JOEY Don mills — Restaurant in Toronto

weird customer service? sure it was a busy saturday night but man. we call to see if any reservations, "noo there are none." ok thats fine we just go wait we arrive at 7:15, i ask how long for wait she says 1 hr 30 min. i say ok put me down for 4 we walk around come back 8:30. i ask hey how much longer? she basically says "we dont know" i say ok. lady beside me complains its her birthday n theyve got her waiting all day i get up again to ask to look at a menu while we wait and another lady is having difficulties i think she turns to me and says do u have a reservation? i say no and she says to go across the street to the other restaurant because the food and wait times better and i wont regret it 💀 i go to sit back down i wait in total 2 hr 15 min. i ask again "where am i in line?" she asks me for how many again? it was 4. and she searches for me on her two screens and points to something then another girl whispers something in her mic and the first girl with a scarf headband just walks away without saying anything and some waitress comes up and just picks up some menus standing there so now im confused. nobody is saying anything. i ask "oh are we going now?" shes like "table for four right?" and im like yeah and then i go grab my parents. feel like they definitely forgot about us. 9:30 were seated in the corner its very dark my parents have to use their phone flashlights to read the menu but we order right away because we were ready 10:15 still waiting and the waitress comes over apologizing because they didn't receive our drink orders because it didn't print out. she reassures us that our food is coming soon though food was delicious. we were here before and i'll probably go back just for the food. another place maybe. pretty pricey and but its quality. hats off to the chef, i loved my ribeye. the mashed potatoes in the spring roll wrapper was a bit too much though imo dont know if the "crispy skin" is needed waiter offers refill for a coke and it comes 15 minutes later lol we ask for bill... and they bring us the wrong bill. left at 11 pm we're mostly patient people but i dont know, how would you feel if you were in our position dining here? i loved it last time so i was pretty disappointed this time. we came back to celebrate something special but it was quite an unfortunate series of events. perhaps some complimentary food or something wouldve remedied all this? if they cared. never in his 40 years of living in canada did my dad ever have to wait this long for food. was it because we were all asian?

*EDIT: olivia reached out to me and we went back on friday. no complaints from me or my family the whole time.

we arrived at 7 pm, they got us in and seated within 10 minutes despite how busy it was and even offered us wine and champagne were quick with meals and super attentive, asking us how we were doing multiple times during the whole meal my uncle actually loved the loaded mashed potatoes lol left at about 8:45 pm satiated and content

we really felt like they were trying to make amends due to what happened previously and we all respected that. we felt very special and appreciated that night. thank you guys for reaching out when you didn't have to (because not all restaurants can say they do that quite as diligently) and giving us a wonderful place we can come back to and celebrate at with delicious meals for our family. we will definitely be coming back...

We went to JOEY for a birthday dinner. Unfortunately, our experience was terrible.

First of all, the food was not good. I had high hopes for the new menu item, but it was a big letdown. The natural taste of the seafood and its refreshing flavor were completely overpowered by the strong taste of cilantro(or herb?). It made me wonder if this was a cover-up for the inability to handle the seafood’s natural smell.

The sushi rolls were just average—nothing special.

But the biggest issue was the timing. After the first two dishes came out, we waited another 50 minutes for the steak and pasta. When they finally arrived, they were cold. We asked the staff about it three times during that time, but it wasn’t until the third request that someone actually checked. Before that, all they said was that the steak takes time to cook well-done, with no apology whatsoever. Does it really take 50 minutes to cook a steak? Couldn’t the pasta at least have come out earlier?

There was clearly a mistake on JOEY’s part, but no one explained or acknowledged it. The pasta was another major disappointment—completely flavorless, and the meat was dry and lacked any juiciness. (This isn’t just frustration talking—it was genuinely bad.)

And here comes the worst part.

One staff member, after hearing our concerns, offered us a brownie. By then, we had already ordered an extra roll just to fill the time and were no longer hungry, nor did we want the brownie. But we didn’t want to embarrass the staff member, so we accepted the gesture.

Can you guess what happened next? That brownie took over 30 minutes to arrive. And shockingly, the server brought it over with a laugh, saying the “Happy Birthday” message on the ice cream was all smudged. Was this a joke? It felt like mockery. They completely ruined what was supposed to be a special day and a meaningful evening.

And most unbelievably, when we checked the bill, they had charged us for the ice cream on top of the brownie they had offered!

I’m speechless. Maybe our experience was an especially bad one, but even on a regular day, I would never recommend expecting good food here.

+) They also did not provide any utensils suitable for children, such as spoons or forks for toddlers aged 2 and 5 — only adult-sized ones were given.

A thorough review of the overall kitchen operation and management system seems...

UPDATE: Joey's management asked me to contact them about this review and I did. I then just got bounced around between several different managers who asked me questions easily answered by reading my review, and finally not answering my last email and leaving me with no resolution or apology (the last email they sent asked me to elaborate or name staff). I believe they simply respond to bad reviews like this to make it look like they care when really they don't.

Made a reservation here 12 hours in advance for my mother's birthday, we were a party of 10. Arriving at the restaurant we were shockingly told we would have to sit at two different tables. I've never before had a restaurant expect a family to sit at two different tables especially when they had plenty of time to arrange and connect tables to accommodate 10 of us. We ordered our drinks and waited more than 45 mins for our waitress to return and take our orders, she never asked once if we wanted another cocktail and the restaurant lost lots of revenue as we wanted to drink but had to leave our table and track down our waitress just to get another round. Service was incredibly slow and when my mother's dinner finally arrived, she expressed to the waitress that her steak wasn't medium as she had ordered. The waitress asked if she would like a replacement but my mother declined and asked her to take it away as it was already late and we just wanted to go home at this point. The bill arrived which was around $1400 and to my surprise my mother's dinner was still on the bill even though she hadn't touched it. It would be expected that a restaurant after failing to take orders and bring out food in a timely manner make some sort of accommodation for this kind of misstep (like not charging for a meal that was returned to the kitchen) but it didn't happen here. Sad as we did enjoy a lot of the other dishes and would have had a much better experience if the service wasn't so...