The Raven Pub

Pretty much your standard pub fare, with the addition of live music some nights. It gets really loud with the music playing so be prepared to yell across the table to be heard over the music and doing a lot of lip reading.
We just felt like grabbing a quick bite with friends and going somewhere very casual, and as long as you don’t have high expectations, you’ll be fine. The food is very mediocre in my opinion but the drinks are bad. Tonight we got a large pizza to share between 4 people (8 pieces altogether) for $ 29.95. I think that’s a ridiculous price for pizza but that’s just me. Obviously when you split it between 4 it’s not bad, but still — if it isn’t a gourmet pizza and better than most I’ve had, it’s hard to justify a 50% premium over the price at most other places. The guys wanted some meat and the girls wanted to go vegetarian so we had them split the flavours. We got bbq chicken on half and Mediterranean on the other (artichokes, spinach, feta etc). The pizza isn’t bad at all but there wasn’t anything especially different about it either.
We also ordered a few drinks from their cocktail list. They have this martini that has grapefruit, vanilla vodka and lychee liquer (forgot the name of it), and I highly recommend that. It was so good! Pretty good prices for the drinks. Our martinis were doubles and were about $ 7.95 I believe. They also have a different special everyday and today happened to be a Vancouver island iced tea (the guys ordered it and didn’t really like it and I agree, the amaretto is something I personally don’t like but maybe some people do) which was a double for $ 6.95, so price wise, the drinks are a good value.
This time we had a good experience with the food. Other times in the past my food was barely edible. The taste is off a lot of the times and it’s just not very good. So really, the raven is a hit or miss. Usually you can’t go wrong with their pizza so stick to that if you want to see what they do best. And as long as you don’t have high expectations, go in with a light heart, order some drinks and enjoy the music, and you’ll be fine.

We ordered 2 rounds of wings, 3 small pizzas and the fried chicken sandwich. Wings were tasty and juicy. Then it went downhill, the pizzas were okay, a bit soggy. By the time we finished we were full so I took the sandwich home. I wish I hadn’t. When our waitress brought us the sandwich we were impressed! A large chicken breast with a crispy coating, bacon and a soft bun. But when I took a bite for lunch the next day it was ¾ raw! I didn’t warm it up, cold fried chicken is sometimes good… right…not this time. I really wondered what happened… raw chicken is just not cool. But our waitress was great. She was attentive, filled our waters and made sure the boys didn’t run out of beer.

My girlfriend and I go there Wednesdays for their half price wings. My favourite foods are their nachos, which feed three people, and their pizza. Service is friendly and quite good. And they have live music periodically.

I order the take out pizza all the time and it’s always delish. Have come in several times over the past month and have had really good service and pizza. Only pizza I order from in North Vancouver. Have had the nachos as well, several time and they are always really good. Had a few beers last week and the service was great, nice blonde European girl who takes her time so that’s always a nice change from the big chains. Will become a part time regular for sure.

There are not a lot of reasonably priced dining options in the area. This pub has a varied menu and a lot of good beer choices. We enjoyed the beet salad the most. Pizza is good, but not great.

Decent size portions (I had the fish and chips) but it’s not cheap compared to other pub prices. Quite noisy, but then again it was right at dinner time. Even though it was busy the service was fast and the staff was friendly.

The Raven is only good for beer these days and you can get beer with a better view plenty of other places. The food has gone all the way down. Today, it hit rock bottom when I was served cold prawns. They had simply been dried out over heat on a skewer and then gone cold. No seasoning. Just prawns. Dried out. Served cold. That was how we were doing it 8000 generations ago… Everybody at the table who had the seafood gave negative feedback to the server, but, just like the last 15 years it seems, nothing happened.
Order beer. Just beer. Have no other expectations.
I give up.

Was hard to rate. Food was awesome so glad they brought back their pizza… Server was great European I think… Nice girl… Bartender just talked talked talked phony laugh phony phony laugh to a fellow at bar … Music sooooooooo loud!!! And another couple asked for it to be turned down and the bartender want very pleased… But love the new seating and so happy you brought back the best pizza anywhere! Had the music not been so loud I would have given 4.5 Cuz the new décor and the pizza back was a great surprise!

The food is a bit on the pricy side, but mostly good, beware of their burgers! The pizza is amazing! Service can be poor, it really depends on the day you go. It can be a nice atmosphere going for lunch, but later at night the music is much too loud to have a decent conversation, and for no reason, as most nights it is a ghost town. The live music is great.

