The Loose Cannon Scottish Public House

Went in specifically because they had a special on Shepherd’s Pie on Saturdays. That said, it was excellent. One of the friends who accompanied me said it was hands down the best shepherds pie he’s ever had. And it was quite delicious. However, it is quite small and cramped inside the building, and though the chairs are comfortable, if there is anyone at the adjacent tables you end up sitting tucked quite far in. Our server was polite. He may have been the only server working at the time, so it took quite a while for him to make the circuit of the tables and come back to check in with us. He was a good sport about answering my questions involving dietary restrictions, and made sure to check in with the cooks before placing my order. Our food came pretty quickly, piping hot. The shepherds pie comes with a side of fries or a salad. For the $ 8.50 on the special day, it was a colossal amount of food! Only one of us was able to finish their meal completely, though we all made the effort to finish at least the shepherds pie. I would recommend, but maybe try to go at a less busy time.

Standard pub in every way. Maybe a half dozens tables outside on the street, which I sat at the two times I’ve been here. First was just for drinks. Second was a warm May Saturday afternoon. Kind of small inside, but nothing wrong with the atmosphere. Good beer selection but I would guess the best Scotch selection in the city.
Took 45 minutes to receive my meal on this visit, and we had an hour, so I felt a bit rushed to eat it. The server was friendly but didn’t seem to even realize how long we were waiting because never apologized for it or anything. We weren’t in the mood to mention it, so can’t really complain I guess if we didn’t help the situation. My veggie skillet with toast was good and hot, but I don’t see it on their online menu which is a bit strange. Normally after slow service, I wouldn’t bother return, but when I now look at their online menu, I want to try a few other things. LOL But I would make sure to go on a day when I am not in any sort of rush, and then definitely say something if it was taking too long again.

I can’t really speak to anything else except their burger week burger. It was really great! One of the favourites I had that week. The only problem I had was that our table was too close to the bathroom, and anytime anyone went in and washed their hands, you could smell the hand soap. It was strong. it over powered the taste of my burger. That hand soap ain’t playing around. It means flowery soap business. Eating a burger and smelling cheap hand soap? Not my number one choice. I also had to leave my jacket on, the place was freezing. It might have just been me, but I was cold. Our service was great and like I said the burger was delicious. Maybe pick a seat away from the bathrooms if you plan on going in.

Had the Southern Fried Chicken (Monday special) tasted pretty poor. Fries were barely cooked!

Stopped here because they had a dinner special of shepherds pie. It wasn’t your classic pie but the added tex mex flavour wasn’t too bad. The fries were super good and it was cheap :)

I’m not usually the guy who has salad for lunch but the smoked chicken salad here is my go to on pretty much every visit. Service is attentive and it’s never rushed.

Meh. This could have been better the fish and chips I ordered had decent fries but that’s like going to a movie for popcorn. The fish seemed like it came from a box and the server seemed not to care much doing no quality check and never asking if we wanted another round leaving me without a drink for about 15 min. I wouldn’t go back.

A few weekends ago, we were walking by their patio, when we took note of a plate of tasty looking eggs benedict. We placed the Loose Cannon on our mental list of places to try. Yesterday morning we decided to walk down for a late breakfast after indulging in a few too many beer the night before.
It was a bit too cold to sit outside on the patio, which was disappointing, so we opted to head inside and immediately noticed two wing back chairs situated at the front of the pub, next to a window. The chairs were old and well worn, but my god were the comfy.
Immediately upon entering I didn’t really notice anyone working there. A few moments later, our server magically appeared wielding menus. The first thing I noticed was that everything was very reasonably priced, mostly under ten dollars. We both had benny on the brain, after our initial walk-​by a few weeks ago. I chose the spinach, portobello, swiss and he the bacon and brie. We both ordered water, and proceeded to do some people watching. We were the only people in the pub. We waited and listen to the servers chat, occasionally disappearing into the back. With each disappearance our eyes eager looked towards the kitchen door, hoping our food would be on its way. Each time we were disappointed as they emerged with cutlery to wrap in napkins, or some type of hand towel to be folded. It was a good thing our chairs were so comfy! They continued folding and chatting, without really acknowledging that our food seemed to be taking an extremely long time, given we were the only people there. Then all of a sudden. one of them arrived with a plate of mini caramel muffins for us. My finace noted that they probably brought these to us to make sure that we didn’t starve during our long wait. We had a little laugh. They were actually quite tasty. Fast forward another long while and our much anticipated breakfasts arrived. Both bennys came topped with a roasted red pepper hollandaise which was a nice idea in theory. I found the flavour a bit strong and lacking the creaminess of a traditional hollandaise. I really could not taste much else. The few baby spinach leaves and pieces of mushroom were overwhelmed, not to mention the swiss cheese. He felt the same about his bacon and brie. The oddest thing about it, was that it was all perched atop a tiny piece of spongy white bread. A sliced baguette perhaps? I don’t know. Both bennys accompanied by a side of hashbrowns, I’m pretty sure these were frozen and tasted very similar to the herbed ones they are serving a Smitty’s these days.
All and all, it was an acceptable breakfast. When we left, we commented that it was «meh, fine» Definitely not good enough to be entered into our regular breakfast rotation. We did notice while looking over the lunch and dinner menu that they have a different special on for $ 6.99 every day of the week, We plan to go back and give one of these a try.

