The Horny Toad Saloon

The name changes from time to time
…
But it stays grungy and appears patched together, like an old farm shed
Made the mistake of talking with the barkeep. Who said he was the owner
WHAT A JACKASS
NEVER
NEVER
NEVER GOING BACK

The wings are good! The beer selection is meh. Staff is friendly enough. Ambiance is pretty run of the mill & it’s quite dark inside. Considering the patio is right on Elbow, it’s actually not bad in terms of noise and car fumes.
It’s my local (stumbling distance from home.) That is what will keep me coming back. I definitely would not go out of my way to visit otherwise.

We thought it best not to venture downtown on Friday evening during Stampede, so we hit up The Horny Toad.
The patio is sunny in the evening, and the Stella’s were cold. We ordered some onion rings to nibble while we waited for our burgers. They were overly breaded, but tasty with the chipotle aioli.
My bacon cheeseburger was bland beyond belief. Absolutely no seasoning. Want to know what plain ground beef tastes like? Order this. Burgers seem to be their main seller, since they have about 5 varieties. Ugh. The shoestring fries were okay, but seasoned with pepper. Again, a rookie mistake.
I may be back for some more Stella on a hot sunny day, but doubt I will try the food again.

We’ve been here a couple of times. The first time, back in the winter, things were going okay until a woman who looked like a plague zombie came out of the kitchen, coughing up something. She walked to the restrooms, coughing up a lung and emerged a little bit later, still coughing the worst mucus cough ever. It turns out, as we could see shortly thereafter from our table through a door, she was a line cook. Yum. Not. It kind of turned us off our meals.
Six months later we returned. It was busy, due to soccer being on but we still found a table. The server was friendly and prompt. She quickly explained the specials and I found her to be very good. WE ordered the jerk wings, lemon pepper wings and a poutine to share.
I thought the wings were good although I’d have picked different flavours (not the Toad’s fault). The poutine was very tasty though with crispy fires, delicious gravy and ample cheese curds. There seemed to be a lot of salt on the bottom of the dish (???) which ruined the last few bites but otherwise it was tasty.
The server was quick to give us our bill and bring us the debit machine etc. All in all, this visit was better than the last but didn’t really dazzle us. With so many good pubs around, this probably won’t make it to the top of our list unless we are in the neighbourhood for other reasons.

Went for a quick dinner on a Thursday. Very Small, local watering hole. Had Christmas decorations up — which was a nice touch.
Ordered burgers — just ok — but have had better.
Might consider coming back for Chicken wings, but probably not.

Their Twitter account had tweeted about $ 3 wings on Wednesday and how they had one of the best wings in Avenue Magazine in 2010. I headed down to see how good they could possibly be. Here are my thoughts:
Atmosphere: It’s a fairly simple looking pub. It has a bit of class, TV’s on the walls, a variety of places to sit be it beside a window, in a soft chair or on the patio. Easy going place to be.
Food: The chicken wings are AWESOME! HUGE! TASTY! There’s flavors on their menu I had never even heard of. I had two kinds, one of which was Spicy Parmesan. I would have this again, and again, and again. Very good!
Rant: I ordered iced tea. I was told that I would be charged per glass. It was $ 2.95 per glass. It was 27 degrees outside. I had three glasses. They should given me a jug, I would have paid the $ 9 for that. For a place that touts that they are a friendly neighborhood pub I didn’t find this to be particularly friendly or neighborly.
I’ll come back for the wings if I am in the area.