The Sal — Restaurant in Thunder Bay

Went there today for breakfast. The building is very nice, beautifully renovated. Service was good, fast and friendly. But the food is lacking in overall quality.

I noticed they use no name everything which really sealed my decision not to return. No Name PAM on the grill, grossed me out. No name syrup, no name butter, no name juice, no name peanut butter and jam, etc.

I had the hangover breakfast with 3 eggs, 2 fresh toast, bacon and breakfast potatoes. The eggs were supposed to be over easy but they were loaded with grease and snotty. I noticed the woman at the table next to me didn’t even touch her eggs and left them on her plate when they left.

The French toast were tiny for a restaurant.

The coffee was not good. Didn’t hit the spot.

The bacon was of poor quality, with no flavor and dripping with grease. In fact, my plate was left with a pool of grease at the bottom.

The potatoes were hard on the inside and had no flavor whatsoever.

Overall I would rate the food experience as a 6 out of 10. I wouldn’t return. Their food standards were just too low in my opinion.

When I am paying good money for a restaurant breakfast I expect brand name items and quality ingredients.

When I saw the cook spraying the grill with no name PAM, and the waitress pouring apple juice from a yellow No Name carton, that was the nail in the coffin for me. It tells the patron that they aren’t worth buying quality ingredients for and that is the impression I had when I noticed all these poor quality items being used.

The prices were not too bad but for the quality you get it should be cheaper. I’m willing to pay more for quality brand name food.

I wouldn’t recommend this restaurant because they don’t seem to value quality, which is vital to someone craving a tasty experience. Everything about the restaurant was perfect except for the food, which is the cash cow of a restaurant and MUST be top notch, and sadly, this restaurant doesn’t value...

When we got menus and she gave my wife, son and I adult menus and our daughter a kids menu. When she came back to take our order I asked if my 12 year old could order off the kids menu too. She said yes and I said that's great. We ordered fish and chips for both the kids off the kids menu(mostly because they wanted the ice cream and it sounded like a good deal).

Everything was fine for the meal and I said we enjoyed the food. Well after dinner we sat there for quite a while and finally she came over. At that point I asked about the kids ice cream. Her whole attitude changed again and she said we ordered adult meals for them. I immediately said we would not do that. I even pointed out we had specifically asked if my boy could order off the kids menu. She got very rude and snippy. I still expected her to apologize and fix her error. Instead she doubled down. She did charge us the kids rate after I argued and asked to speak with the manager about it but she also said the kids could not have ice cream because we were in the wrong. She made some comment about if we had ordered kids meals it would have had less fish. I agreed and said that would have been fine. The kids didn't even finish the food they had.

Finally when I went to the cash machine, she was again very rude and ignorant. She got angry when I asked to see the bill before I paid it and then again berated me in front of my kids when I asked her to remove the pop that was also on the bill(and included in the kids meals).

The whole situation left me complete flabbergasted and disgusted with her attitude. Even the other girl that said nothing didn't help.

Our waitress had no service skills at all and basically berated me the whole way...

A nice little diner in a cozy location in Westfort. The food is never disappointing and it's affordable!

Returning to re-review: we continue to go to The Sal very frequently and not once have we had a poor meal. I brought my (picky pants) dad here from out of town and he loved it and says he craves their Monte Cristo all the time. They have something for everyone and some of my favourite are their fish and chips, Mac and cheese bites, clubhouse sandwich and of course, the Monte Cristo. I've been for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I am literally never disappointed. I see no issue with using no name stuff, it's the same as brand name stuff just at a cheaper price so I say, for a business that is still in the stage of building itself up, more power to ya!

Kind of sad about the decision to remove cucumbers in Greek salad though, that one doesn't quite make sense!

I don't know what I'd do...