didn't even eat half of it for "only" $2+tax.

Lesson learned; won't be doing that again.

I do feel bad for our waitress however because she did an excellent job and we only brought a specific amount of cash with us.

The oversight of failing to inform us about the $2 sauce charge and being unable to remove the charge meant her 20% tip was reduced to 15% - when she deserved the 20%.

I guess be warned as a consumer that a small container of sauce is $2 without exception - could get...

I usually enjoy Red Robin and have always found the servers to be warm and family-friendly, but this visit was very disappointing. We came with a group of 12, and a heavy-duty foldable wood table that had been propped against the wall tipped over after another child from another table brushed against it, crashing down on both my toddler and the other child. Something that heavy, large, and unstable should never be left leaning against a wall in a restaurant, especially one that markets itself as family-friendly and geared toward kids. We filled out an incident report and are hoping my son isn’t concussed. What upset me most was that our server never once asked if he was okay. She came across as cold from the start, just going through the motions without any friendliness or concern, which was very unlike the Red Robin experience I’ve had in the past.

On top of that, the food took an extremely long time to come out. The kids were getting restless, but there was no acknowledgement or communication that the wait might be longer than usual. The manager did eventually come over and was pleasant. He covered half the bill, but whole thing probably should have been comped. Overall the experience left me disappointed.

This was the first time I’ve had such an unfriendly and uncomfortable visit here, which is why I’m leaving 2 stars instead of the 4 or 5 I’ve usually felt this location deserves. It’s bad when I actually regret tipping even 15% to the server. I normally give 18% as a baseline, and 20–22% if service is excellent. In this case, most people probably wouldn’t have left...