The Keg Steakhouse + Bar - Estate Drive — Restaurant in Toronto

My 9 year old daughter and I arrived at 9:30. We understood that the place would be busy as it was a special evening being New Year's Eve. Upon arrival, we were seated and when the waitress came by she did not mention to us that there was any delay in the kitchen due to the overwhelming capacity of the restaurant. All that to say, it's New Year's Eve and it's expected that an establishment like the Keg that has a completely booked reservation schedule and a 3 hour wait for those coming as walk-ins, should. Understanding that it would be a significantly busy night and have the sufficient amount of kitchen staff necessary to provide meals of quality and quantity within reasonable time limits for the guests who are paying a pretty penny for the food, ambiance and service. When the waitress took our order, I ordered appetizers as well as our meals as I understood things might get busy as more people began to enter the restaurant. I did so at 9:40 PM. As an appetizer, we had macaroni and cheese and the onion rings. The macaroni and cheese had absolutely zero flavor, was watery and I don't even think there was cheese in there. It was steaming hot and it appeared as if it was just the rue of flour, water, and a bit of salt thrown on some very hard noodles and then served as quickly as possible. It's pretty sad when a 9 year old prefers to eat her mother's macaroni and cheese in lieu of the overpriced one served at the Keg. As disgusting as the mac and cheese and greasy onion rings presented themselves to be, we were lucky to have ordered them! For over an hour, we ate through this and had some of the complimentary bread because it was 10:40 and our meal had not arrived. Where was our food? I had a kid serloin meal with asparagus and a Keg Burger with fries. Two pretty simple dishes for both my daughter and I. The waitress never came by once to give us an estimated time of arrival of our food or to offer us any water which we chugged down out of pure starvation at this point. I finally had to call another waitress to tell her that we were ready to leave, as our food was over an hour. Our original waitress came back and with a very clumsy and nonchalant attitude said: "Well, it's busy foods backed up an hour" .The manager eventually came over and said that our food was actually at the pass, and ready to come out. At this point my daughter and I were thoroughly disappointed. It was almost 11 o'clock and I wanted to get us home so we could be able to ring in the New Year in our home rather than on the highway, leaving the Scarborough Keg to head back to Ajax. the food came out by about 10:50. My daughter took one bite of the asparagus which she usually loves, and spit it out I took a bite and it tasted bitter and bland and was cold. Her steak? Let's just say that the cow was still mooing when I cut into it. It was cold gummy and you could even see the unrendered fat inside the steak which we ordered medium rare. The manager came back and didn't seem to have any real remorse or care for our experience. I told him that we were ready to leave. He then said I'll bring you the bill. I then asked him "What bill and told him very blatantly that we were not paying for anything. He then said of course and comped us the $63 that we spent on the gritty and discussing macaroni and cheese, 2 waters, some greasy onion rings and some free bread.There was a family beside us who throughout the night, I had noticed that the father of the family had sent back his food as his was also cold and disgusting. We got into a conversation about the very poor experience and he told me his food was absolutely disgusting as well. The manager was overwhelmed, the stafd overwhelmed, the food horrid. I will NEVER go to...

Two stars, would not recommend.

We sat, at our booth, for 15 minutes without being greeted or our drink order taken. I flagged down a manager and explained that we had been sitting here, invisible, and would like to order drinks. The manger, completely shell shocked by my complaint stared at me blankly, lost for words, and after an uncomfortable 3 seconds he stammered “I’ll get some paper and be right back”. Party of three: three waters and two Keg sized crears. Sure get some paper. I cold remember this order even after sustaining a severe head injury.

Anyways the manager never returned, as our server finally arrived at the scene.

I don’t recall if he introduced himself, but he asked for our drink orders, and then inquired, “have you had enough time to look at the menu?”. Having sat there for 15 minutes our orders, and the menu had been seared into memory.

Following a slow start, momentum was gaining, drinks, garlic bread, and salads came in rapid fire succession. Main courses arrived promptly, and one of the steaks was well undercooked. Our server took the steak, and the plate, and brought it back to the kitchen to be re-fired and re-plated. Ok, class move.

A woman wearing a short, tight, white cocktail dress, and knee high black leather boots-think Spring Break Daytona Beach stripper-shows up at our table with the re-fire food. She’s the second floor manger. Look, I’m not trying to shame her, but it clearly wouldn’t fly if a staff member showed up to work dressed like that , and likely violated the corporate dress code. The steak was overcooked and the wrong side with it. So back to the kitchen. Right side shows up, and a Yorkshire pudding thrown in for good measure.

Dinner goes smoothly.

A poor start was corrected by a strong middle half, only to end poorly. We declined dessert. We asked for takeaway containers, a paper bag, and the bill. Take out containers show up rather quickly. 10 minutes later the paper bag shows. 10 minutes later the bill shows up without THE DEBIT MACHINE. Rookie move. 10 minutes later a debit machine shows up with three on the house cheesecakes. We’d already declined dessert.

20% was still tipped on the $200+ bill because we are servers ourselves.

That was the Keg on...

We always choose the Keg for special occasions because we know if anything goes wrong, they'll make it right. Well, not at this location! It was a Saturday night so it was busy, however we made a reservation for 8:15 pm. At 8:15 the table wasn't ready, the current people at our table were paying the bill so it would be just a few minutes. No problem, as we were having a drink at the bar. At 8:30 still nothing. My wife complained to the manager who said it would be awhile longer because the people at the table were still there. We had a reservation for 8:15 pm! It's very common for a restaurant to let people know that they have only a certain amount of time at a table for dinner, especially on busy nights. Finally at 8:50 pm we were seated. My wife has hypoglycemia so at this point things weren't going well for her, or any of us. Our server was wonderful, however near the end of the night she carelessly lifted the hot butter for the lobster and spilled it all over my wife's dress and my jeans (I washed my jeans and the stains are still there, so $100 jeans will be going in the garbage). Someone came over and gave us his business card and told us to send him the dry cleaning bill. We'll see how that goes. When the bill came, they deducted the cost of the Billy Miner pie which is ALWAYS free for birthdays, and they gave my wife a free cocktail. Absolutely unacceptable in our opinion. I would have complained but we were trying to have a nice evening out and didn't want to ruin it any further by arguing with the manager. Overall this was an awful experience and we are very surprised nothing further was done to ensure we wouldn't be writing this review right now (my wife is a part time food influencer with over 15,000 followers. I'm sure she'll be posting about this experience soon). Any other Keg we've been to would have made things right. We will never return to...