The Park Pub — Restaurant in Vancouver

Met up with friends who were finishing a few drinks. I joined late and had a beer. Place was pretty dead that night but our server seemed to forget about us or ignore us, not really care, as he was busy yapping it up with his buddies at the bar. I had to walk to the bar and ask for my bill. He acknowledged and said he would bring it over. I waited 20 minutes and still nothing. Finally I went to the bar with my credit card, where he was there yapping it up with his buddies. I got my bill and saw an 'auto-gratuity' because the group I joined had 8 people. Look, I don't mind paying for good service, but this service was deplorable and the place was dead. I guess he didn't like the hassle of us taking him away from his buddies. I told him I will decide what kind of gratuity I will give. He said it was mandatory because of our big group. I asked to speak to a manager and he said there wasn't one around. So I replied he can either get the cost of the beer or nothing as I refuse to give a gratuity for the terrible service. He then becomes like a little whiny kid and loudly calls for an off-duty manager/owner(?) from the bar. Then I am dealing with another guy and he says it is their policy, to which I reply is it their policy to have bad service? He relents and adjusts my bill accordingly. As a former worker in the food industry, before auto-gratuity was a thing, we worked hard for our tips and made sure service was top notch. Sadly my experience is one of laziness and taking for granted mandatory tipping from this establishment(among others). What prompted me to even write this was because of the immature approach of the bartender who acted like a...

I've been putting off this review for a while. I used to love this place when it was checkers. Unfortunately - as I've been here quite a few times now with less than awesome experiences, I have to say why.

The first time I went here, I was with family and we all had meals, i got the nachos. The cheese tasted like they added eggs to it. I don't mean like, "oh this is kinda egg-y" I mean " holy eff this tastes like an omelet on chips". I expected more because I often went to bayside before they changed their menu to mostly meat options for their nachos, which were the same as the Park's but yuck.

Second time I remember was with my girlfriend - she got the salmon burger and after it took almost 48 minutes to get our order with no one checking in - she mentioned it tasted like bad bread (like a bad case of halitosis kinda smells like 💩) and so I was nice and forced it down. This wasn't the first time we had fish there that smelled bad.

Third and last bad experience was most recently. I went to watch a friend's band play some covers and just wanted drinks and maybe a snack. I was going to just deal with the egg-y nachos. Enter a whole new set of issues. They were burnt all around the edges. And I don't mean like, artisan style crispy cheese, I mean they were dry, burnt chips. There was almost no cheese on top compared to other places or even the last time I was there. Then just a pile of dry chips and black beans.

I want this place to do better. It's a nice cozy spot. Which is why I give it 2 stars...

I’m sharing this to help other women make an informed choice. I visited this pub twice recently and did not feel safe on either occasion. The first time, a man at the bar was aggressive and would not leave me alone. A female staff member and a regular stepped in to help, which I appreciated. Because of how they handled it, I assumed it was a one-off and decided to give the pub a second chance.

When I returned a few days later, the experience was much worse. I was there alone again and the environment felt unsafe quickly. A male server repeatedly pushed drinks on me after I declined, and drinks I never ordered were brought to my table and added to my tab. Another patron intervened and told the server to stop.

Instead of de-escalating, staff and people who seemed to be their friends became confrontational toward the patron who defended me. “Security” was brought over in a way that felt intimidating rather than protective. I no longer felt safe staying inside.

I called the police to assist me in leaving and was advised I did not have to pay for drinks I had not agreed to. After two visits, I do not believe the first incident was an exception. It felt like part of the overall culture and crowd this pub attracts.

Women, especially if you are on your own, please be cautious. Based on my experience, the environment did not feel safe or respectful toward women, and I would not recommend this pub for a...