It’s pretty hard to get less than 3 stars when you serve Crannog Back Hand of God. I mean this stuff… it’s like i need to be alone and naked when i’m drinking it. Pure magic!
So, there you go…3 stars.
But beyond that, kinda hard. We ordered the nachos, which, were REALLY lame. Nachos are pretty simple. Chips, cheese, peppers and other condiments, repeat. Warm up. Serve with salsa and maybe guac.
There was NOT remotely enough cheese on these ‘chos. Ugh.
And the guac came out of some kind of squirt gun. And i’m pretty sure it came from a powder. So no, i would not order that again.
But i would go back simply for Crannog

I was super surprised by this little pub! We ordered a late night snack of pizza and wings and both were amazing! The pizza was cooked perfectly with a yummy combination of veggies, meat and cheese without being greasy. The wings were fantastic! Perfect amount of spicy sauce and next to no fat. What a great place to have as your neighbourhood pub! I would definitely eat here again.

Stay away, bad karma place. To support a local high school fundraiser, we bought a coupon for 2 for 1 Medium pizzas at the Raven. We usually order from somewhere else, but wanted to support the school and if the Pub was pitching in, then give them our business. Have not been going there recently as food and service has gone down hill a lot over past few years. Live in neighborhood and used be regulars.
So, we call them up to order two medium pizzas and sure enough, first words out of the order takers mouth «Oh, you can’t use that coupon». Sigh. Once again, a rip off. «Ok, why not?» «Oh, because the two mediums you ordered are too cheap, need to be a dollar more». (Don’t get me started on whey the coupon was for mediums, but not the mediums we ordered). «How much are we under?» «A dollar» «No problem, just charge us an extra dollar, happy to pay» «Sorry, can’t do that» Sigh.
So we ordered from another location for a bunch of our friends coming over, and then told them all the story. So, Raven, for the price of a dollar, you lost our business (again), we are going to tell the school fundraisers too (so everyone hears), and we told all of our friends over for dinner. A lot of head shaking.
Well done.

I was not very impressed with my visit here :(
It was about 25 min before we even saw a staff member so I went and grabbed menus for us.
so it was an hour before we ordered food (one of those order 2 cocktails cause you know you have them both before you get seen again)
I had fish and chips and it was good but she forgot the tartar sauce and was gone before I could turn around so it was another what felt like an eternity to dip my fish :(
I guess they were understaffed but the place was dead. So I spoke with management and expressed my concern for there business and she comped my meal. I didn’t expect more than that.
The place was really casual and that’s the atmosphere I like so I would give it another chance given the lack of staff (and there isn’t much else in the area).

So, I hadn’t been to the Raven for at least a year. No particular reason, it had just not been convenient. Today after snowshoeing, 10 of us decided that we wanted pub food and off we went.
I ordered the Raven Burger as did several of my companions. Our food arrived after what seemed like an overly long time considering the place was only half full. But hey I was enjoying my Back Hand of God so who cares. Anyhow after a few minutes one of my companions looks at me and asks, «Are you tasting any bacon?» Funny, I had been wondering myself where the bacon was. After all it is in the description along with mushrooms, grilled onions and aioli. Which were also somewhat lacking. Turns out a couple of others didn’t have any bacon or mushrooms, or onions or aioli either. Well for $ 15 dollars I was left simply asking, «Where’s the Bacon!?» On top of that the burger was just, meh. The bun was decent though. The saving grace was the fries. Crispy, hot and dusted with just enough salt and pepper.
Not that everything was bad, they do have a nice selection of gluten-​free beers, 3 to be exact, for those of you with wheat intolerances or that are Celiacs. They also have gluten free options on menu, though they are not mentioned explicitly. One of my friends who is gluten and dairy intolerant was able to choose from several items of the menu so he was quite happy. His steak looked quite good.
Overall, the Raven is an ok pub though a bit on the dark and loud side. I will likely be back as it is close enough to Mt Seymour to go for a bite, but, dammit I want my bacon next time!
I wish I could give 2.5 stars as it wasn’t Meh, but it also wasn’t A-​Ok.

