Tap Works Pub — Restaurant in Toronto

Update:

Just received an unprofessional and immature response from the owner.

It appears this is a common knee-jerk reaction by the owner to the MANY negative comments about the horrible food & waitstaff at Tap Works Pub.

Instead of learning and improving the food at the restaurant they resort to grade school tactics.

Like I mentioned folks if you want some great eats there are better options in the neighbourhood.

The food was horrible and your waitstaff still don't have a clue about how to do their job properly.

Not Smashing IT! 🤮

By far the worst restaurant experience I have ever encountered.

So I sit down. Get my menu and quickly which was great. But the waitress did not greet me. Did not ask me how was my day etc. Nor did she ask if she can start me off with a drink, which is kind of customary in the restaurant business.

So I ordered my food and I ask 'I'm interested in trying one of your beers, something crisp and light' since Tap Works Pub is known for their great beer selection, and the waitress looked unimpressed and said 'how about great lakes?' I was hoping for something more unconventional, but since I forgot to bring my glasses I couldn't read the menu.

When I did get home I looked up the restaurant's beer menu on the website. They do have a lot of different & great beers that I would have liked to try have tried instead of some boring Great Lakes. Oh well their loss not mine. They should be aware that a restaurant's sales and profits are based on the amount of alcohol sold. Common sense you should be willing to push the beer selection to make some extra money for the business.

So my food comes and it's brought by a different waitress who just places it on the table. No smile, no 'here is your Morocco Beef Stew enjoy' NADA.

I also ordered the Vietnamese Poutine. Once again the waitress who was more reminiscent of a high school cafeteria worker who really hates her job just places the item on the table. No, can I get you something else, how are you enjoying your stew etc. Nada. No style. No finesse.

Let's start by the quality of the food, or should I say the lack of quality.

The food was horrible.

Disgusting.

For starters the Morocco Beef Stew lacked flavor and complexity, which you would expect from a Morocco meal. It needed salt. Yup you read that right. It required salt.

I tried for nearly 5 minutes to get the waitresses attention, but they just kept ignoring me as they walked back & forth. So I got up and walked over to the bar. And the waitress was still ignoring me! Finally a nice customer at the bar asked me what did I need, and I said some salt and he handed me the salt shaker.

So I walk back to my table with the salt shaker in my hand. I salt the tasteless Morocco Beef Stew. The angry waitress comes back to my table with the Vietnamese Poutine Fries. Says NOTHING to me. Doesn't ask me how my Morocco Beef Stew is and if I would like anything else. You know the customary things that the waitstaff are supposed to do and ask their customers.

Now for the Vietnamese Poutine Fries. It was horrible and there was nothing Vietnamese about this dish. The fries where so old, dry and yucky! Many tell-tale signs that the fries where not made to order. The chicken chunks dry & hard.

At this point I had enough of the bad food and inattentive waitstaff. I asked to have the Vietnamese Poutine Fries to take home. The mad waitress just brings me a box. So that's what we you customer service now? Making customers at a restaurant pack their own take out? In some crummy cardboard box that doesn't even close properly nor looks to hygienic.

As I was leaving neither of the waitstaff even said Thank you or Goodnight.

Wow. For a great neighbourhood Tap Works Pub really doesn't fit in. I get better customer service at the McDonald's up the street.

So if you're looking for some great eats and great customer service in a great neighbourhood don't go to Tap Works Pub.

Save your money and your delicate taste buds.

Tap Works Pub is definitely a dive of a place. They make dive restaurants...

UPDATE I've now been here twice, and I can say with confidence that this is my go to neighbourhood pub. I have nothing bad to say. The food, the service, and their attentiveness to Covid-19 health procedures were all A+.

I came here recently with my partner and our best friends and their son. Our waiter was wonderful. We were being a bit picky and had a bunch of requests, and he accommodated all of them with a smile (or should I say "smize" b/c he had a mask on the whole time).

My friend and I shared the nachos and the special (a lamb burger). So much food, and so delicious. My partner had the chicken sandwich and said it was to die for. My other friend had the pulled pork sandwich and her plate was bare at the end of dinner! I had a few bites of my partner's sexy fries (aka truffle parmasean fries) and they were sooooo good.

PAST REVIEW I'd been waiting to try this place since it opened. My partner and I decided to come here with another couple for dinner. I got the nachos. They DO have cheese on them, even though the menu doesn't list it as a topping lol. They were pretty good and layered decently.

My friend had the taco salad. It came with fried tortilla which we thought would be the delicious fried tortilla shell that many taco salads come in. Unfortunately it was just a few tortilla chips.

My partner and I also tried the Truffle Arancini to start. They were really good and had an interesting Mexican flare.

Quite a few things on the menu I'd like to try. I'd like to come back and stay for some more drinks too. Good...

TLDR: Rude staff

Extremely disappointing and unprofessional experience.

Went for a drink on a Friday at 10:30 with a group of five. Walked in and was immediately greeted from across the bar by an extremely arrogant bartender who snidely yelled "1,2,3,4,5 SORRY NOT GONNA HAPPEN!" for all the patrons of the place to hear. Upon noticing a possibly empty table someone from my group got closer to see if it was indeed free and able to fit us and the same bartender once again snidely yelled for all to hear "SORRY GUYS." No further interaction or explanation other than that occurred. So we left. A member of my party called the bar shortly after to file a complaint for the extremely rude staff member at which point they were informed this wasn't the first time this has happened.

Completely unnecessary to treat potential patrons in this manor. If your idea of a good time is getting talked to like a misbehaving child the moment you walk into an establishment, this place is for you. Otherwise steer clear and head somewhere else, there are plenty of great places in the area with much better service and offer a more inviting...