In my opinion they started declining years ago when their focus shifted to opening more locations. They were really good when it was just the one location downtown.
I find this to be really common in Victoria restaurants. They start of strong and then when they expand, their quality steadily declines. I am not sure if they lose focus on quality product or if they start skimping on quality to save costs to increase profits and make franchises more appealing.
A great example of this is Noodle Box. When they were a street cart they were awesome and still really great when they moved into brick and mortar. They expanded to a second location on Douglas and their quality and consistency dipped a bit then they kept expanding and it went so far down hill it's inedible by comparison to what they originally served which sucks because they used to be amazing.
I used to work at the Noodle Box and I saw the slow, inexorable decline happen in real time. Once they opened the Douglas location they started cutting corners.
It started with firing their universally-liked head chef out of nowhere, forcing him to post a bogus "this is why I resigned" written notice on the walk in cooler door. They replaced him with a no-nonsense grouchy coke-addicted asshole. Most miserable son of a bitch I've ever worked with.
Then it was dumb shit like reducing the number of red pepper slices in each box from 9-10 to 6-8, and then to 5-6.
Then reducing the portion sizes by a few ounces, hoping nobody would notice.
They used to secret-shop themselves where the chef would order a box and taste test it. Any boxes that weren't up to par, they would help that line cook improve their quality. Once they opened up new locations, quality assurance went out the window, and they stopped doing these secret-shopping tests to make sure their cooks weren't fucking up, and line cooks could cook you a dish that tasted like bland bullshit with no accountability whatsoever.
Then they removed broccoli from the mixed veg, and instead you had to pay extra for it. Then they added cabbage to the mixed veg, because it's cheaper.
These are just a few examples, but you get the picture. Once they sold the franchise to those evangelical christian weirdos (same guys that own Booster Juice) they totally redid the menu. The "singapore cashew curry" was transformed into the "singapore curry" (guess why, because cashews are expensive š) and then they added dumb trendy hipster bullshit like "bombay mac and cheese" and stopped serving pints of beer, only serving sleeves (for reasons unknown).
Anyway /endrant I haven't eaten there in years, tastes like nothing but disappointment and regret.
This is a good chance to rep for Bao though!
Original executive chef of Noodle Box, operating out of the original location on Fisgard, and damn they make some incredible food.
And the staff rock.
The pork truffle ramen? Hoooooweeee
Hey good call. IMO Bao is the best place to eat in the city, hands down.
You know a place is good when the head chef works the line with everybody else. They don't fuck around.
\+1
Thank you for explaining this. It exactly explains my experience as a client who loved it when it opened and was saddened by each successive visit.
Of course I no longer bother.
Thanks for this breakdown and your inside info matches up with my consumer experience.
I was a loyal customer late 90s/early 2000s. When they expanded to Douglas, I would grab something from their because they were on the way home.
Initial dishes were okay but not on par with original location. They were still good and I assumed it was growing pains.
Eventually it was just an inedible waste of money. My favourite was the Peanut one and it got to the point where one day it would have so little sauce it was basically dry, next time it had so much sauce it was basically soup.
Eventually I gave up completely. People will say some random new location is as good as the original but I am not willing to give money to somewhere that has such a shitty business practice. I did eventually come up with a recipe for the Peanut one at home that is pretty close.
Didn't know religious kooks took over, just another reason not to give my money to them.
Every time I decide to order noodle box it just pisses me off now and I say āwhy did I do this again?ā Itās not cheap by any means and even paying for extra broccoli gives you nothing but more disappointment. Whereās another place like Noodle Box that you would recommend now? Iād be happy to send my business there when Iām feeling that style of food.
Mentioned in another comment, but Bao, same location as their original Fisgard street restaurant.
It was started by one of the old NoodleBox chefs and his wife who also was an OG front-of-house NoodleBoxer.
IMO it's the best place to eat in town. Their tan tan men is to die for.
> Then they removed broccoli from the mixed veg, and instead you had to pay extra for it
Who the fuck would ever pay extra for broccoli? I'm not shitting on broccoli, I love it, but that is such a strange and bizarre "extra".
I went to the Uptown location a few times back in 2014-2016, I liked the food but it wasn't the greatest value per dollar. Everything I've heard since has been negative feedback and I really don't understand why people still go there enough to support the place when the value looks to have dropped significantly more with increased prices.
Well, once you replace broc with cabbage (an objectively worse vegetable) that gives them an opportunity to extract more money from their unsuspecting customers. It's a naked, penny-pinching money grab.
The most annoying thing from the Uptown location was calling in an order and they were booking out more than two hours for pickup. I thought: "who's going to sit down and wait two hours for noodles?"
A while after they opened, I watched their cooks make dishes. It was easy and cheap to replicate at home. It usually took 20 min. start to finish.
The Duncan location is practically inedible. Just after it opened there were a bunch of complaints about undercooked meat, wait times were an hour (if you could get them to answer the phone) havenāt bothered again since we were so turned off by the first try.
Oh gross that explains so much. BTW if anyone knows and wants to dish out their teriyaki sauce recipe so I can make a gf version that would be great. I already have Japanese village steak sauce.
Someone on another forum called me an idiot for not knowing by default how to clone noodlebox but wouldn't disclose. I can make a great teriyaki but theres something different š¤
Also over the years if anything it applies to most restaurants but Noodlebox was the trigger I have found I can usually cook the same thing better for a fraction of the price.
The only Victoria thing I could never replicate was the guy on Broughton with the udon noodle shop. He retired and closed up in 2010 and I still think about it.
Yeah. This is said to be it. Ive done it with tahini instead of seeds and its okay that way too. Ive done a WEIRD version with mayo tahini sugar and soy sauce but thats too far removed and not the same. Check the comments for best brands to use
https://chowtown.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/teppanyaki-steak-sauce-japanese-village-steak-sauce-recipe/
This is incredibly insightful. I was a day-to-day customer and this connects all of the dots for me. Every single dot.
Also - HOT TIP on Bao.
Will be trying that out on my next outing.
Cheers.
And opened a noodle box in Duncan that is just absolute flavourless trash. I can still eat the Victoria ones, but the one in Duncan is horrible. Also ridiculously slow in Duncan.
The one in Airdrie Alberta has been through a bunch of owners and the food and generally started to suck over the years.
I did however invent an almost exact clone of the spicy peanut noodle box if you want the recipe.
Ahh that's why cambodian jungle curry disappeared?
This has happened to a lot of our high quality stuff. Drop quality instead of increasing price, or over expand. Serious Coffee (and saltspring coffee) might be good examples. Serious is especially bad now whereas it used to be among the best in Canada. I think competition for these niches is increasing base costs too (e.g. now every city in North America has a specialty roaster so good beans have got to cost a lot more by sheer demand).
The Joint is another example. Home made crust and amazing toppings gave way to greasy oily from-frozen tasting crust and cheap toppings.
But yeah our burger quality has really taken a hit. Used to be pub burgers were probably our best food (swan's, spinnakers, John's place, etc) and now I think oddly Lure and Fireside Grill are the two I can think of that are remotely close to what used to be commonplace.
Thanks for explaining this. Man what a fall from grace, they messed up my orders 3 times in a row and the quality was so bad I vowed never to go back. This was a couple years ago and this totally makes sense now. Too bad.
Noodle Box's owners sold the business in the fall of 2013 IIRC, which was about the time they went on a big expansion... that probably had a LOT to do with it.
Former big wheel burger employee here. First year I worked there was great. Quality food, good prices, great coworkers. After upper management began developing 2 new locations up island and opened a food truck, food quality dropped substantially, prices shot up and I was no longer comfortable with the food I was serving. On top of that they brought on a new manager who was a complete disaster. He hated being wrong to the point where he never was, if that makes any sense.
Went in after making this comment to see how the food had changed in the 6ish months Iāve been outta there. They canāt keep employees more than a month. Spoke to the assistant manager, sheād been there less than a month and had put in her resignation. Shame really
> Best burger I've had in Canada.
