Joey’s Seafood Restaurants

I know what your thinking, 3 stars for Joey’s Seafood is probably 2 too many. But honestly, this hole in the wall across from McMahon Stadium is not that bad on Tuesdays, when it’s all you can eat fish and chips (drama-​free) for $ 17.50.
AMBIENCE: I don’t know what other Joey’s Seafood restaurants look like, but the décor was very… seafoody – cheesy if you will. Nothing wrong with the staff, they were relatively cheerful, attentive, and polite. Within seconds of me finishing my fish they were there to ask if I wanted more. 2/2.5
FOOD: The $ 17.50 ayce fish & chips special on Tuesday includes Alaskan Pollock (the cheap stuff), Cod, and Haddock. Considering I probably wouldn’t really be able to tell the difference after all 3 were battered, fried and topped with tartar sauce and ketchup, I had one of each for my first plate. And yeah, they kinda all taste the same. I enjoyed the meat of the cod marginally more than the other two but without the server pointing out which was which, I’d probably just be here talking about how I stuffed my face with fish and called it a day. If anything, the Pollock was battered the best and had the nicest texture to it, but the batter and oil started to leave a «you better stop now before you get heart disease» taste in the mouth. The chips were not bad, I am no potato expert but they definitely weren’t hand-​cut, I could care less though, I was there for the fish. It also came with a coleslaw which I didn’t care for. I politely declined a top-​up after my second plate and that was that. I don’t know if I’ll come back for unlimited fish taco Thursdays but you never know. ½.5

In all honesty, I really don’t know where to begin. I was in the area to go to a party, but wanted a quick bite to eat before the festivites started. It’s way clear across town for me so I didn’t know at the time what might have also been available in the area.
The meal started in a pretty normal situation, that is being seated and having a glass of water or two. My gal and I were more or less the only customers in the resto (and were easily outnumbered by the staff). I ordered a simple fish and chips, and my gal ordered a blackened fish filet. What then followed was probably a comedy of errors and a horror in cuisine in a lot of ways. Remember, we were the ONLY table there for the longest time.
— our meal took over 45 minutes to come. I would ask and ask every 10 min, or so after the first 20 min, and I would be told by our waitress that it was only 3 min away.
— when the fish came, mine was kinda ok, but my gal’s was stone cold. Worse, it was the wrong fish.
— they took it back, and then brought in another fish 10 – 15 later (again, what are they doing in an empty resto? running to the river and catching the fish? running to the closest supermarket?)
— my own meal was luke warm at best, and I was not all too thrilled. Worse, when asked what the heck was wrong to get both our orders wrong in an empty resto, all I would get was clueless responces
— we were offered a cup of soup in the meantime, a lobster bisque. After tasting that, I had to spit it out and push it away. With a peace offering like that, who needs enemies. It tasted literally like battery acid, with no lobster to speak of in the bisque and was totally unpalatable. As it was offered free, I didn’t bother complaining as i was quite upset by then, but I’m sure they must have noticed me spitting out the soup and ignored it.
— we finally did get our dishes, the meal took well over 1 ½ hours, in an EMPTY resto. We were comped the utterly horrid soup but absolutely nothing else and was charged full shot. I paid, left zero tip and blasted the resto the following night to their head office’s email.
A few week’s later, I had gotten a phone call from their office, and the rep their had gotten the story from the resto, plus my own email. Instead, the office told me to make it up, they offered me a dinner back there at that resto. I asked politely if it could be any other Joey’s, as in all honesty, I really had no faith in their staff at all, and more importantly, I wasn’t about to drive 80 min to and back across town (40 min each way) to possibly have another horrible meal. Now I understand that that particular Joeys may be some franchisee, but head office should have the ability to accomodate a simple request like that. Instead, he told me that it HAD to be that one, and ONLY that one. I then simply replied that I’ll simply refuse to go to ANY Joey’s from hereon, as it’s obvious that he wasn’t going to actually provide any real satisfaction.
I’ve since steered several people and myself over the weeks to other seafood restos, since there’s no way on earth I’ll ever let that disaster happen again. If anyone from Joey’s reads this review, take a look at the number of reviews I’ve written about restaurants and so on. You’ve lost me and as many people I can warn for life people, and I was exactly the market you were looking for.

No matter how good the fish or seafood is, Joey’s fish is good, frozen chips are a deal breaker. Joey’s Only chooses to use frozen chips. This restaurant advertises that they serve Famous Fish and Chips and Favourite Fish and Chips. This implies quality and it should extend to ALL food served rather than being selective.
Too many restaurants consider potatoes an inconvenience they have to put up with rather than a line item that some consider one of the main focuses of the meal. I love, even crave, a properly cooked freshly prepared chip. For me the quality of chips must be equal to, if not greater than, the quality of the fish in a fish and chip establishment
The experience of good to very good fish was unable to rescue me from the depressing dilemma of having to eat the bland essentially tasteless frozen chips that graced my plate. Any potato flavour left was lost to the extra generous helping of seasoning salt they applied in the kitchen. Shouldn’t that be my choice? Put it on the table for me to decide. This is not the restaurant to go for chips, which is unfortunate considering their fish is actually quite good.
What I find amusing is that they refer to their Fish and Chips as «Classic». For me classic means created the old fashioned way, just like the British do, everything made from scratch. Frozen chips are hardly classic; they are more like some post-​modern nightmare. It is certainly not «Traditional» English fare like they advertise, even if they use what is arguably the king of fryable fishes, namely Haddock.
If Joey’s Only put back in the potato cutters, the soaking tanks, and the blanching friers, I would up the score to a four. The fish is a four but their chips bring the rating down to two stars. Regardless of all my griping about how potatoes should be cooked when served with fish, and god knows I have done enough of that here, I must emphatically state that the service, and attention, given to me by the staff was nothing short of excellent.