We were presented with an opportunity to go to the Raven again. I tried to get us to another option, as I just thought ho hum the Raven doesn’t really do it much for me.
Well I was delighted with the service, which was a huge improvement over last visit.
All the food was pretty darned good, especially the Beet and Goat cheese salad. Pizza was good too. Didn’t care much for the wing I stole off my guy’s plate. overall a much better experience.
Nice to give this place more stars!

For some reason people are wild about the pizza here — but I’m not a fan. On the other hand, I love pizza with figs or artichokes as toppings so take that how you want to.
The service is usually great, especially upstairs at the take-​out counter. I order the fish tacos every time — they have coleslaw, cilantro and avocado on them and they’re very tasty. They can be a bit stingy with the fish though.
Good pub food when you’re in the mood!

I mean, this is a pub right? So what can we really expect?
It’s loud, dark, and the food isn’t too fancy. The drinks menu is pretty standard for Vancouver, so that means a decent variety of local beers on tap (I continually go for the Crannog Backhand of God Stout). We ate chicken wings (not bad, well-​cooked, and they let us go half and half on the flavours) and potato skins (standard, nothing fancy).
Because there isn’t much in the way of choice in the Deep Cove area, the Raven is kind of a default sort of place. But I would really love an authentic, warmer, cozier kind of neighbourhood pub. While the Raven will fit the bill for a quick bite and a drink with friends, it’s not the kind of place I’d become a regular.

Oh well.
I’m just not excited about The Raven. A while back I heard that they had a new chef and there were more gluten free items on the menu. We arrived there today to find that the ‘new’ chef has also fled the coup and there have been further menu changes.
I was hopeful when I saw a Pulled Pork item, but it is not gluten free, (BOOoo!)
I had the Salmon on a salad and it was nice, and nabbed some fries off friend’s plates and those were good.
The burger looked pretty yummy though and WOW I don’t know where they got such gorgeous buns. No, I don’t mean the servers. ;}
Anyways, I’m sure you’ll like The Raven, but I guess I just don’t.

I recently got a message from the owner about a new chef (he’s fancy, he used to work at places like Le Crocodile and Coast) taking over my beloved Raven so a group of us decided to check out the new menu (and make sure they hadn’t messed with it too much). Plus, I just bought a daily coupon on Good News that was begging to be used (side note: the Raven used an excerpt from my original review on their coupon page. ha! Awesome).
The new menu is pretty decent, there’s a lot of new stuff and they’ve pared back the pizza menu (boo), it’s definitely got more of a «gastro-​pub» feel to it now. A couple friends got pizzas and I got to sample them so I can safely and with relief say that the pizza is still just as good as ever. Since I had the coupon I decided to order the lobster and crab gnocchi, which was really quite good. I don’t think it was worth the $ 18.99 price tag but definitely tasty and I’m glad I tried it since without the coupon there’s no way I would have ordered something that expensive at a pub (though I would have ALWAYS considered ordering it cause I’m a sucker for seafood pasta). I also had a little bite of the boyfriend’s pulled pork sandwich and it was pretty good.
Oh, and one of my friends tried to use the Unilocal offer (free appetizer when you come in with a group blah blah) and the waitress had no idea what she was talking about, even after looking at the offer on her phone — I guess the owner hadn’t let any of the staff know about it? The offer did get honoured but there was confusion about it. Hopefully they’ve worked out that little kink now.
Also, they’ve added A LOT of tv’s to the place, which is not an improvement, it’s just distracting. I guess if you’re there to watch a game of some sort it would be good but the number of tv’s seemed like overkill to me.
Overall it was still good and the beer list is still a-​ok but I’m just a wee bit disappointed. Then again, maybe I’m just not a huge fan of change. But I’ll always go back for the pizza!

The Raven is not as good as it used to be any more (hey! Fix your sign!) but it’s still a nice enough neighbourhood pub. For example, the former three or four page draft beer menu with lots of obscure microbrews is now down to a page-​and-​a-​half greatest hits list of imports and domestics, with some Big Rock and Granville Island thrown in for esses and gees. I guess I can see the business sense of it, but it’s not as much fun.
Happily, the food is still as good as ever — my big Raven Burger was deelish, and my friend’s fish and chips looked very appetizing as well. I was curious to see if the legendary (in the Cove, anyway) Raven pizzas were holding up, but no one wanted to share one. Bummah.
Service could have been a bit snappier … coffees went unrefilled for insane stretches of time and our server was nowhere to be found when we needed the check and/​or change.
I still love the room with its natural light and fireplaces. And the company? Awesome girls.