The Charles Bar

Dayum. With a lively atmosphere, gorgeous interior, and down right fantastic food, The Charles Bar has it ALL.
Highlights of this super hip place? It’s right in the heart of Gastown! It’s AFFORDABLE?! And it even has a dance floor. With good music. Yes, it’s all real.
My fave dish on the menu is the chicken burger: arugula, brioche bun, grilled red onion, and some secret-​to-​die for sauce! How tasty.
And you bet your pants they’ve got happy hour, something you won’t wanna miss.

My friend and I were looking for a place to go for happy hour and came here. Their house white was good and the lemon and pepper chicken wings very tasty. Service was fast and friendly. It was a great way to start the weekend!

I have never felt so embarrassed at a restaurant before. I am a person of colour, I live above Charles bar, however I’ve only been there twice. About a month ago I wanted to get a quick lunch so I went down for a sandwich. Went to the restaurant waited 10 minutes to get seated but that didn’t happen so I seated myself. 5 minutes later the waitress comes to the table to give me a menu. However instead of placing the menu on my table and asking if I wanted anything to drink, she literally throws the menu on the table and doesn’t even make eye contact or ask any questions and walks by. It wasn’t busy and even if it was, that’s not an excuse. I just got up and left. I WILL NEVER STEP FOOT in the restaurant again to eat.

Considering how many rank bars (and restaurants) I’ve been in and out of, I’d say the Charles nails great ambiance, cleanliness, friendly staff and efficiency.
They took reservations for a UFC fight.
They make the best lemon pepper french fries in the city!
I requested to have salt & pepper wings with different sauces on the side, for picky people to share. Well done wings!
The calamari is fantastic! Very lightly, if at all, battered. They score large strips of squid so the tips get a slight crunch but they still dangle. Love it. Not a fan of the sauce they are served with, though. I will order the lemon pepper fries sauce for them next time.
I can’t wait to return for my next food baby experience :)

I first went to the Charles Bar about a month ago for a Unilocal event and have since become addicted to their beer battered lemon peppered fries. OMG, they are AMAZING. In addition, they have $ 4 glasses of wine during happy hour (3−6pm), and as their Wednesday drink special. As someone who is poor and likes to drink, this is one of my new favourite places.

Mediocre food, rude staff, definately not a place you wanna spend your money. Go to the many other places within the two black radius

Was introduced to Charles Bar happy hours during a recent Unilocal event.
A fun mingler with an intimate crew of UnilocalERS. We were able to sample a selection of appies on sale during happy hours. Each day has featured drink special and appie discount. Monday’s flatbreads/​wings are $ 10 from Fig and Boursin Arugula and BBQ chicken flatbread to all types of chicken wings saltNpepa, F-​hots and a new Fave Ceratcha (misspelled for cuteness). 1lbs us approx 10wings.
The main area that needed a bit of revisioning was the Nachos. Served with a generous 4 topping sauces (2 salsas, sour cream, avocado) unfortunately the homemade chips don’t fit into any of the dip bowl (wahnwah) — consensus was BIGGER BOWLS but don’t shrink the chips. Next challenge was über fancy tasty smoked cheese that (wanhWah) unfortunately doesn’t stick to the chips and all the creative tiny toppings (beans, corn, peppers, onions) slide off the chips.
The Absolutely best of the best was the battered lemon garlic fries. Extra enjoyable cause it’s that magical blend of so-good-can’t-not finish the whole plate and thank goodness the dip is yogurt based which TOTALLY balances out any bad calories via the healthy choice of yogurt over mayo. Yippee.

I came here for an event and I had a great evening. It has a clean and modern look and was pretty chill but then it was a Monday evening.
The food was Great! We had a bunch of appetisers type meals to share and they were all delicious, the flat bread with fig and Boursin was awesome and the lemon pepper fries were also top notch.

Came here for a community Unilocal event and it was awesome. I got to try a lot of food which was good.
They’re drink selection is okay.
They’re food is AWESOME. Great pub/​bar food.
The atmosphere is super clean and nice. One of the nicest bars in the area for sure.
This is a great place to watch the game as they have TV’s everywhere inside. Also, they have a pretty large outdoor patio which would be great on a sunny day.
Pricey for food $$$ compared to other bars. Although, the food is really good. The lemon beer battered fries are soooooo good. Come just to try these, for reals. All of their wings rule as well, the siracha wings may be my favourite. Definitely check this place out, especially if you want somewhere to go on game night I feel like.
They also have DJ’s on Fridays /​and Saturday nights I believe. Which wasn’t surprising when I found out The Charles Bar was owned by Blueprint! Cool!
Enjoy… 4 stars for now as pricing is more like a restaurant, and the atmosphere is somewhere between a bar/​restaurant. I’ll definitely have to return once more before 5 stars are given…

