3rd Street Cafe — Restaurant in Sidney

Dates of visits: Oct 22, 23, 24, and 26, 2024; Feb 21, 2025

This restaurant is an absolute gem. Menu, service and food are absolutely superb. You will be hard pressed to find a better breakfast or lunch spot anywhere. If you’re staying in Sidney, you WILL be drawn back here! Don’t even try to resist!!

First visit: Oct 22, 2024

Scrumptious Club sandwich on sourdough bread served with excellent minestrone soup, and a tuna melt on toasted multigrain with salad, all beautifully prepared and plated by chef Rhonda, were absolutely amazing. You will not find a better restaurant value in Sidney, BC. Frankly, I can’t think of any in Toronto, my home, that can match it.

Our server, Moha, was a dream. She was extremely patient, cheerful and very understanding in helping my very senior mom to negotiate the many wonderful menu offerings. I would go out of my way to attend any restaurant, just to be served by this delightful woman.

One of the other servers, Ruby, was very understanding and accommodating in cheerfully helping us decide on just the right table to satisfy my senior mom’s very particular needs. Another great member of a great team.

An added bonus was the wonderful selection of oldies background music, diverse repertoire from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. Just loud enough to enjoy, not intrusive , and perfect for the more seasoned clientele typical of Sidney, B.C.

Owner Mr Jess Birring is a delightful and remarkable man, and can be extremely proud of his establishment and all the wonderful staff. Bravo to all of them for a truly delightful dining experience! 😎

Looking forward to dining there again soon on this and future visits to beautiful Sidney. B.C.

Second visit: Oct 23, 2024

Conveniently located about a 10-minute walk from where I was staying, and offering vivid memories of the previous day’s gastronomic delights, the 3rd St Cafe exerted an irresistible gravitational pull on my taste buds and olfactory senses. I had to return!!

I simply had to go for a repeat of my first experience, i.e. sumptuous Club sandwich on toasted sourdough bread with superb fully loaded minestrone soup, and a delicious coffee. Rhonda and Moha were up to the task and easily hit it out of the park on all fronts!😋

Third visit: Oct 24, 2024

Today’s changeup was the soup, this time a divine mulligatawny seasoned with a perfect amount of curry. A perfect accompaniment for the obligatory and irresistible Club sandwich. All cheerfully served by Arsh, the wonderful assistant manager who gives Jess some time to recuperate from his busy days in the restaurant. Maybe I’ve died and gone to heaven!!

Fourth visit: Oct 26, 2024

As you can see, and hopefully taste, we’re on a roll here. Another fabulous Club sandwich on sourdough (do NOT mess with success!), and another hearty helping of mulligatawny, this time enhanced with lovely pieces of chicken and a liberal sprinkling of lemon grass to augment the curry. All beautifully and attentively served by Ruby. Topped off with a couple of cups of delicious coffee and I was set for the day! A highlight was a chance to chat with the engaging and effervescent manager, Jess Birring, and congratulate him on this fabulous establishment and his wonderful team.

Also got to look at the magnificent Blackstone Eggs Benny being enjoyed by the gentleman seated next to me at the counter, the view from which, by the way, offers nonstop and diverse entertainment on the street outside the window! By all accounts the best seats in the house!!

Do NOT miss this place! Perhaps a call to the Michelin folks is in order!!😎

I may just have to try the Eggs Benny tomorrow!!

Andy Hoffer Visiting from...

This was our first stop in Canada and we were very excited to try our first restaurant off of the ferry. Overall, we didn't have a good experience with the food or waitress.

We all first started our order and asked for ice tea. Not sure if this is normal for Canada since this is our first day here, however they dropped it off in a can. It gave us all a chuckle since weren't expecting the can.

I ordered a crispy chicken sandwich and the chicken was cooked well. The plate looked really appetizing, however the sandwich was missing a really good sauce to it. Fries were cooked well.

My neice ordered a Grilled Cheese sandwich with bacon. According to her it tasted fine, but it reminded her of club house food. The salad they provided wasn't presented very well either so my niece didn't eat it.

My wife ordered a club, but they gave her a BLT instead. It tasted fine, but it also reminded her of club house food as well (no pun intended).

The worst part of the experience was the waitress. She wasn't attentive at all. Her manager noticed that we were still waiting so he called her to us. She took our order, came back to drop off the meal, and then to drop off the bill. She did not ask us how our food was, nor to refill our empty glasses. Last she didn't know how to use the credit card machine, but she seemed to have worked there for a while. The only positive was the manager. He was very attentive and friendly. We all...

I took family from out of town to this Cafe trusting the high rating on Google. It cannot be trusted, I'm not sure if this is one of those establishments that has a toxic locals only attitude, but it kind of felt that way. The service was very disjointed and unorganized with three different people coming to take the order. The young lady who delivered our food acted as though the only reason she bussed our meal to us was because she was forced to at gunpoint.

The food was mostly wrong, Caesar salad showing up as garden with thousand island dressing and no explanation(we ran out of Caesar, etc), specific bread type requests for sandwiches the same, as though they had run out and just didn't care to provide any type of customer service. My wife ordered Sourdough and it arrived on a poppy seed bagel.

Once the food had arrived we were ignored until the bill came, at which point the server tried bribe a better tip by offering cheap Costco suckers.

It's very disappointing when local eateries are this bad in the service that they opened there doors to provide, they drive people into the arms of Denny's and the like, causing a homogeneous culture to arise and the local culture to shrivel and...