Leopold's Tavern - Victoria — Restaurant in Victoria

Have been multiple times in the last and have all been pretty good times, but this last time seemed to have dropped the ball pretty hard. The bartender seemed to be the only one holding the place together but even so we rarely seen our server.

Took fifteen to get drinks and appt and then a half to even get food. (Poutine). We genuinely thought she had forgotten to ring it in. Had us contemplating leaving after the drinks and appy (which was missing a dip we had asked for but decided to let it go)before our food got there. We were about to but the food arrived just as we were grabbing our jackets.

Stuck it out and as our server dropped our food she barely even finished starting repeating our food orders as she dropped mine and I heard her finishing as she was five feet away. Never seen her again.

The food tasted and looked like it had sat in the window for twenty minutes. As a food service worker myself, I know what that looks like and I could easily compare my partners fries to my own and it looked like they were old stale fries left at the bottom of the bowl. Didn’t even finish it. Just gave it to my partner for left overs.

Couldn’t even tell the server anything as no one was around. She was either at the bar chatting or in the back. Everyone around us seemed to be getting a load of attention and the only difference between them and us was that they were ordering alcohol. We didn’t get any alcohol as we both work pretty early in the mornings and aren’t really evening drinkers to begin with but it surely felt like we received absolute trash service because we didn’t. The table beside us on both sides who sat minutes after us had seen our server multiple times before we had even received appys.

The bartender was great though, we had asked for a box and the bill and had to wait fifteen for the bartender to come over and ask us if everything was all good.

With working in the food industry myself, I understand the e struggle and the stress and whilst the reason might be understaffing or just stressful night, or just because she thought we wouldn’t tip (we actually planned to tip $50 as a vday gift) just cause we didn’t order alcohol, that’s still no reason to treat us the way we’ve been treated and I would have been appalled if I was the server or her fellow server.

Probably won’t be back, this pretty much made me cry on the way home, I felt like I was being treated like I had Covid and...

These were orders for delivery.

I’ve ordered from Leopold’s before and the food tasted awesome and was very fresh, so I decided to order again, but something different. First time I ordered a burger with side of veggie sticks and a traditional poutine. The amount of veg was lacking, only a couple sticks of celery and carrots each. My friend ordered something too, can’t remember what though but they loved it. Overall, the food was great! 5/5 stars first time ordering.

Last night I ordered a Taco salad, chicken strips and a traditional poutine.

The salad was supposed to come with your choice of protein (I chose spicy beef), cheese, pico de gallo, greens, peppers, corn, black beans, tortillas, side of ancho sauce, salsa and sour cream.

I will say the taco salad was super lack lustre. Not worth the $20 at all. First off, the salad didn’t come with the tortilla chips and I could barely even find the black beans, corn or peppers, there was maybe 1 teaspoon total added to the salad of everything. There were lots of greens and a good amount of cheese though. Also, the spicy beef was COLD, as if it had been in the fridge overnight. You could see the solidified grease on the beef, and it was very cold to the touch. Pretty sure that’s not how it’s supposed to be. The ancho sauce was very sweet, like plum sauce with a spicy kick in the back of the throat. It was really odd on taco salad, felt like I was eating dessert. That was super disappointing. It just tasted like greens, cheese and flavourless cold beef with sweet sauce. Do not recommend. 0/5 for the salad. (The red you see in the salad are tomato pieces from the pico de gallo, not peppers).

The chicken strips and poutine were awesome! The order came with 8 good sized chicken strips that were hot, moist and flavoured well. Came with honey bbq sauce that was delicious too. The poutine had good amount of gravy, cheese and was piping hot too. 5/5 for each of those.

Overall I’m rating 4/5 because most of the food was good and well portioned, but the side veggies and taco salad were not good.

I will order again, but I will avoid the salads...

I usually love this place and atmosphere. My friends and I went in last night on 16 Oct, because I was telling them how good the food was, plus it was wing day, so even better!

The place was busy, understandably for wing night. One server greeted us politely and pointed out a table at the far end of the bar. When we went to sit down, there was a beer glass there. Another red-haired server ran over and quite rudely said that there "There's already someone there, you can't sit there." To which we answered that we were just told by another server that the table was available, waiting for her to offer us a different table or maybe an option to wait until a table cleared up. She repeated herself, again very rudely, saying the exact same thing. Um, okay, I get it, so now what?

Finally, the original server apologized and explained to the redhead that it was her mistake. The redhead said,'You can go wait by the door until a table clears up. There may be a table paying'. So we go back to the door and wait. She came over again immediately and told us that the free table reopened their tab, and there would be a 40-minute wait for another table. After this, we just left. Very disappointing, the server could have handled this way better, and we would have been totally understanding, having worked in the industry myself in the past. Kindness and manners go a long way, and I'll think again before recommending this...