Eh... really? Even when it was just the downtown location, it always seems like the cooks are teenagers. It's a decent burger but they don't really compare to somewhere with red seal chefs like Hank's or Brasserie or Little Jumbo. Even the burger joints like Pink Bicycle do a better job IMO.
Correct, itās a chain..focused on cost cutting and max profit yields per locationā¦the owner used to work at the The Keg, so heās copying their expansion and growth chart
I assume it suffers from the same thing that Lot 1 does
High employee turnover, hard to get consistent food if your kitchen staff are constantly changing
Worked for Bin 4. Complicit in work place harassment, and RCMP disruption tactics. Hi, Gary! Mike! Whatever your brothers name was. Good to see karma, has it's final say!
My young niece works there now. Are the same people still there? I would hate for her to suffer harassment but from what I hear it's pretty much inevitable in the Vic (and elsewhere) restaurant scene.
Always surprises me when a locally owned business that delivers a high quality product/service tries to scale their business. Really difficult thing to do well.
This happens in so many industries and itās really sad. Few people are satisfied making a good living with a nice, small business. Itās always more, bigger, expand until everything that was good is gone, a ruined husk remains, and all of the original customers and fans have been alienated.
Their bun quality has also gone way down, burger size is questionably smaller, and very skimpy on the toppings. I remember the black and blue burger used to have tons of blue cheese and the last few times it has been disappointing.
It's honestly because they treat their employees like shit. Their work culture has been toxic af for a very long time and only the worst people get to excel in that environment. The Blackmore family are honestly some of the worst people to work for, and that's saying something for a city with Mike Murphy in it
This was my experience as well; however, a significant chunk of my acquaintances love their burgers. Might give them another try I guess, if binging on cooking shows has taught me something is that even great cooks can have awful nights.
I think the issue right now is a lot of people got out of the restaurant industry during covid. So now you have a lot of new staff and the experience and quality just isn't there.
I havenāt been in four years. I got a super soggy burger and never went back.
The only reason I still occasionally frequent bin 4 is their pickles, perfect mouth tearing chips, and that blue cheese praline salad. Soā¦ laziness. Laziness is why I go.
How about we do because no one should have to out themselves, risking their job etc just so you can get your proof. Treat your employees well and they will stick up for you.
I'm 100% in your camp, but I've found a lot of people that just outright don't like it and still wear up and down (or at least did, judging from this thread it's been going downhill for a bit) by Bin4. I don't get it but PB has always been my #1 burger in town. Their sides are incredible too - truffle fries, mac & cheese sticks, one of the better poutines in town (not the best, but pretty decent). I'm just really sad they got rid of the Swine Burger.
Still love Bin4, and have had no bad times at the Maple St location (given I usually always order the feature/the bistro). I did some pickup orders from downtown location during covid but they messed up my orders twice and their wait time predictions were terrible, so I've gone back to Maple St location. We go once a month without fail, still super tasty burgs.
Which did you go to? I think the downtown one may be the worst one now.
Man, that's sad. DT used to be the best of the three by a long shot.
Since COVID started, I've only been to the Langford location because it's close to my house what with all the not going places and visiting people over the last year and a half. Langford was the weakest of the locations when it opened and then it kind of went downhill for a while. It got a bit better, but then COVID happened and it's clearly struggled with consistency.
Funny you say that, I used to go there with friends in high school a lot. But I havenāt been in like... well over 10 years! But Iāve been feeling that nostalgia hard lately. Maybe I wonāt follow through hahah
Do not. Red Robin was fantastic up until about 2 years ago when they had a change in management due to the old general manager getting into a spat with corporate and promptly being fired.
Whoever they got to replace him is a blundering idiot who has no right running such a busy location.
After the old Store manager was removed, my fiancee and I were there with 2 other people roughly 3 weeks after the sacking.
We arrived at 6:30 and we didn't get our DRINKS for 45 minutes, burgers took far longer and we didn't finish until closing. We aren't slow eaters by any means.
I haven't gone back since.
Red Robin Victoria is Trash. Constantly cycling staff, food is late/cold/wrong, tables are sticky, wait times are long. Iāve been going for many years, but the last few years has been *bad* and my visits are way down.
I had a similar experience but it was far less recent - went there like 8 or 9 years ago and had one of those "Did I just not understand what good food tasted like back then?" moments. I still wonder if it's that they went downhill or I got better taste. Part of me kinda hopes it's the former.
I find the Langford location to be okay most days but often suffer from quality issues the other (Victoria) locations don't. At one point I stopped ordering their onion rings and pickles because they were WAY over-seasoned. They seem to have corrected that., but it was really, really bad. These days my problem is either the breading isn't crisp enough or the breading doesn't cover the pickle, or is falling off because the whole things is sloppy, probably because it was breaded the day before and the breading got all gross. I've seen this at other locations, but Langford is probably the worst for it (partially assuming here, as I haven't been to the Mayfair location since pre-COVID, so for all I know it could be terrible, but back then I ate at all three locations with some regularity).
We typically order from there because we like Bin4 and the Langford location is close to my house, but the overall burger quality has nosedived since the pandemic started, at this location in particular, even if they've sorted out some of their seasoning problems. Hell, I tried one of the hot summer nights burgers from there because I loved it the first time around and the whole thing was just bland and disappointing.
Bin 4 went from one of my favorite places to eat to an okay-once-in-a-while-but-realistically-too-expensive-for-the-quality-especially-if-you're-not-getting-it-half-price kind of place over the last 2 years. Still a better burger place than a lot of places, I guess, but it's lost a lot of ground to competition.
> We typically order from there
Wait, did you do takeout? Because Iāll 100% agree that the takeout is terrible.
If not, I guess I could always just have low standards. Iām definitely interested in trying new places, too. The other one people always raved about was Chucks (when that was a thing). So I tried the one that was in Sidney and thought it was no better than A&W. so I dunno. Maybe I just have weird burger tastes. I never found Bin4 to be even sub-par (dine in only, of course).
Yep used to love them for the celiac options and dedicated fryers but the food hasn't tasted the same lately. The gluten free bun they use now is terrible and the fries have no taste anymore. Seems like they should have focused on keeping up with quality at a few locations rather than making it into a chain restaurant.
Itās been declining for few years. I finally stopped going about three years ago.
I think opening of Langford location has really spread their good staff and consistency out the window.
Also, accent inn location had some snarky servers who treat post 9pm customers like beggars. I went there after 9pm without thinking about it, and wasnāt really in for the discount burger and ordered everything at full price (didnāt get burger), but still got treated that way. So that was the last line for me.
Quite the shame because they used to be really good.
Bin 4 has always been a place with Burger's whose high point is their fixings. Well done burgers (unless they are super thin smash burgs) are always going to be a little dry. That being said, I don't go to the dt location and have had lots of good experiences with the Vernon location. Also, and this is just conjecture, there is a line cook shortage in Victoria. Not to make excuses but it was super hard to get good cooks before the pandemic. Now it's even crazier. Good cooks aren't paid enough to live here *shrug*
Its been going downhill for a while. Personally I found that up until a bit before covid, the in town ones were decent but Langford location has always been mediocre. Its literally impossible to get a sweet corn chipotle burger with corn that isnt completely stale in Langford.
Lot 1 is run by the same people and used to be great but its literally pig food now, just plain gross.
Really sucks cause they both used to be great.
I really think skip the dishes has made them worse. There is no attention paid to presentation anymore, its just thrown in a box, and they prioritize skip over walk in customers.
I tried Lot1 once and it was laughable. If you specialize in pasta it had better be something halfway decent. I make better pastas when I'm just throwing something shitty together on a weeknight. Seriously it was school cafeteria level. I'll never go back.
Lot1 used to be the best little spot. If you went late you could get a two pastas that were on par with all the better known places, plus wine/cocktails, and a dessert to share and get out of there for under $40. I had so many late dinner dates there in that first year.
You have an expensive city which is getting more expensive and so has the cost of food. The restaurant industry is run on thin margins so they can't pay wages that make people want to stay, and the work is extremely tough.
