Joe Bird — Restaurant in Toronto

First review in Toronto. Yay!

I love reviewing places like Joe Bird because there's just so much to talk about! It's not awful enough that I'm just over it, and don't want to even think about it, but not good enough that I'm left near speechless, with repetitive and impressed accolades. Let's dive into it!

Food 2.5/5 — The food was alright. I cheated from my normal plant-based diet in order to bring this review hot off the presses: I ordered the two pieces chicken and my girlfriend ordered the chicken sandwich.

I was immediately surprised by how good the French fries were. Seriously, I dunno if they were double or triple fried, but they were damned good.

Then I bit into my drumstick.

In a word it was underwhelming; not bad, but not that good either. The breading was pretty tasteless, and the chicken was a little on the dry side. Then to my surprise the chicken breast was very whelming. Like seriously, even though it was tasteless breading, the breast was super moist and flavorful, and went well with the fried coating. It was very shocking that the breat outperformed the drumstick so drastically.

As for my girlfriend's chicken sandwich, I would say it was somewhere in the middle.

Service 1/5 — I was debating giving a slightly higher rating, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Our server was totally inattentive, and gave us the minimal service, not even speaking to us as he was clearing our stuff. Seriously just walked up and started bussing our table when there's food still there and no obvious cues that we're done Interactions were kind of limited to basics, like "can I get you a drink? Do you want food?"

It wasn't just our server though... it was also every other server there. I caught one server smiling with a table the entire time we were there — admittedly I was being very nosy and snooping a lot. But not in a creepy way! I was genuinely curious why everyone was so grim. Yes, it was busy, but not overwhelmingly so. I didn't see a server with more than four tables at a time, mostly two-tops, there were two bar staff mostly chilling out, and also support staff. With a well staffed team, I'm totally perplexed.

But all things considered, the service was at least timely, and we were checked on at normal intervals. I was kind of laughing as we walked off and noticed next door at the pub who's name escapes me, all the servers were smiling and laughing with their tables. Weird!

Atmosphere 5/5 — The upside to the grim service staff was that everyone around us was having a good time and enjoying themselves! Good view, good energy, good music, and awesome patio! My girlfriend mentioned she thought the prices reflected that this restaurant was a tourist trap, I however felt it reflected more that they have a great patio, with good lighting, lots of plants, and comfortable well spaced seating.

Cleanliness 3/5 — Decently clean place, but I don't know why they seemed to be falling behind on table maintenance constantly; its not a TGI Friday's or Margaritaville kinda place. Bathroom was sadly in the mall. It's what you can expect from a mall bathroom; chemical odors, messed up toilets, and motion sensor faucets that only start to work when you pull your hands away.

Overall 2.85/5 — I hate giving ratings with so many decimal integers but there you go... couldn't give them a 2 on food, but couldn't bring myself to give them a 3. Round them down or up if you wish, depending on your own sensibilities. All in all, if you want a nice patio with a good vibe, go here. If you're happy with minimal standards of service (not in negative way... but in a 'at least they're maintaining the table' way) then this is a good spot to check out. Maybe its a pretty awful place to work, and if that's the case, I in no means hold it against the staff — I've had such jobs before as well, it's hard to keep energy levels up to expectations when...

EDIT : These people are very unprofessional. When they see a bad review, They write here to email them so they can make it up to me, and then when I took out time to actually send a proper email to them, they don't even bother responding. Its been more than 2 months since I sent email. DO NOT GO HERE!!!

ORIGINAL REVIEW :Horrible! I came here just today Tuesday Aug 7 at around 7.02 pm to order takeout. First off all, no professionalism. They talked to me as if they didn't really wanna serve me but had to coz I walked in. I asked about the vegetarian options since I'm vegetarian, the guy who was supposed to take my order brought out another guy who just looked sick and not supposed to be working with food ,(nasty blocked nose and everything). Then, I asked about the sandwich special they have showing on google maps menu, which is buy 1 get 1 sandwich free. They said its very old not currently valid and couldn't honor it even though I showed it to them. I said ok, ordered the veg burger and cornbread, they said its gonna take 10 min. I came back in like 5 min and am just standing there coz no one's at the weird truck counter so I assume they're still preparing my order and will bring it out when its ready. Nope, after standing around for 5 min, a guy who was taking out trash or something saw me and said oh your order has been already ready long time ago. Wow, who's gonna tell me that my order is ready?? Am i supposed to just magically know my order is ready? Anyways I ring the bell and the sick guy(who took my order) brings it out with wet hands. I wanna give him the benefit of doubt but really, who hands customer orders with wet hands??? That just feels so unhygienic. Anyways, I ask for extra napkins, he gives me them, again with those wet hands, and Im on my way. When I later open it, its not what I ordered!!!! I asked for the cornbread and they gave me god awful Brussel sprouts. What am I supposed to do now??? I thought to call but they already closed. Horrible, treating customers poorly, unhygienic handling, and not able to take a single order correctly. Oh , and I paid $22 something for this. This just left such a bad taste in my mouth and having concerns about unsafe food handling, I had to throw the whole order out. I don't know how they're gonna rectify this but...

I just had one of the worst dining experience of my life. It was my birthday today, my fiance booked in advance to go to this establishment as we live closeby and had it recommended. I appreciate it was a public holiday today and that it was very busy. My partner had reserved a spot for 2 outside, but it was busy so we were seated inside. No problem, it happens. This was at 1pm. At 1:15pm, we order our drinks, and they arrive pretty quickly which was great. After that, we had radio silence. We were enjoying our drinks and each other's company so we didn't mind, and we knew it was busy. By 2pm, we noticed everyone around us had food and were being seen to, so I tried to get the attention of multiple wait staff saying 'excuse me, please may we order some food'? to which we were ignored, one time when the waitress was standing directly next to me and I had asked, she looked directly at me, and walked away. After 1hr15mins I went up to someone and explained how long we had been there and that we wanted to order. She stared at me blankly and another waiter came over and apologised and said they would be over in a second, which in fairness they were. At no point was I rude or hostile, just dejected and sad. We ordered our food and I ordered another pint of beer. We were sitting on a table right next to the bar and I saw the pint I had ordered sit there for 30mins. In the meantime, our food turned up - my fried chicken burger was slimy and not pleasant, I ate half out of hunger and left the rest. The fries were good. My partner enjoyed his Diabolo burger. We asked for the bill almost immediately and someone then brought over the lukewarm beer that had been sitting on the side for over 30mins. I said I did not want it, it had been there for a while and to take it back. We ended up spending $88 for the worst dining experience I've ever had, let alone on my birthday. I was incredibly upset about this whole thing, I've never been outright ignored in a restaurant multiple times when just trying to order food. I would not recommend this place to anyone, and will be actively telling...