Staff is awesome, inviting crowd! Love cider on tap! Has a great selection of beer and the food is wicked! Get the burger!

We saw people enjoying themselves across Argyle Street while dining at Ela — so why not we thought?
OK service but the food was not edible. Has anyone had those horrid mashed potatoes? We picked at it and left most on the plates. Other patrons seemed more intent on drinking copious amounts of beer before the hockey game. They were experienced.
Jesus said «Lift up your wheelchair and walk!» — not accessible.

Had we not been laughing, we would have been yelling. That’s the resounding impression after my last group outing to the consistently service-​challenged Loose Cannon.
Our group of seven showed up and nabbed a table for drinks at around 8:30pm on a Friday night and stayed for just over two hours, for the majority of which we were one of maybe three tables. Our server wasn’t rude or anything, but after explicitly stating we were there for drinks, we expected a better effort at keeping our glasses full than checking in twice over the course of our stay.
Eventually, we took to walking up to the bar to interrupt her conversation with the two bartenders and another server in order to get her to bring another round and clean up the growing number of empty glasses that she had been ignoring.
Worse still? By the time we finally got her attention to request bills, we had already been holding our credit cards at the ready for about twenty minutes. What does she do? She drops off the bill and immediately bolts back to the bar to get another chat in rather than just helping us get the heck out of there.
That’ll be my last visit. It was far too much work for us as customers to try to make it work with a place that just doesn’t seem to be all that into us.

The place does seem to be torn about whether it wants to be a trendy bar or a Scottish pub. That being said, they had cider (strongbow) and a waitress and bartender who were quite amusing. Wouldn’t race back for the food, but sitting inside drinking the beer was quite nice :)

Meh.
The Loose Cannon is a place I only ever go when I just want a change of scenery. Their beers are overpriced, the atmosphere is mediocre and the food is pub food that tries too hard to be gastropub food. I ate there recently and their regular food (burger and fries, fish and chips, chowder that other people at the table had) were all presented in odd-​shaped bowls and long plates that were entirely at-​odds with the décor, and hard to eat off to boot.
Also, $ 7.95 for a pint that costs $ 6.25 across the street? Whhhyyyy? If I’m paying more than the going rate for a drink, I want the atmosphere, service and food to be something special.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was there for lunch on a Monday. Mondays aren’t usually the day for lots of business-​types to go out for lunch, but even still, the place was barren. If this is a common occurence, they might want to reconsider lunch service on Mondays. We were there during peak lunch rush, and were the only patrons during our entire meal, so I can’t see it being a good business move to pay for staff to stay open for a $ 35 check.
If it’s not just slow Mondays, the food might be to blame for the lack of lunch crowds. Their menu is very limited for food. If you’re there to grab a scotch or a beer, you’re in luck, but I think I’ll be heading elsewhere for food next time, unless I have a hankering for some sheep innards. I had the chicken club wrap and mashed potatoes. The spuds were dry, tasteless, and grainy, (and it wasn’t from the added oats.) The wrap was alright, but there was way too much curry mayo to make it good. For such a strong flavour, you don’t need much, but the amount used here drowned out the flavour of anything else.
I’m sure it’s a great place for after-​work drinks or some specialty scotches, but I’ve scratched it off my lunch rotation.