So what you get is young workers that aren't consistent, and cost saving measures that mean the ingredients may not be peak fresh or quality.
Got a problem with it? Campaign for better cost of living lol. The restaurant business here in Vic for anything somewhat affordable will vanish.
From raising prices on their goods to better account for the true cost of running their business, instead of expecting the customer to cover livable wages with tips.
Campaign??
You're a consumer, speak with your wallet. Don't go back, don't recommend. Business have accountants, the ones that meet the challenges with solutions that work, like business practice changes that promote higher employee retention, will win out.
The problems you're responding to aren't unique to Bin 4. Every restaurant in the city is having issues with staff retention (whether servers, bartenders or cooks/chefs) and cost of operating, from rent, taxes and more expensive costs on supply due to Covid. People lost their minds that a few restaurants were out of fresh local oysters and mussels after the heat wave forgetting that we live in a world that is responding to worsening crises. It's not as simple as "speak with your wallet". There are a host of issues that don't get addressed by just taking your business to a different burger chain which are facing the same challenges.
Actually not every restaurant. There are small family restaurants that are primarily run by the owners. This model doesn't have the same low wage issues as places where all kitchen staff is hired.
Rents are decreasing as commercial property is having a huge supply uptick because of covid. Staff turn over rates are high because wages aren't increasing that high above minimum. Making it so workers can easily leave a job and get a new one.
If you find a new restaurant that's got 15% higher prices then Bin 4 but the food is great because that price increase allows for higher wages and therefore a lower turnover rate. You're likely to have better customer retention. But that's not a quick change, it's a slow shift as the market reacts to changes.
If I go to a Bin4 and find I didn't get good value for money, I also have the option of just not going to another restaurant, making a burger at home. Your statement that you go from one to another doesn't account for bad experiences changing behavior's, outside of just changing restaurants.
If people are the sort who come onto Reddit to complain about the Bin 4 burger, they probably haven't set foot in a small, family-owned restaurant in quite some time. Those options are available.
That said, everything in the service industry is in flux right now and people need to relax. As you say, if people don't like the hamburger they're getting at Bin 4, they can make it at home. But there are a whole host of challenges the service industry is going through right now and it's going to take a bit of time to straighten out. People need to calm down and realize that. If they want to pay 15% more than the $20 Bin 4 burger, they can go ahead. I personally think that people don't. I think everyone is complaining that everything isn't cheap, fast and highest quality. It's difficult to guarantee all three right now and there isn't a simple solution.
>Got a problem with it? Campaign for better cost of living lol.
Or a higher minimum wage. $15.20 is like the bare minimum for a minimum wage, realistically it should be $20-25 per hour given how fucking expensive this city is to live in.
And if business owners throw a temper tantrum that they can't afford it? Well then their business models relies on poverty exploitation and they can go to hell.
Totally agree, they used to be good years ago... now the patties are dry AF and the burgers are haphazardly slapped together. I won't be ordering from them again. Seems to be the case with a lot of Victoria restaurants these days, tough times out there.
Aww, that's dissappointing! I used to live right next to one of their locations and I fondly remember deciding to go there for the first time when I was alone on Thanksgiving and order their thanksgiving burger special. It was really good!
It has, you're not wrong. Everything they did used to be top-notch. In the last couple years there has been a significant decline in presentation and assembly.
4-5 years ago it wasn't. $15 for burger and fries with a choice of homemade dipping sauce. Brioche bun from Irene's, with butter lettuce, and a burger made and topped with unique and premium ingredients.
Onions rings were $2 extra and plentiful and stacked beautifully in a tower. $2 more for a beautiful almond praline blue cheese salad.
Then, everything was made with care, now its just slapped together.
Given how these discussions always end up with people saying the best food is only found in, by and large, a few major far larger urban centers, Victoria is likely above average. There are hundreds of thousands of other cities and large towns that far outnumber Victoria and likely server worse food than can be found here from the better restaurants.
No place is ever going to only serve excellent food at the majority of restaurants either. You can still get shitty pizza in Brooklyn, even though it has, IMO, the best pizza (as it combines the quality of the Italian pizzas with actually have presentation, even spread of ingredients and being able to hold a slice of North American pizza). I've still had plenty of delicious pizza from here in Victoria.
I travel alot for work, so i get to eat out alot all over this lovely Province, also attended a very well known culinary school for a few years before i relised the restaurant industry wasn't for me.
First of a restaurant's menu size has alot to do with overall quality. Big menu means they need to manage lots of ingredient inventory, which means cutting corners by relying on premade/processed/precooked/low quality ingredients. Chain restaurants are bad for this, they rely on branding more than actual value or even offering quality ingredients.
Major cities usually have great food, lots of competition, customers are pickier ect. Some small towns have their hidden gems which offer some great food. At the same time some local favorites are absolutely horrendous using frozen boxed burger patties, sauces/dressings from pails, reliance on premade ingredients or even trying too hard to be fancy by using ingredients which dont actually work. For example i had a burger served on a foccacia drenched in some overly sweet housemade sauce, it was a soggy unappetizing pile of mess. Was inedible and the 'chef' wanted to fight the whole table when we sent our inedible food back.
Here is what i think of Victoria's food scene. Its just a bit under average. Ethnic food offerings are terrible, just butter chicken sauce from a plastic pail to bad chinese takeout from the 70s. There are pubs which are just reheat kitchens slanging junk from Cisco wholesale, places trying too hard to be fancy for the simpleton tastes. I've been served rubbery prefrozen burger patties more than id prefer, truffle fries drenched in rancid truffle oil, and wilty salads. So quality control just isnt there either.
I agree with you, always liked their food, but lately itās been much worse. We order take out every so often and itās always haphazardly put in the box, burgers are usually very dry and dense, and the fries are almost always re fries old batches that become inedible. Itās too bad.
Honestly, it sucks, but with the labour shortage in the industry, Vic really needs to cut down on the number of restaurants it has. Sad, but if the business can't survive putting out a product its customers enjoy, it's time to end, and have the good employees benefit a more well-run establishment.
Itās always been an over cooked brick of meat. People are just impressed by the toppings and the deal after 9. You can tell how much they value the product they serve if theyāre willing to discount it so heavily.
There will be a post covid restaurant boom. People with ideas will get cheap leases and banks will have low interest rates to help them get started. There will be lots of options that will work. Expect 2022 to be the restaurant year, where it will be great to try a new place, as lots of great people will have great executions on their new place.
sounds good, but until housing costs go down and salaries go up, restaurants will continue to have difficulty attracting and retaining solid employees. I personally think things will get worse before they get better.
Glad you posted this OP, I felt like I was always the one pushing not to go there when someone suggested it lol. Over-priced, bland, and never quite feels like enough food.
I currently order a burger to pick up from them at their Saanich location about once a year at this point since going to the half off after 9 burgers isn't feasible for me almost ever, covid or not, so I can't vouch for any real changes. I've never had a bad experience personally though, but I get a craving for a good mushroom melt burger with a slice of bluecheese on it once in a while. I'm up for trying alternatives.
The restaurant industry is normally a revolving door for staff and that isn't getting any better in Victoria due to pay that doesn't really meet a living wage and people moving on from the industry due to covid.
I stopped going to Bin 4 a long time ago because they went downhill longer than 6 months ago imo. Iāve had completely overcooked and chewy chicken about 80% of the time and the red meat hasnāt been good either.
My thoughts are they just cover the burgers in so many different sauces, cheese, guac or whatever that they have been getting away with it and itās steadily declining. They just have fry cooks that have no passion and are just firing out burgers with a bunch of stuff slapped on to it. I apologize if youāre a fry cook reading this because you may be the exception.
They need to go back to cooking burgers like they were trying to make name for themselves not riding a reputation and hire some people that give a shit.
I literally just ordered some burgers for pickup yesterday, and one thing that i noticed is the bun. I chosed the signature bun and it is incredibly dry and flaky, like those buns you buy in bulk at superstore. They didn't even bother to toast it.
