Pepper’s Bar & Deli

We stayed at band Rocky Mountain resort, and this restaurat bar is inside of the hotel. We were lazy to go to the downtown to dine, so we gave it a try. Nothing special, but the food and service were good. We were quite happy.

During our trip to Banff, we ate at Pepper’s a few times, mostly for it’s proximity to where we were staying. It’s a nice quieter place, so if you aren’t looking for anything too fancy and want to avoid the crowds in town, this is a good choice. The food is good although not outstanding. In other words, I wouldn’t go out of my way to find this restaurant, but if you are staying at the hotel or nearby, you won’t be disappointed. The breakfasts were quite good.

We only came here twice, and both times only had a beer, so I can’t comment on the food. The second time, I came in from working out at the gym downstairs. All I needed was a water – and she could see that – but instead chose to help others (some of whom had arrived after us). She finally took our drink order, at which point another guy came up to the bar and ordered a Sprite, which she then poured. Interesting.
I finally got my water and we got our beers, but it was at least 5 minutes after sitting down at the bar. Very poor service, unfortunately.

Team E.D. took a much needed holiday and decided to head up to Banff mid-​week for a few days off.
We stayed at the Banff Rocky Mountain Resort (which is fabulous!) and within the main building in the resort in the basement is a little bar called Pepper’s.
Before we came we read some good reviews so we decided to give it a try.
We went at about 7pm on a Wednesday evening and the place was about ¾ full. It had a nice atmosphere, and was not rowdy and loud. More casual with a mix of older and younger people.
They have a pool table, a dart board, a computer hooked up to the internet with a printer, and you can see the pool and squash courts from within the bar itself.
Once we sat down, we were immediately attended to by a polite waitress. We got our beverages and were ready to order.
We started with the soup of the day. No dice, they were sold out. It is supposedly home-​made so we understood. They just don’t open a new can and heat it up.
We ordered a half order of house salad with blue cheese dressing. Well, they were out of blue cheese dressing. Hmmm… this is not good. We both ordered salads with Italian and Thousand Island dressing and the dressing is definitely not homemade so what is up with being out of salad dressing if it is bottled? Go to sobey’s and get some!
«E» stuck with her salad as her meal as she was not hungry. Both salads were delicious, fresh and crisp, and not bagged. Big plus here.
I ordered the steak sandwich. 10 minutes later the bartender came back and informed me they were out of steak. Not cool. At this point in time the poor lad was embarassed and you could tell he did not enjoy delivering the news. Which he should not have had to do. He was professional and apologetic.
I ordered the chicken instead (which they had!!) and it arrived quickly. It came with fries and 3 pieces of chicken. Not a very well balanced or exciting meal but it was very good. Moist, nicely breaded and it came with homemade fries.
Our meal came to around the $ 45 dollar mark (or around there) and the food they HAD was good. Service was exemplary and we tipped the bartender well. Hopefully the manager of the restaurant (if there is one) didn’t get a split of that.
DAY 2.
We decided to go back for lunch on Thursday, around 1pm. We could have drove to Banff but we decided to give it a second shot. More as a joke actually, to see if the had the missing food in stock from the night before.
Again, we ordered house salad’s with Blue Cheese dressing. No dice. Out of Blue Cheese dressing. Here we go again…
I wanted to try the steak sandwich, but told the bartender they were probably out of steak. I was right, lol.
So we both ordered Beef Dip sandwhiches which were typical, generous, and pretty good. Mine came with fries which were again, delicious. And «E» ordered a house salad as a substitute to the fries and it was as good as the day before.
Service in this bar was excellent. Staff were great. Prices were reasonable considering a lot of the food was made in house.
We we told the bartender we could run into town and grab some steaks, salad dressing and soup if he wanted but he politely declined with a laugh. We came to the conclusion that the next time we stay at this lovely little place we will go to the bar and order pizza from town or room service from another hotel that actually had food.
Our experience did not taint the food we got. As stated, what they had was good. It was actually humorous eating here, and we are HOPING there is a manager looking for a new job. There is no excuse for a restauarant to run out of food like that, and not have it the next day. I have worked in the industry and if you ran out of product, you sent someone to a store to get more, even if it meant less profit on a dish.