Tapps Restaurant & Bar 🍻 — Restaurant in Toronto

Tell me: when does $10.99 x 2 equal $41.65? When you get a couple of burger with fries specials at Tapps Restaurant & Bar on the Danforth! Walk with me and I’ll explain . . .

Picture it. Sunny Sunday afternoon, out for a bit, my spouse and I feeling a little peckish. We’re drawn to the words written in chalk on the sandwich board on the sidewalk. “Burger with Fries $10.99.” Sounds nice, and Spouse has been to the Tapps location in Scarborough before and pronounced it, “Nice place, good food.” In we go and down we sit. Server comes up and asks for our drink order. We usually just take water when we’re out on a hot day — alcohol makes your thirst worse, and soft drinks tend towards salty. “Water,” Server repeats. Little to no enthusiasm. “The burger and fries for ten ninety-nine sounds good, so we’ll have two, please,” I say. “Oh,” says Server, “you have to buy a drink to get this special.” Okay, well, that wasn’t noted on the sandwich board, but I'll go along. Two soft drinks can’t be that much more — naïve little old me. Iced tea for me, then, Coke for Spouse. “Could I have a bit of gravy for my fries?” asks Spouse. Indeed, this is a good thing. Gravy is inexpensive and plentiful in a pub, in my experience. (Naïve, foolish old me.)

Five minutes later the drinks are poured and are sitting on the bar top collecting wasps while Server is on the phone laughing and talking. I go to retrieve the drinks myself and notice they are mostly ice. I admire the digital jukebox and drop a toonie in to put on a couple of tunes while we wait. Nice touch, although I don't think the other patrons knew what decent funk sounded like, by the looks on their faces. (But it was only three songs.) Twenty minutes later, out come the burgers and fries. Decent plating, even if there’s some dried bits from a previous meal on the underside, which I don’t notice until a bit later.

I notice the burgers are those bear-paw type that restaurants can normally get frozen in bulk at Costco. Buns are stale but the lettuce, tomato, and onion look nice. Fries are those coated type, again, the kind you get frozen in bulk on that same Costco outing. Gravy comes out — there’s about five or six tablespoons of it in a small serving leaf. It’s coagulated at the top and flecked with bits of burned something or other. I dip a fry into it. It’s cold and tastes every bit as rancid as it looks. The gravy is set aside. The fries are good, but the burgers even with the lovely-looking toppings are nothing to write home about. Bland. Uninspired. But what else can one expect with something made fresh from frozen? We’re not expecting anything elevated from a pub on the Danforth.

Afterwards, the plates sit for a few minutes and Server comes to pick up. “One bill or two?” she asks. “One,” I say. Server takes the plates away, goes to the bar, serves a drink to a customer and proceeds to chat about the weather and the outcome of the Women's World Cup. Ten minutes later I get out my wallet and proceed to the bar to pay.

So here’s how $10.99 x 2 equal $41.65: Two “Special #3” at $10.99 = $21.98. Iced tea: $3.59. Soft drink: $2.99. Okay. Homemade gravy: $3.49. Oh dear. Subtotal with tax: $36.22. I punch in 15% for the tip ($5.43), overriding the 18% minimum and forcing myself not to touch the NO TIP option.

Final total for this mediocrity: $41.65. I ask Spouse, “Didn’t you eat at that Scarborough location and you thought it was great?” Spouse answers, “Oh, that was back in 1989.”

Do better. I know it’s the Danforth and pubs down there are a dime a dozen....

Wanted to check out this spot on the danforth with some friends for the first time last night to play some pool and have some drinks/food. First off, we were told there was a wing special tonight where you buy a pound of wings and then get another 1/2 pound for free. We all decided that sounded like a good deal so we went with the wings, but when they brought them out there were only 5-7 wings which was literally just a pound (I used to work at a wing place). When we asked about the deal again and the half pound, she said that what she gave us is a pound and a half, which clearly was not.

Then, our sever/bartender lost track of our bills, so she asked us to go to her computer and show her what we all had. There were multiple drinks on the computer that we did not even order and she said she would correct it when she gave us our bills. At the end, we went to pay and majority of the people in our group were overcharged. Someone who was there in our group for the least amount of time (one hour) and didn’t order much was charged over $100! Meanwhile people who were there all night didn’t even pay half of that. When we explained to the bartender that our bills were not correct and tried to explain what we had, she said that she is charging us for what our bills are showing and that she will not remove the drinks that we did not order. Some people did a pay as you order drinks and when we were at the end of our visit she said that the drinks that were paid for to order and not on a tab needed to be paid for on the tab. Bad service, bad establishment and they need proper staff.

Overall, if you’re looking for a new spot this is not the place to go. Half of the people in the bar didn’t even look over the age of 18 and they are probably serving underage kids as they also did not check any of their ID. Make sure if you do go to this spot, you’re checking your bill constantly! I’ve just read multiple reviews about this place scamming people and overcharging customers and I wish I looked into the reviews more before we went...

BEWARE of this place. Amy (the owner, manager?) will try to scam you. Check your bill BEFORE you pay. If I could give less than 1 star, I would.

I was there on Saturday June 7th. I ordered the NY style chicken wings (which is 1 lb of wings with fries). After giving my order to Amy, she convinced me to get the wing special which is 1 lb of wings with a free 1/2 lb added to the order. I was a bit confused as her English isn't perfect and it was loud in there, but I thought I was getting a good deal. I was also confused because the menu says this "deal" is available Monday-Wednesday and I was there on Saturday. Anyways, she brings out a basket of fries and a basket of wings (which definitely was NOT 1.5 lbs). This was scam number 1. As a side note, I ordered medium wings and they came with BBQ sauce on them. We also ordered bruschetta which the menu said was $9.99. It was terrible. Probably the worst bruschetta we've ever had.

After the meal we paid at the bar before seeing the bill. We then examined the bill more closely. We were charged $11.99 for the bruschetta. This was scam number 2. Amy claimed it was because we got cheese. But we didn't ask for cheese. We just ordered it as we saw it on the menu.

We were also charged 17.99 for the wings and $7 or $8 for the fries (I don't quite remember how much we were charged for the fries). When we rechecked the menu, the wing special is only $16.99. When I complained about that she said "$16.99 is the old price". I called her on this bs right away. You can't change the price after I've already ordered my food. This was scam number 3.

I will never go back to this place. Even though it was only about $3-4 extra, you expect restaurants to be honest not try and scam you on everything you order. Never again.

TLDR - They will try and scam you so check your bill carefully against the prices on the menu.

TLDR 2 - If you're ordering wings, don't let them talk you into the "special". What they give you is definitely...