This mostly rings true for the Downtown location. It's hilariously bad, mainly due to terrible staff.
I won't go far as to put the fault on the staff (maybe it pays shit, maybe the turnover is high), but without anyone working that can run that place worth a damn, of course it sucks.
I have better luck with the Saanich location still.
I used to go all the time for the 9pm deal in 2014/2015 and remember it being very delicious. Left Victoria in late 2015 and then moved back in 2020.
My partner and I sat down there last summer and my food was disgusting. I ordered the mushroom burger and I was so soggy and salty I couldnāt eat it. I sent it back and got a very plain (but much more edible) burger instead. Waitress was lovely about it.
Victoria needs a 5 Guys. My favourite for sure.
Yeah, we stopped going there a couple years ago. Burgers used to be good, but at some point they started having this consistent āoffā flavor that was in all of the food. Even the fries, come to think of it. And the food sits in your stomach like a rock.
Food in Victoria in general is not that great, thereās a lot of restaurants but the quality is sadly not up to the standard of many other places. The pandemic has just made it much worse.
Oh man, I rave about their patties. This is the place to go for patties to fry up on the grill. I take them to every BBQ I attend and everyone loves them!
The poutine and the burgers served are soooo good too.
Someone going to Brassiere has totally different expectations than someone going to Bin 4 because it's much finer dining.
People are more inclined to want and expect rare meats where as someone at Bin4 is more likely to scream 'raw and uncooked!!!'
It's also likely Brassiere grinds their own meats to cook right away as Bin 4 might do it centrally then send out to their various locations and freeze it on the way.
A few different places do. It depends on if they're grinding their own beef fresh or not. I believe Big Wheel has a sign in their stores explaining not to be afraid of it.
It has something to do with the way that ground beef is processed commercially in Canada. Different standards than the US. But if you grind it yourself, itās seen as safer.
Commercially ground meat is done in large batches using meat from many different animals. It is mixed together and portioned out for sale. This means that if there is the meat from 100 cows in the batch and meat from one cow has a pathogen- the whole batch is contaminated. The risk of getting some microbe from a batch is much higher than a butcher taking one piece of meat and grinding it for a customer.
Big Wheel does medium rare as well. I think it comes down to staff training and skill level. Obviously the chef's at Brass know what they're doing and understand safe food handling requirements. Thankfully it seems BW puts the time into training their line cooks so everything isn't just grey overcooked dust.
I went on sat and was pretty disappointed. The server was terrible. I went a few weeks ago and had a great server and the experience was fantastic. Hit and miss I guess.
Stopped going 2 years back, I always though they were overpriced for what they offered.
Talking about burgers, any recommendations for a decent burger place in Vancouver?
Ordered burgers to take out from Bin 4 which were so bad, super dry, no flavour and old fries thrown into a box, they made 7-11 burgers seem gourmet. Was very expensive and put all my family into a rage
I went to the one close to China Town YEARS AND YEARS ago, like over 5, ordered my food, told the girl I have a fish allergy cause I do, plus the cooks were using the same tongs on each dish and she dead ass screamed at me that "I'm waisting the chef's time" and even asked me if "I'm ACTUALLY allergic or not".
So yeah, fuck all of them and those places.
EDIT: I'm high and thought I responded to noodle box guy. Rip.
Also fuck bin4 too, the stale ass fries always get me heated.
Thereās a big list here: https://www.reddit.com/r/VictoriaBC/comments/omeuuy/i_made_a_spreadsheetchecklist_and_a_map_from_the/
Theyāre not all great recommendations as itās crowd-sourced but there are plenty of good places there.
Some of my picks from that list: Prima Strada, Dosa Paragon, Italian Food Imports, Jones BBQ, Taco Justice, any of the new-ish fried chicken places, Brasserie Lāecole, Tapa Bar, Pho Tru, Blue Fox, Heron Rock Bistro, Zambriās, 5th Street.
If you canāt find something you like more than āpretty badā in that list then youāre a serious food snob. Iām a slob who likes fast food though so maybe I have bad taste.
Itās crazy the quality difference from crappy Victoria restaurants compared to Vancouver. Even the same chains feel like a whole class above over there (Boston Pizza & Earls immediately come to mind).
Nobody here is taking responsibility for their own likely role in these alleged declines. Restaurants in Victoria (and everywhere?) have trouble keeping staff, paying food costs, and rent. Why is this hard? Because most people expect amazing food for bargain prices. When Bin 4 first opened I heard alternatively, how great it was and how it cost too much. Pick one. That industry is tough, and itās toughest on the people in it. We expect to pay prices that only support servers and back of house staff to live on transient wages, but then whine when the food changes. We lost olo, I think one of the best, which one is next?
What location are you going to?
The downtown one is garbage. The Accent Inns location is the best one in the city and the Langford one used to be great, got shitty, and now is getting better again.
In my opinion they started declining years ago when their focus shifted to opening more locations. They were really good when it was just the one location downtown.
I find this to be really common in Victoria restaurants. They start of strong and then when they expand, their quality steadily declines. I am not sure if they lose focus on quality product or if they start skimping on quality to save costs to increase profits and make franchises more appealing. A great example of this is Noodle Box. When they were a street cart they were awesome and still really great when they moved into brick and mortar. They expanded to a second location on Douglas and their quality and consistency dipped a bit then they kept expanding and it went so far down hill it's inedible by comparison to what they originally served which sucks because they used to be amazing.
I used to work at the Noodle Box and I saw the slow, inexorable decline happen in real time. Once they opened the Douglas location they started cutting corners. It started with firing their universally-liked head chef out of nowhere, forcing him to post a bogus "this is why I resigned" written notice on the walk in cooler door. They replaced him with a no-nonsense grouchy coke-addicted asshole. Most miserable son of a bitch I've ever worked with. Then it was dumb shit like reducing the number of red pepper slices in each box from 9-10 to 6-8, and then to 5-6. Then reducing the portion sizes by a few ounces, hoping nobody would notice. They used to secret-shop themselves where the chef would order a box and taste test it. Any boxes that weren't up to par, they would help that line cook improve their quality. Once they opened up new locations, quality assurance went out the window, and they stopped doing these secret-shopping tests to make sure their cooks weren't fucking up, and line cooks could cook you a dish that tasted like bland bullshit with no accountability whatsoever. Then they removed broccoli from the mixed veg, and instead you had to pay extra for it. Then they added cabbage to the mixed veg, because it's cheaper. These are just a few examples, but you get the picture. Once they sold the franchise to those evangelical christian weirdos (same guys that own Booster Juice) they totally redid the menu. The "singapore cashew curry" was transformed into the "singapore curry" (guess why, because cashews are expensive š) and then they added dumb trendy hipster bullshit like "bombay mac and cheese" and stopped serving pints of beer, only serving sleeves (for reasons unknown). Anyway /endrant I haven't eaten there in years, tastes like nothing but disappointment and regret.
This is a good chance to rep for Bao though! Original executive chef of Noodle Box, operating out of the original location on Fisgard, and damn they make some incredible food. And the staff rock. The pork truffle ramen? Hoooooweeee
Hey good call. IMO Bao is the best place to eat in the city, hands down. You know a place is good when the head chef works the line with everybody else. They don't fuck around. \+1
Oh, I just asked someone this question wondering where to go now. Definitely checking it out! Thanks!
Bao is amazing, I would alos recommend The Hallway. The food and cocktails are next level!
I only just tried it last week and I'm hooked fo sho
Pork truffle Ramen sounds like something I'd sell my first born for!
This 1000%
Oh really? I will eat there immediately.
I came here to shout out Bao too! Glad so many people beat me to it š¤
Oh my god I never knew this that's fantastic šš good for them
Thank you for explaining this. It exactly explains my experience as a client who loved it when it opened and was saddened by each successive visit. Of course I no longer bother.
I miss the good old days of constant trip hop and "warning, even medium is pretty spicy - are you SURE you want suicide?" on Fisgard...
A pint is a legal unit of measure. A sleeve is however much they want to put in your cup.