For starters. The Loose Cannon is Scottish? My goodness, apparently I’ve enjoyed their beverage menu too much to recognize that. Whoops.
However, now that you mention it, it does make sense. The interior is quirky and dark and they’ve got a pretty awesome location on Argyle for a patio. No complaints there.
Beer wise I didn’t find it to be cheap. Perhaps it was the night we went and the beer we were drinking. But I still don’t take it as the type of place to go and leave with a pithy little drink bill.
Food wise I had a wrap with fries and Jud had a burger. The burger looked delish. My wrap was pretty good and the fries get an extra couple points for being served in a bowl. I just love my fries high up on a throne. For the most part I was super hungry and anything would’ve tasted good at that point. We had quite a large crowd of people and it took awhile for us to get our food. The wrap had some curry in it and was glorious on the ‘ol taste buds.
I could definitely go back and give the bangers a mash a try and hellllllllo on the weekend they have breakfast-​brunch, scrambled eggs, sausage, home fries, baked beans and toast, $ 3.99. I’ll be rubbing my face in that.

The scene: it’s January 25^th, the birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns. Naturally, I want to partake in some haggish and Scotch to honour a dead poet whose only work that I recognize is Auld Lang Syne, and that thanks only to the wonders of Wikipedia.
To fulfill this desire, The Loose Cannon was a no-​brainer, as there aren’t exactly a lot of pubs in Halifax that bill themselves as Scottish. I popped my haggis cherry here a year or two ago and this Robbie Burns Day happened to coincide with the Cannon’s Wednesday Scotch day, when most of their single malts are a mere $ 5.50. It was destiny.
While I was only able to wrangle one friend to go, that was all I needed to avoid dining by myself, which I can’t do expect at fast food joints. We sat in the back, slightly raised area of the Cannon. It’s a cozy area with old looking upholstered chairs, quirky wallpaper and lots of darkly stained wood. Although they’re Irish, the Dropkick Murphy’s are playing in the background (I suppose there’s not a plethora of Scottish rock out there).
I, of course, order their haggis special. I’ve had it a couple times previously, back when they only had haggis on the 25^th of each month, although I believe it now occupies a permanent spot on their menu. Today, the haggis comes with mashed potatoes, red cabbage, pickled onions and a half pint of beer for the very reasonable price of $ 10.99. My not-​as-​adventurous friend goes with the burger, although he promises he will try some of my haggis. Our food arrives after not too long, presented nicely on rectangular white plates which I like to think of as boats of deliciousness. The haggis doesn’t look anything like the horror shows that you’ll see on Google images, it looks very much like a hash of finely chopped meat and oats; nothing that’s super fancy, but the flavour more than makes up for it. It’s seasoned very well, almost reminiscent of Italian meatballs, with lots of herbs and a little kick from pepper. The potatoes contain a pool of gravy which is my favourite presentation for potatoes and gravy, although the potatoes themselves are a little bland, but the gravy pool helps fix this. When I had ordered my food, our waitress raved about the pickled onions that come with this dish, and both my friend and I agreed that she was right to do so — they’re sweet and flavourful, without any sort of overwhelming onion flavour that you would expect from eating red onions straight, along with a pungent pickle flavour. It all combines in a way that reminds me of a Big Mac. In a good way. My friend extols the virtues of his burger, saying it’s one of the best he’s had, although it should be noted that he hadn’t eaten all day.
The service is friendly and attentive over the course of our night, taking our empty glasses of Scotch away as we each sample a few of their many offerings. I was pretty on the fence about the rating about this review since I’ve had some mediocre visits to the Cannon before — them being out of multiple beers on beer special days, meh food, etc. But I felt that this time there should stand on its own. I look forward to going back to sample more Scotches and to see if their burger really is up to par.

I have to give credit to Courtney for the first review.
I have seen this place a few times, but never had the chance to stop in.
Well I did the other day. What a great spot. Takes you back in time, with the lantern décor and rustic feel of an old style pub.
If you like Scotch, this is your place. I personally do not, or maybe I just have not had the right one to tickle my fancy.
Beer, well what is a pub without beer. Now the beer is not cheap.
The meal was good, Fish and Chips!
The owner of this establishment is the owner of the one next door as well, Mike Leigh, of Bitter End.