817 Queen Street West,
Toronto ON
Toronto – Occupying the space that used to be known as the Gypsy Co-Op, the Dog’s Bollocks opened up sometime in the past year or two and marketed itself as a no frills bar with cheap beer. How cheap you ask? Pitchers are as cheap as 10 dollars. So it is with the promise of cheap booze and the novelty of a new pub that me and my peeps descended upon this bar on a cold winter night.
Beers – The Dog’s Bollocks definitely has its assortment of beers. Selections including Sapporo, Guiness, Kilkennys, Strongbow (I know it’s not a beer), Steamwhistle and others can be found on tap. No Creemore though. BOO. The 10$ pitchers include Amsterdam Blonde, NutBrown and Okanagan. There are plenty of mixed drinks for the ladies as well, and a pitcher of mix drink (rye and coke, for example) is relatively cheap. It’s not a big pitcher, but a mini pitcher – probably three drinks worth, according to my friend. For you simpletons, I am sure Canadian and Budweiser are on tap as well. Strangely, for a bar that seems to want to pander to a British (or British wannabe) crowd (look at the name), it doesn’t have a wide variety of British ales.
Decor – This is where The Dog’s Bollocks fails. Most people want a cozy pub. This is not one those places. There is really nothing the bar can do about it, the space that The Dog’s Bollocks occupies is HUGE. It is overly wide, and overly long. There are booths along both sides of the place, and enough room for massive tables in the middle. That’s no pub, that is a beer hall. The walls are decorated with British memorabilia including cliche pictures of the Beatles, Stones, etc. There is also an electric jukebox and widescreen tv’s that are spread sporadically thru out the bar. Does this place want to be a sports bar? a pub? a lounge? I don’t think it knows, and this leads to a bit of a disconnect between the patrons and the place. Anyways, thats how I feel. The space is too big, basically. They’d be better off splitting the thing in two and have a front/back room.
Patrons – A wide assortment of people dropped in for drinks. The place is so big it doesn’t really matter who is there. I would say it’s a mix between youngish people patrolling Queen Street West for the next hip joint to go to and people who want 10$ pitchers.
Service – Not particularly good, given the large amount of people in the bar, there was maybe 3 waitresses working the place, and none of them were in a very friendly mood. We had to wait more then a few minutes to place a new drink order. I am pretty sure if you are working at the bar, empty glasses at a table where people want to drink more is a bad thing. Also, my friend asked if the poutine was good, to which the waitress promptly replied ‘yes’ with no further explanations. Good server types usually say a lil more.
Food – Medicare. The menu reminded me of the one at the Bishop and Belcher – you know, pub food..pub food..pub food and also, indian food! What? I am wary of places where the menu offers up too many items. This just means you don’t really do any item particularly well. My friends ordered Poutine and Potato Skins. The Potato skins were basically a potato cut in half, with some cheese on it, and put in an oven. Weak. The Poutine had cheese curds, but the gravy was so weak my friend D thought it was ‘Au Jus’ instead of gravy. As you may imagine, we decided to forego eating any more at this place.
Conclusion – If you want cheap beer then this is an option. So is LCBO + your apartment.