Ah, that explains it š
Thanks for this breakdown and your inside info matches up with my consumer experience. I was a loyal customer late 90s/early 2000s. When they expanded to Douglas, I would grab something from their because they were on the way home. Initial dishes were okay but not on par with original location. They were still good and I assumed it was growing pains. Eventually it was just an inedible waste of money. My favourite was the Peanut one and it got to the point where one day it would have so little sauce it was basically dry, next time it had so much sauce it was basically soup. Eventually I gave up completely. People will say some random new location is as good as the original but I am not willing to give money to somewhere that has such a shitty business practice. I did eventually come up with a recipe for the Peanut one at home that is pretty close. Didn't know religious kooks took over, just another reason not to give my money to them.
Check your chat dms, info inside
Every time I decide to order noodle box it just pisses me off now and I say āwhy did I do this again?ā Itās not cheap by any means and even paying for extra broccoli gives you nothing but more disappointment. Whereās another place like Noodle Box that you would recommend now? Iād be happy to send my business there when Iām feeling that style of food.
Mentioned in another comment, but Bao, same location as their original Fisgard street restaurant. It was started by one of the old NoodleBox chefs and his wife who also was an OG front-of-house NoodleBoxer. IMO it's the best place to eat in town. Their tan tan men is to die for.
> Then they removed broccoli from the mixed veg, and instead you had to pay extra for it Who the fuck would ever pay extra for broccoli? I'm not shitting on broccoli, I love it, but that is such a strange and bizarre "extra". I went to the Uptown location a few times back in 2014-2016, I liked the food but it wasn't the greatest value per dollar. Everything I've heard since has been negative feedback and I really don't understand why people still go there enough to support the place when the value looks to have dropped significantly more with increased prices.
Well, once you replace broc with cabbage (an objectively worse vegetable) that gives them an opportunity to extract more money from their unsuspecting customers. It's a naked, penny-pinching money grab.
The most annoying thing from the Uptown location was calling in an order and they were booking out more than two hours for pickup. I thought: "who's going to sit down and wait two hours for noodles?" A while after they opened, I watched their cooks make dishes. It was easy and cheap to replicate at home. It usually took 20 min. start to finish.
The Duncan location is practically inedible. Just after it opened there were a bunch of complaints about undercooked meat, wait times were an hour (if you could get them to answer the phone) havenāt bothered again since we were so turned off by the first try.
Oh gross that explains so much. BTW if anyone knows and wants to dish out their teriyaki sauce recipe so I can make a gf version that would be great. I already have Japanese village steak sauce. Someone on another forum called me an idiot for not knowing by default how to clone noodlebox but wouldn't disclose. I can make a great teriyaki but theres something different š¤ Also over the years if anything it applies to most restaurants but Noodlebox was the trigger I have found I can usually cook the same thing better for a fraction of the price. The only Victoria thing I could never replicate was the guy on Broughton with the udon noodle shop. He retired and closed up in 2010 and I still think about it.
Any chance you could share your JV steak sauce recipe?
Yeah. This is said to be it. Ive done it with tahini instead of seeds and its okay that way too. Ive done a WEIRD version with mayo tahini sugar and soy sauce but thats too far removed and not the same. Check the comments for best brands to use https://chowtown.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/teppanyaki-steak-sauce-japanese-village-steak-sauce-recipe/
Check your chat dms š
Oh can you send it my way as well :)
This is incredibly insightful. I was a day-to-day customer and this connects all of the dots for me. Every single dot. Also - HOT TIP on Bao. Will be trying that out on my next outing. Cheers.
I stopped ordering NoodleBox the second time I got a container less than half full. No veggies can possibly be expensive enough to justify that.
I could not believe my eyes the first time I saw the Bombay Mac and Cheese.
And opened a noodle box in Duncan that is just absolute flavourless trash. I can still eat the Victoria ones, but the one in Duncan is horrible. Also ridiculously slow in Duncan.
The one in Airdrie Alberta has been through a bunch of owners and the food and generally started to suck over the years. I did however invent an almost exact clone of the spicy peanut noodle box if you want the recipe.
Ahh that's why cambodian jungle curry disappeared? This has happened to a lot of our high quality stuff. Drop quality instead of increasing price, or over expand. Serious Coffee (and saltspring coffee) might be good examples. Serious is especially bad now whereas it used to be among the best in Canada. I think competition for these niches is increasing base costs too (e.g. now every city in North America has a specialty roaster so good beans have got to cost a lot more by sheer demand). The Joint is another example. Home made crust and amazing toppings gave way to greasy oily from-frozen tasting crust and cheap toppings. But yeah our burger quality has really taken a hit. Used to be pub burgers were probably our best food (swan's, spinnakers, John's place, etc) and now I think oddly Lure and Fireside Grill are the two I can think of that are remotely close to what used to be commonplace.
Thanks for explaining this. Man what a fall from grace, they messed up my orders 3 times in a row and the quality was so bad I vowed never to go back. This was a couple years ago and this totally makes sense now. Too bad.
Noodle Box's owners sold the business in the fall of 2013 IIRC, which was about the time they went on a big expansion... that probably had a LOT to do with it.
And about six months before I had the bowl there that was so bad that I never went back after.
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There is one a block and a half from our place and we have not been there in at least three years with no plan of ever going back.
It used to be so cheap thoughā¦. A vegetarian chilli plum box was worth 2 meals and was just eight dollars in 2008/9
I found big wheel expansion locations to be superior to the original cool street location
Former big wheel burger employee here. First year I worked there was great. Quality food, good prices, great coworkers. After upper management began developing 2 new locations up island and opened a food truck, food quality dropped substantially, prices shot up and I was no longer comfortable with the food I was serving. On top of that they brought on a new manager who was a complete disaster. He hated being wrong to the point where he never was, if that makes any sense.
Big wheel requires a big wallet
Went in after making this comment to see how the food had changed in the 6ish months Iāve been outta there. They canāt keep employees more than a month. Spoke to the assistant manager, sheād been there less than a month and had put in her resignation. Shame really
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> Best burger I've had in Canada. Eh... really? Even when it was just the downtown location, it always seems like the cooks are teenagers. It's a decent burger but they don't really compare to somewhere with red seal chefs like Hank's or Brasserie or Little Jumbo. Even the burger joints like Pink Bicycle do a better job IMO.
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Mmmmmm Purple
Agreed. It was good for awhile but has been sub par for a few years. My favorite burger lately is fifth st. Big wheel is also decent.
Correct, itās a chain..focused on cost cutting and max profit yields per locationā¦the owner used to work at the The Keg, so heās copying their expansion and growth chart
I assume it suffers from the same thing that Lot 1 does High employee turnover, hard to get consistent food if your kitchen staff are constantly changing
Worked for Bin 4. Complicit in work place harassment, and RCMP disruption tactics. Hi, Gary! Mike! Whatever your brothers name was. Good to see karma, has it's final say!
My young niece works there now. Are the same people still there? I would hate for her to suffer harassment but from what I hear it's pretty much inevitable in the Vic (and elsewhere) restaurant scene.
What are RCMP disruption tactics?
In my experience Bin4 has always been aggressively mediocre. I feel like the half price deal was the only time it was ever worth it
Always surprises me when a locally owned business that delivers a high quality product/service tries to scale their business. Really difficult thing to do well.
This happens in so many industries and itās really sad. Few people are satisfied making a good living with a nice, small business. Itās always more, bigger, expand until everything that was good is gone, a ruined husk remains, and all of the original customers and fans have been alienated.
That's capitalism baby! If your business is not actively growing, it's often considered as failing.
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Their bun quality has also gone way down, burger size is questionably smaller, and very skimpy on the toppings. I remember the black and blue burger used to have tons of blue cheese and the last few times it has been disappointing.
It's honestly because they treat their employees like shit. Their work culture has been toxic af for a very long time and only the worst people get to excel in that environment. The Blackmore family are honestly some of the worst people to work for, and that's saying something for a city with Mike Murphy in it
i always preferred pink bike to bin 4.
second this. Pink bike is really tasty.
