The Sherlock Holmes Pub

Manager is a piece of work (unfriendly and can’t serve her way out of a box) Unwelcoming atmosphere (very cold greeting if you get one at all). Food is edible (spend your money elsewhere). Definitely not a place I’d recommend visiting.

The honeybunny bought a Groupon. An Oilers game gave us the perfect excuse to visit the Sherlock Holmes Pub (Campus). For those who haven’t been here, it’s a clean, well-​lit, tidy place, spacious, with TVs mounted above head-​level around the perimeter. Small, clean washrooms.
The bunny chose to sit at the bar. Duncan, bartender (and manager, we find out later) took care of us with verve right from the beginning, starting with a long, complex order. He was right on refills, for us and for all the customers around us.
We ordered a pizza, two plates of wings, and a burger.
The Big Ben Burger was delicious! The ample bacon was tasty and crispy. The bun was well done. The meat had that char-​broiled taste that makes everything all right. Copious condiments, including tasty pickles and firm tomatoes.
The chicken wings were crunchy and flavorful — we had the lemon-​salt and the «hotyaki» kinds.
The pizza — two different half-​pizza flavors — was underwhelming, mediocre at best. I mean, edible, but who wants to aim for «edible» as a rating? (The honey didn’t think the pizza was edible; more for me :-)
Whatever else, a full star off for charging us $ 1.50 for mayo. REALLY? You can’t take an order for «how about some mayo» and not mention that you’re going to charge. Isn’t every customer enraged by unexpected charges on the bill?
(The charge is especially frustrating since we frugally asked for only one sauce for our double-​order of wings; technically we were owed a sauce. Cheap bastiches.)
Extra-​irritating, it turns out Duncan — in his role as the manager — pushed back heavily on use of a Groupon, calling the GM, because he couldn’t figure out how to ring through a discount. After a long delay, the discount happened (as it should have as there’s no language discounting its use), but it was a sour note to an otherwise grand evening (pizza notwithstanding).

I feel like a 3 star rating is generous, but the location is so perfect — just across the street from the U of A hospital (right where you need a cozy pub). We’ve been there 3 days in a row — sometimes with friends/​family. Its been okay overall — decent service and mediocre food. But today I had to leave because kids until 8pm– horrible idea. Letting a yelly drunk who thought he was banned sit down next to me before it was even 7:30pm — even worse idea. Between those 2 events — I left angry and felt like I wasted my $ over the last 3 days. I’ll walk around the corner to Devaneys from now on.

Eeeek! Aesthetically and in terms of atmosphere, this place is fine (except when there is live music, then it is LOUD), but yikes is the service and food ever terrible. Also, there always seems to be a few fruit flies (not tons or anything)… I’m always a little grossed out by places that have fruit flies.
The service here is always nightmarishly slow, the servers never seem to know any specials and seem annoyed when you ask what is on tap, it will never take less than 45 min to get your food, and nobody will ever come back to ask you how it is.
The last time I was here I ordered the Shepherds Pie and it was INEDIBLY salty. Like, I actually took maybe 5 bites and gave up on it. Never did the server ask how it was and when I said I didn’t want it packed up she didn’t say anything or comp it off the bill. (I also didn’t say anything, but was pretty disappointed in the service)
(Yes, I gave them 2 stars despite the fact that I don’t really like this place. They have Music Bingo Wednesday nights, and Music Bingo ALWAYS gets a star.)

We were invited to this pub to listen to The Rural Routes. They were excellent! The pub… was not! If you want a beer, you’re okay. But if you want a paralyzer, forget it. The first one came curdled, sent it back. The second one wasn’t much better. Switched to Long Island iced tea. Waitress asked if I wanted another one, sure, waited 15 min and had to go up to bar to reorder it. The waitress forgot! Not the smartest thing to admit when you rely on tips. Then there’s the bathrooms. The floor in the guys can had puddles. And it stunk! I never went into the girls but apparently it only has two stalls and only one was in working order. The smell in the bathrooms were so bad that some customers who sat down at a table in front of them moved and we overheard them say that every time the door opened, they were hit with the smell. We got to the bar at 930 and it was 1130 when someone finally took in a mop. And as for food, we had nachos. Nothing spectacular. Can’t really go too wrong with that.

The service started off good but it progressively got slower and slower, which is understandable since it was peak bar time. But a few members of my party had to leave for a time sensitive engagement and the waitress took forever to bring us our bills, and then hunt down the debit machine, and then finally ring each of us through.
Aside from that, it’s a fairly decent place. The music is good and isn’t blaring loudness that drowns out any conversations. The food was good, though it took a while to get out. The beer was flat for some of my companions, but they didn’t overly mind.
I have to say though that Sherlock Holmes pub had the BEST Caesar rimmer I have ever had in my life. It’s wonderful! I hate traditional rims because it’s usually just a nasty blend of salt. But this one was much, much more. There was salt and pepper and garlic and probably magic. I highly recommend you try it! The caesar also comes with a stick of cheese in it which I thought was interesting.

Newest location of the bunch! CHICKEN WINGS ARE OUTSTANDING! Great place to hear some good live music. Love the Bitcoin machine standing tall inside!

Don’t order the nachos unless you want to pay $ 15 for a bag of tostitos with jalapeños. That is, if you can find it on the menu. They skimped on the cheese pretty hard and from what I hear it’s not uncommon either.
The sever was pretty nice and she comped them because I complained respectfully.
So the profit margin isn’t already high enough on nachos? You’ve got to literally add a sprinkle of cheese?

Food id good, reasonably priced. But portion size is huge, Not one person in our party of 5 finished their lunch. Had to get the leftovers packed to take home. Good value for your money though.

It’s ok. Good music, you can have good time with friends. Fair prices, friendly to students. Food is so so, but I am surprised that veg burger is not bad!

We ordered the… (Not good enough for the dish to be remembered) Yorkshire pudding with sausage and mashed potatoes accompanied by green peas. The mashed were dry and somehow seemed like they came from the hospital cafeteria across the street. Everything was unmistakably old, frozen, bland and the peas looked like my wrinkled cat, puckered. Never again.