A&W Canada — Restaurant in Toronto

I had the pleasure of being served by a lovely employee by the name of Sadia. I took notice that she was the only employee working at the time whilst there were no less than seven customers in the store that she was in the process of serving. All by herself, this remarkable young lady managed to greet each customer with a smile with courtesy and professionalism. She accurately took each person‘s order, including mine, and proceeded to cook, prepare, and put together all the orders whilst handling Uber, all by herself! I have not seen such a pleasant, and professional person behind the counter of an A&W or any other fast food restaurant in decades! Sadia apologized to me two times for what she felt was taking longer to prepare my order than what should be. It’s important to note here, that she in fact did not take a long time to make my order or anyone else’s for that matter. Although she was all alone, she kept her composure, her good cheer, and was extremely efficient as she navigated through the entire kitchen handling all the food, while fully gloved, removing her gloves, each time to handle the cash register, and put back on clean gloves between customers to get back to preparing our food orders. I also want to say that Sadia cooked the delicious meal for my friend and I and everything was hot and fresh! I cannot recommend this young lady enough for a management position soon! At the very least she should be given twice her hourly rate of pay, because she was efficiently doing the work of three regular employees! Sadia, I hope the person or persons that finds this comment takes it upon himself to come to you and personally give you a thank you? My name is Doug McIsaac And this young lady is the reason I will be back to this A&W location from now on. Congratulations to you, Sadia and thank you for one of the most astonishing displays of initiative and hard work that I have seen in a restaurant since I cannot even remember when!...

I'm being generous with the 1 star for service.

Typically I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but I'm not sure if they just deal with a lot at this location being what it is, but I could not help but feel like I was disturbing the employees when I stopped in the other night around 9-10pm.

They were dismissive, acted like I was invisible once I ordered, and were too busy talking to each other to even notice I was standing at the counter.

I was greeted and asked if they could take my order promptly and that's why they get the one star, I had to repeat my order 3 times and they still punched it in wrong and had to be corrected, the cashier then walked away after giving me the machine to pay, when it was approved, and the register popped open, the expeditor didn't even turn around, just reached behind her and closed the till, and kept her conversation going, I stood there for another 2-3 minutes listening to pots and pans being dropped/thrown around in the back by the person that took my order and walked away while the expeditor and cook conversed and made Uber orders. Finally they turned around just as a loud bang from the back while the cashier walked out, and I still had to ask for my bill, which seemed like a hassle from them both.

I waited around while meals were made and put on the counter for Uber drivers to pick up, and to the only other person there got their food, then finally saw them prepping my meal.

There was no rush, no care at all, the cashier ended up being the one to prepare my poutines as the other two people walked away to the back, which took forever, but then they sat on the counter until the expeditor came back out and packed them.

The food was hot, and good as A&W typically is.

Not sure if I'll go back to this location again, wasn't worth the hassle/wait/parking.

I hope this was just some people having a bad night and not the norm for...

Overall, this A and W location (just steps away from Greenwood station) gets 4 stars. If you've had an A and W burger, then you know the flavours will be exactly as you expect. Mama burger, Teen burger, Mozza burgers are all delicious - toppings are fresh, burgers are made fresh. Breakfast meals are also well made and satisfying. Recently had their teen burger combo - burgers were hot and fries were made well. I've been to a few places where the oil hasn't been changed in a while which ruins anything that goes into them. This was not the case here.

Perhaps my favourite thing about A and W is their coffee. I know, that sounds funny right since it's A and W but sometimes, I just want coffee, not pop, etc. I appreciate that their coffee at this location has always been fresh and it's organic. It's strong and flavourful. The best part is, you also get stamps for each coffee purchased. Five stamps and you get a free coffee! That's probably the best deal around at this point.

Whenever I've gone to this location, staff have been pleasant and they do regularly wash their hands before making the food and after handling money which I really appreciate. I know it should be standard but we all know it's not always the case so it had to be said.

A few notes: depending on when you go, this A and W can be quite quiet or quite busy so keep that in mind if you decide to go. Location is also not wheelchair accessible. Atmosphere gets a 4. It can get quite stifling hot in the summer when the AC is on the fritz. Overall, a decent place with good coffee that I'll happily visit when I...