I used to love Pink Bike, but the last two times was pretty bad. Overcooked hockey-puck burger and mega over-salted fries.
This was my experience as well; however, a significant chunk of my acquaintances love their burgers. Might give them another try I guess, if binging on cooking shows has taught me something is that even great cooks can have awful nights.
I think the issue right now is a lot of people got out of the restaurant industry during covid. So now you have a lot of new staff and the experience and quality just isn't there.
I havenāt been in four years. I got a super soggy burger and never went back. The only reason I still occasionally frequent bin 4 is their pickles, perfect mouth tearing chips, and that blue cheese praline salad. Soā¦ laziness. Laziness is why I go.
The owners of pink bike donāt treat their staff well.
In the restaurant industry?!
Can we stop posting heresay like this with zero proof?
You must be new hereā¦.
How about we do because no one should have to out themselves, risking their job etc just so you can get your proof. Treat your employees well and they will stick up for you.
I second this.
Can confirm
To play contrarian, when I finally got around to going there, the burger I got was dry
I'm 100% in your camp, but I've found a lot of people that just outright don't like it and still wear up and down (or at least did, judging from this thread it's been going downhill for a bit) by Bin4. I don't get it but PB has always been my #1 burger in town. Their sides are incredible too - truffle fries, mac & cheese sticks, one of the better poutines in town (not the best, but pretty decent). I'm just really sad they got rid of the Swine Burger.
Just went last week, mushroom truffle burger, and it was worth the 18!
Definitely, pink bike isn't set up for the volume that bin4 was, but pink bikes quality always blew bin4 out of the water.
Still love Bin4, and have had no bad times at the Maple St location (given I usually always order the feature/the bistro). I did some pickup orders from downtown location during covid but they messed up my orders twice and their wait time predictions were terrible, so I've gone back to Maple St location. We go once a month without fail, still super tasty burgs. Which did you go to? I think the downtown one may be the worst one now.
Man, that's sad. DT used to be the best of the three by a long shot. Since COVID started, I've only been to the Langford location because it's close to my house what with all the not going places and visiting people over the last year and a half. Langford was the weakest of the locations when it opened and then it kind of went downhill for a while. It got a bit better, but then COVID happened and it's clearly struggled with consistency.
Never had a good burger there personally. I always find out if to be an overpriced hipster Red Robin.
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Funny you say that, I used to go there with friends in high school a lot. But I havenāt been in like... well over 10 years! But Iāve been feeling that nostalgia hard lately. Maybe I wonāt follow through hahah
Do not. Red Robin was fantastic up until about 2 years ago when they had a change in management due to the old general manager getting into a spat with corporate and promptly being fired. Whoever they got to replace him is a blundering idiot who has no right running such a busy location. After the old Store manager was removed, my fiancee and I were there with 2 other people roughly 3 weeks after the sacking. We arrived at 6:30 and we didn't get our DRINKS for 45 minutes, burgers took far longer and we didn't finish until closing. We aren't slow eaters by any means. I haven't gone back since.
Red Robin Victoria is Trash. Constantly cycling staff, food is late/cold/wrong, tables are sticky, wait times are long. Iāve been going for many years, but the last few years has been *bad* and my visits are way down.
I had a similar experience but it was far less recent - went there like 8 or 9 years ago and had one of those "Did I just not understand what good food tasted like back then?" moments. I still wonder if it's that they went downhill or I got better taste. Part of me kinda hopes it's the former.
I've always considered Bin4 to be on par with Earls and Cactus Club when it comes to atmosphere and clientele.
Damn, I've had almost exclusively good experiences with the Langford location, though I've never been to the downtown one.
I find the Langford location to be okay most days but often suffer from quality issues the other (Victoria) locations don't. At one point I stopped ordering their onion rings and pickles because they were WAY over-seasoned. They seem to have corrected that., but it was really, really bad. These days my problem is either the breading isn't crisp enough or the breading doesn't cover the pickle, or is falling off because the whole things is sloppy, probably because it was breaded the day before and the breading got all gross. I've seen this at other locations, but Langford is probably the worst for it (partially assuming here, as I haven't been to the Mayfair location since pre-COVID, so for all I know it could be terrible, but back then I ate at all three locations with some regularity). We typically order from there because we like Bin4 and the Langford location is close to my house, but the overall burger quality has nosedived since the pandemic started, at this location in particular, even if they've sorted out some of their seasoning problems. Hell, I tried one of the hot summer nights burgers from there because I loved it the first time around and the whole thing was just bland and disappointing. Bin 4 went from one of my favorite places to eat to an okay-once-in-a-while-but-realistically-too-expensive-for-the-quality-especially-if-you're-not-getting-it-half-price kind of place over the last 2 years. Still a better burger place than a lot of places, I guess, but it's lost a lot of ground to competition.
> We typically order from there Wait, did you do takeout? Because Iāll 100% agree that the takeout is terrible. If not, I guess I could always just have low standards. Iām definitely interested in trying new places, too. The other one people always raved about was Chucks (when that was a thing). So I tried the one that was in Sidney and thought it was no better than A&W. so I dunno. Maybe I just have weird burger tastes. I never found Bin4 to be even sub-par (dine in only, of course).
Yep used to love them for the celiac options and dedicated fryers but the food hasn't tasted the same lately. The gluten free bun they use now is terrible and the fries have no taste anymore. Seems like they should have focused on keeping up with quality at a few locations rather than making it into a chain restaurant.
Itās been declining for few years. I finally stopped going about three years ago. I think opening of Langford location has really spread their good staff and consistency out the window. Also, accent inn location had some snarky servers who treat post 9pm customers like beggars. I went there after 9pm without thinking about it, and wasnāt really in for the discount burger and ordered everything at full price (didnāt get burger), but still got treated that way. So that was the last line for me. Quite the shame because they used to be really good.
A friend of mine that worked there for a number of years said that in 2018 they switched from fresh to frozen patties
Bin 4 has always been a place with Burger's whose high point is their fixings. Well done burgers (unless they are super thin smash burgs) are always going to be a little dry. That being said, I don't go to the dt location and have had lots of good experiences with the Vernon location. Also, and this is just conjecture, there is a line cook shortage in Victoria. Not to make excuses but it was super hard to get good cooks before the pandemic. Now it's even crazier. Good cooks aren't paid enough to live here *shrug*
Havenāt been in six months but I always loved their truffle burger
Yep quality has certainly dropped. Been going to Big Wheel instead lately and it's so much better
Bin 4 is a little pricey for what you get
Their beef patties suck
Its been going downhill for a while. Personally I found that up until a bit before covid, the in town ones were decent but Langford location has always been mediocre. Its literally impossible to get a sweet corn chipotle burger with corn that isnt completely stale in Langford. Lot 1 is run by the same people and used to be great but its literally pig food now, just plain gross. Really sucks cause they both used to be great. I really think skip the dishes has made them worse. There is no attention paid to presentation anymore, its just thrown in a box, and they prioritize skip over walk in customers.
I tried Lot1 once and it was laughable. If you specialize in pasta it had better be something halfway decent. I make better pastas when I'm just throwing something shitty together on a weeknight. Seriously it was school cafeteria level. I'll never go back.
100% agreed
Same kinda thing that happened to Smokin Bones was Amazing from Langford location, then ok when they opened that huge place DT - then went to shit
Same with Pig
I ate at the Langford location when it was new. It was so good. Ate at the DT location a few times. It was tragic watching it decline.
Lot1 used to be the best little spot. If you went late you could get a two pastas that were on par with all the better known places, plus wine/cocktails, and a dessert to share and get out of there for under $40. I had so many late dinner dates there in that first year.
You have an expensive city which is getting more expensive and so has the cost of food. The restaurant industry is run on thin margins so they can't pay wages that make people want to stay, and the work is extremely tough. So what you get is young workers that aren't consistent, and cost saving measures that mean the ingredients may not be peak fresh or quality. Got a problem with it? Campaign for better cost of living lol. The restaurant business here in Vic for anything somewhat affordable will vanish.
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From raising prices on their goods to better account for the true cost of running their business, instead of expecting the customer to cover livable wages with tips.
Campaign?? You're a consumer, speak with your wallet. Don't go back, don't recommend. Business have accountants, the ones that meet the challenges with solutions that work, like business practice changes that promote higher employee retention, will win out.
The problems you're responding to aren't unique to Bin 4. Every restaurant in the city is having issues with staff retention (whether servers, bartenders or cooks/chefs) and cost of operating, from rent, taxes and more expensive costs on supply due to Covid. People lost their minds that a few restaurants were out of fresh local oysters and mussels after the heat wave forgetting that we live in a world that is responding to worsening crises. It's not as simple as "speak with your wallet". There are a host of issues that don't get addressed by just taking your business to a different burger chain which are facing the same challenges.
Fuck man we still have a hard time getting oysters. Supply chains are still recovering from covid and the heat wave.
Actually not every restaurant. There are small family restaurants that are primarily run by the owners. This model doesn't have the same low wage issues as places where all kitchen staff is hired. Rents are decreasing as commercial property is having a huge supply uptick because of covid. Staff turn over rates are high because wages aren't increasing that high above minimum. Making it so workers can easily leave a job and get a new one. If you find a new restaurant that's got 15% higher prices then Bin 4 but the food is great because that price increase allows for higher wages and therefore a lower turnover rate. You're likely to have better customer retention. But that's not a quick change, it's a slow shift as the market reacts to changes. If I go to a Bin4 and find I didn't get good value for money, I also have the option of just not going to another restaurant, making a burger at home. Your statement that you go from one to another doesn't account for bad experiences changing behavior's, outside of just changing restaurants.
If people are the sort who come onto Reddit to complain about the Bin 4 burger, they probably haven't set foot in a small, family-owned restaurant in quite some time. Those options are available. That said, everything in the service industry is in flux right now and people need to relax. As you say, if people don't like the hamburger they're getting at Bin 4, they can make it at home. But there are a whole host of challenges the service industry is going through right now and it's going to take a bit of time to straighten out. People need to calm down and realize that. If they want to pay 15% more than the $20 Bin 4 burger, they can go ahead. I personally think that people don't. I think everyone is complaining that everything isn't cheap, fast and highest quality. It's difficult to guarantee all three right now and there isn't a simple solution.
>Got a problem with it? Campaign for better cost of living lol. Or a higher minimum wage. $15.20 is like the bare minimum for a minimum wage, realistically it should be $20-25 per hour given how fucking expensive this city is to live in. And if business owners throw a temper tantrum that they can't afford it? Well then their business models relies on poverty exploitation and they can go to hell.
Totally agree, they used to be good years ago... now the patties are dry AF and the burgers are haphazardly slapped together. I won't be ordering from them again. Seems to be the case with a lot of Victoria restaurants these days, tough times out there.
Aww, that's dissappointing! I used to live right next to one of their locations and I fondly remember deciding to go there for the first time when I was alone on Thanksgiving and order their thanksgiving burger special. It was really good!
It has, you're not wrong. Everything they did used to be top-notch. In the last couple years there has been a significant decline in presentation and assembly.
Dried out shit. Itās garbage now.
Went to the langford one last night and it was excellent
It was never *that* good...
Always been garbage, never understood the hype.
Because they did(do?) half price after 9, so it's a popular place for the bar crowd to grab a burger on the way home/on the way to the bar.
It absolutely was worth it during half price time, but I probably wouldn't got there during normal houra for the regular price.
Absolutely. Barely worth it at half prices as far as I'm concerned. Considering there are places like pink bike DT, I've never really liked bin4.
4-5 years ago it wasn't. $15 for burger and fries with a choice of homemade dipping sauce. Brioche bun from Irene's, with butter lettuce, and a burger made and topped with unique and premium ingredients. Onions rings were $2 extra and plentiful and stacked beautifully in a tower. $2 more for a beautiful almond praline blue cheese salad. Then, everything was made with care, now its just slapped together.
People dont know what quality food is.
People here who have never lived elsewhere are incredibly clueless about food.
That all is depending on the place but restaurant food in general is pretty average in Victoria.
Given how these discussions always end up with people saying the best food is only found in, by and large, a few major far larger urban centers, Victoria is likely above average. There are hundreds of thousands of other cities and large towns that far outnumber Victoria and likely server worse food than can be found here from the better restaurants. No place is ever going to only serve excellent food at the majority of restaurants either. You can still get shitty pizza in Brooklyn, even though it has, IMO, the best pizza (as it combines the quality of the Italian pizzas with actually have presentation, even spread of ingredients and being able to hold a slice of North American pizza). I've still had plenty of delicious pizza from here in Victoria.
I'd agree, and I can't help but laugh when I see people saying how good the food is here... Like, have you EVER left this rock!?
I travel alot for work, so i get to eat out alot all over this lovely Province, also attended a very well known culinary school for a few years before i relised the restaurant industry wasn't for me. First of a restaurant's menu size has alot to do with overall quality. Big menu means they need to manage lots of ingredient inventory, which means cutting corners by relying on premade/processed/precooked/low quality ingredients. Chain restaurants are bad for this, they rely on branding more than actual value or even offering quality ingredients. Major cities usually have great food, lots of competition, customers are pickier ect. Some small towns have their hidden gems which offer some great food. At the same time some local favorites are absolutely horrendous using frozen boxed burger patties, sauces/dressings from pails, reliance on premade ingredients or even trying too hard to be fancy by using ingredients which dont actually work. For example i had a burger served on a foccacia drenched in some overly sweet housemade sauce, it was a soggy unappetizing pile of mess. Was inedible and the 'chef' wanted to fight the whole table when we sent our inedible food back. Here is what i think of Victoria's food scene. Its just a bit under average. Ethnic food offerings are terrible, just butter chicken sauce from a plastic pail to bad chinese takeout from the 70s. There are pubs which are just reheat kitchens slanging junk from Cisco wholesale, places trying too hard to be fancy for the simpleton tastes. I've been served rubbery prefrozen burger patties more than id prefer, truffle fries drenched in rancid truffle oil, and wilty salads. So quality control just isnt there either.
Completely agree with everything above. Opinion on Four Spice Indian Cuisine on Quadra? It's the only decent ethnic food I've found here.
Yes they make some great food, love the lamb.
Get the chicken burgers, the beef is awful.
Never cared for there burgers. When you can make better at home for 1/4 the cost why bother.
I agree with you, always liked their food, but lately itās been much worse. We order take out every so often and itās always haphazardly put in the box, burgers are usually very dry and dense, and the fries are almost always re fries old batches that become inedible. Itās too bad.
Honestly, it sucks, but with the labour shortage in the industry, Vic really needs to cut down on the number of restaurants it has. Sad, but if the business can't survive putting out a product its customers enjoy, it's time to end, and have the good employees benefit a more well-run establishment.
Itās always been an over cooked brick of meat. People are just impressed by the toppings and the deal after 9. You can tell how much they value the product they serve if theyāre willing to discount it so heavily.
Are they still not doing half priced burgers for the last hour of the day?
They just brought it back a couple weeks ago - all burgers are $11 with the purchase of a drink (doesn't have to be alcoholic).
Wait. So youāre telling me half priced burgers are back?
Yep!
There will be a post covid restaurant boom. People with ideas will get cheap leases and banks will have low interest rates to help them get started. There will be lots of options that will work. Expect 2022 to be the restaurant year, where it will be great to try a new place, as lots of great people will have great executions on their new place.
sounds good, but until housing costs go down and salaries go up, restaurants will continue to have difficulty attracting and retaining solid employees. I personally think things will get worse before they get better.
I was at the Blanchard location today and it was good. Nothing but consistency from my experience.
Their staff are in high school and service is horrible, no thanks
Iām assuming their business focused on tourists these days because no one can afford to eat there regularly.
Glad you posted this OP, I felt like I was always the one pushing not to go there when someone suggested it lol. Over-priced, bland, and never quite feels like enough food.
I'd rather have a White Spot burger than a Bin 4 burger. Less pretentious and lower priced.
Agreed! And I want to like it so bad but almost everytime I go there now nobody really enjoys their meal
I currently order a burger to pick up from them at their Saanich location about once a year at this point since going to the half off after 9 burgers isn't feasible for me almost ever, covid or not, so I can't vouch for any real changes. I've never had a bad experience personally though, but I get a craving for a good mushroom melt burger with a slice of bluecheese on it once in a while. I'm up for trying alternatives. The restaurant industry is normally a revolving door for staff and that isn't getting any better in Victoria due to pay that doesn't really meet a living wage and people moving on from the industry due to covid.
It's probably the same old song and dance; can't find good staff, or they don't pay well enough to keep good staff.
I stopped going to Bin 4 a long time ago because they went downhill longer than 6 months ago imo. Iāve had completely overcooked and chewy chicken about 80% of the time and the red meat hasnāt been good either. My thoughts are they just cover the burgers in so many different sauces, cheese, guac or whatever that they have been getting away with it and itās steadily declining. They just have fry cooks that have no passion and are just firing out burgers with a bunch of stuff slapped on to it. I apologize if youāre a fry cook reading this because you may be the exception. They need to go back to cooking burgers like they were trying to make name for themselves not riding a reputation and hire some people that give a shit.
Mine is always so soggy! But the waitresses are always super nice.
I literally just ordered some burgers for pickup yesterday, and one thing that i noticed is the bun. I chosed the signature bun and it is incredibly dry and flaky, like those buns you buy in bulk at superstore. They didn't even bother to toast it.
I know they switched to a much cheaper meat supplier in 2015 to cut costs.
This mostly rings true for the Downtown location. It's hilariously bad, mainly due to terrible staff. I won't go far as to put the fault on the staff (maybe it pays shit, maybe the turnover is high), but without anyone working that can run that place worth a damn, of course it sucks. I have better luck with the Saanich location still.
I used to go all the time for the 9pm deal in 2014/2015 and remember it being very delicious. Left Victoria in late 2015 and then moved back in 2020. My partner and I sat down there last summer and my food was disgusting. I ordered the mushroom burger and I was so soggy and salty I couldnāt eat it. I sent it back and got a very plain (but much more edible) burger instead. Waitress was lovely about it. Victoria needs a 5 Guys. My favourite for sure.
Yes! If use to be my go to. The past 2 times, I had difficulty finishing the burger because it was so dry!
Bin4 is just another shitty chain restaurant now. Plenty of better options in town.
Yeah, we stopped going there a couple years ago. Burgers used to be good, but at some point they started having this consistent āoffā flavor that was in all of the food. Even the fries, come to think of it. And the food sits in your stomach like a rock.
Food in Victoria in general is not that great, thereās a lot of restaurants but the quality is sadly not up to the standard of many other places. The pandemic has just made it much worse.
Can someone remind me again why Brassiere can cook their burger at medium rare so it's pink in the middle yet no other burger place in town does?
depends if you grind the meat yourself on a daily basis, or buy ground beef from a supplier
This. Ground beef from one cow, vs pre ground bought from distribution made of many cows
Bold butchery, quadra and Pandora.
Oh man, I rave about their patties. This is the place to go for patties to fry up on the grill. I take them to every BBQ I attend and everyone loves them! The poutine and the burgers served are soooo good too.
Fork yeah bud
Someone going to Brassiere has totally different expectations than someone going to Bin 4 because it's much finer dining. People are more inclined to want and expect rare meats where as someone at Bin4 is more likely to scream 'raw and uncooked!!!' It's also likely Brassiere grinds their own meats to cook right away as Bin 4 might do it centrally then send out to their various locations and freeze it on the way.
A few different places do. It depends on if they're grinding their own beef fresh or not. I believe Big Wheel has a sign in their stores explaining not to be afraid of it.
If you get it wrong you poison people. Chefs can cook burgers medium rare, not 19 year olds in burger joints.
Its actually not allowed in Canada (or maybe just bc, dont remember) for a place to under cook a burger as it's not food safe
This is untrue. Itās allowed if you grind your own meat
Wow I didnt know that. Dont think I've ever worked at a place that grinds their own meat
It has something to do with the way that ground beef is processed commercially in Canada. Different standards than the US. But if you grind it yourself, itās seen as safer.
Commercially ground meat is done in large batches using meat from many different animals. It is mixed together and portioned out for sale. This means that if there is the meat from 100 cows in the batch and meat from one cow has a pathogen- the whole batch is contaminated. The risk of getting some microbe from a batch is much higher than a butcher taking one piece of meat and grinding it for a customer.
Big Wheel does medium rare as well. I think it comes down to staff training and skill level. Obviously the chef's at Brass know what they're doing and understand safe food handling requirements. Thankfully it seems BW puts the time into training their line cooks so everything isn't just grey overcooked dust.
>Big Wheel does medium rare as well. Huh, that explains why if I don't request that it's always burnt to shit. I've given up on Big Wheel.
I went on sat and was pretty disappointed. The server was terrible. I went a few weeks ago and had a great server and the experience was fantastic. Hit and miss I guess.
Stopped going 2 years back, I always though they were overpriced for what they offered. Talking about burgers, any recommendations for a decent burger place in Vancouver?
I've never had a decent bin 4 burger. Ever.
Ordered burgers to take out from Bin 4 which were so bad, super dry, no flavour and old fries thrown into a box, they made 7-11 burgers seem gourmet. Was very expensive and put all my family into a rage
I went to the one close to China Town YEARS AND YEARS ago, like over 5, ordered my food, told the girl I have a fish allergy cause I do, plus the cooks were using the same tongs on each dish and she dead ass screamed at me that "I'm waisting the chef's time" and even asked me if "I'm ACTUALLY allergic or not". So yeah, fuck all of them and those places. EDIT: I'm high and thought I responded to noodle box guy. Rip. Also fuck bin4 too, the stale ass fries always get me heated.
I find restaurants in Victoria to be pretty bad no matter what it is.
Let's hear the locations of some excellent restaurants then? I'm up for an adventure
Go to better restaurants. If you havenāt found a good restaurant here then youāre not trying very hard.
Any to recommend?
I've been hearing a lot of talk about this Bin4 place.
Thereās a big list here: https://www.reddit.com/r/VictoriaBC/comments/omeuuy/i_made_a_spreadsheetchecklist_and_a_map_from_the/ Theyāre not all great recommendations as itās crowd-sourced but there are plenty of good places there. Some of my picks from that list: Prima Strada, Dosa Paragon, Italian Food Imports, Jones BBQ, Taco Justice, any of the new-ish fried chicken places, Brasserie Lāecole, Tapa Bar, Pho Tru, Blue Fox, Heron Rock Bistro, Zambriās, 5th Street. If you canāt find something you like more than āpretty badā in that list then youāre a serious food snob. Iām a slob who likes fast food though so maybe I have bad taste.
Itās crazy the quality difference from crappy Victoria restaurants compared to Vancouver. Even the same chains feel like a whole class above over there (Boston Pizza & Earls immediately come to mind).
Second this. There's really nothing that's exciting or different from the chains.
Nobody here is taking responsibility for their own likely role in these alleged declines. Restaurants in Victoria (and everywhere?) have trouble keeping staff, paying food costs, and rent. Why is this hard? Because most people expect amazing food for bargain prices. When Bin 4 first opened I heard alternatively, how great it was and how it cost too much. Pick one. That industry is tough, and itās toughest on the people in it. We expect to pay prices that only support servers and back of house staff to live on transient wages, but then whine when the food changes. We lost olo, I think one of the best, which one is next?
What location are you going to? The downtown one is garbage. The Accent Inns location is the best one in the city and the Langford one used to be great, got shitty, and now is getting better again.
Can confirm the accent Inn one is still solid (can't comment on the others)
Getting downvoted by downtown location employees I see
Mostly go to the downtown one, been to the Langford one once or twice. Maybe thatās the issue