The Charles Bar sits in the gentrified part of Gastown and offers an airy-​spacious room with high ceilings and some interesting seating options, including larger tables with enough chairs for 10+ people. This makes The Charles Bar good for larger groups in a more interesting and less «long-​table» way than most restaurants that just piece together group seating by joining square tables together.
Food is interesting but on the pricey side. Like a not-​very-​huge plate of nachos weighing in at $ 14.95 — aren’t these supposed to be heaps of cheap-​ass food? Based on the ingredients the menu probably needs to be priced the way it is. However your happiness when you look at the bill will depend on whether your palate is discerning enough to realize this fact, or whether primitive hunger will protest the pounds: price ratio.
Flatbreads: About a foot long and half as wide. Toppings go pretty close to the edge so they aren’t skimping here, though the end pieces get a bit more crust. Probably not enough for a meal on its own, so consider going on $ 9.95 flatbread Mondays. +$ 2 to get gluten-​free crust.
BBQ Chicken Flatbread ($ 13.25) — I thought this was too heavy on the sauce, which covered up the other tasty ingredients like bacon and onions. Otherwise OK.
Fig & Boursin Flatbread ($ 12.95) — Uses date paste. How often does that show up in a pizza, much less a menu? That’s probably just one of the reasons it’s $ 12.95. Overall the experience here was the sweetness in the toppings, making this an unusual and interesting pizza that has dates and figs. Bonus: It’s an interesting vegetarian item that’s not a salad.
Nachos ($ 14.95)
— I can’t remember the last time I could find non-​salty corn tortillas in Superstore so I see why they’d housemake their own, but I can also believe it adds to the cost.
— Had a chance to speak with their Marketing maven who said the smoked mozzarella is pricey for the restaurant and in a week or so they may complete a transition to a cheaper cheese which will also result in a heck of a lot more cheese on the nachos. As it is, the cheese is mainly on top, and if you don’t tear apart your nacho order fast enough, it will cool, solidify, and then the first person to grab a cheesy tortilla it will likely end up lifting the web of mozza off all the neighbouring pieces of tortilla, stripping them bare.
— The mozzarella is smoked? — It probably is, but can’t smell or taste that. Might as well be normal mozza, honestly. I don’t think anyone is enough of a nacho snob to bother to discern the difference.
Chicken Wings ($ 11.75 per pound, which is probably about 10 wings but can vary; $ 6.95 during the 3pm-​6pm happy hour)
— Frank’s Red Hot — I hate Frank’s because it’s more sour than spicy-​hot. Totally forgot that and accidentally ate a wing from some else’s order. But if you love that stuff, these wet wings were drowned in that goop.
— Sriracha Salted — Yeah, «salted». Not coated in that pretty hot sauce. On the wings it looked like some parts of each wing were dusted in something red. The wings tasted like tasty chicken skin fat — you know, like undressed deep fried chicken wings. Maybe ask for more salting if you order this.
Beer Battered Lemon Pepper Fries ($ 7.75)
— There clearly a light batter on these, making them fries that stayed crispy for a respectable amount of time.
— Sharply sour lemon pepper. If you want lemon on your fries, this is it. Some other places do a noticeable but feeble lemony flavour. Here there’s no holding back, so you better like lemony before you order this.
— Price for portion is painful, but you may love this so much that you won’t mind.
If you are a McDonalds kind of person, just come for the drinks, the games on TV, and/​or the lunch special. If you are actually a foodie, don’t order anything that doesn’t sound interesting — look for at least one interesting ingredient. Those items are actually nicely enough put together to warrant the Yaletown pricing. But in the end, this is a drinks place with fancy food — it’s in that part of Gastown that has gentrified cheap eats into extinction.

Love it here. The food is killer, the vibe is right, staff is great, and drinks do their job as well. What else do you need? A giant movie screen tv for sports? Oh yeah, they have that too. Just solid through and through.

So, full disclosure: I live above the Charles Bar. Like, RIGHT above the Charles Bar. When I moved in over 5 years ago, there WAS no Charles Bar. And then it arrived, and it was a pub. That was OK. It was neat having a pub underneath my house. And then it became a nightclub. And my Friday and Saturday nights became so miserable, with loud noise shaking my bedroom walls until 3 am, that I am now actually moving out of my home to get away from it. Strata complaints, city complaints, management complaints, grumpy tweets, marching downstairs in my PJs to tell the bouncers the music’s too loud, calls to the police — nothing has been able to tone down the incredible din that means I literally can’t sleep in my own home on the weekends. So — you win, Charles Bar. I can’t fight you and your asshole weekend clientele. I’m out, after five and a half years.
However — Sunday through Wednesday? It’s like a different place. Friendly (and calm) regulars. Huge screens to watch football (or hockey, depending on what side of the bar you sit on). Really cheap happy hour specials on drinks and food (Deep fried dill pickles!). Lunch specials too (Cobb Salad!). Pretty good Sunday brunch (highly recommend the quinoa benny). Lovely seasonal patio. There are lots of huge booths for large groups which is nice when you’re getting your gang together for drinks — and places for large groups can be hard to find in Gastown. It can be a nice place to spend some time. The staff are for the most part very friendly and helpful if you flag them down (which can sometimes be a problem), although weirdly they all wear name tags with numbers rather than their names, which I find a little off putting.
So yeah, the Charles? A nice little bar. Just a shit show on the weekends.

I’m only giving this place three stars because my FIRST experience was good. Good service, good food, good music once it transitioned to a club.
My experience last night… HORRID. They kept us in line forever even though tons of ppl were leaving. These are the types of bouncers I can’t stand. The type that will hussle girls out of money just to get in at a decent time. Really?
Too bad. Crappy employees like this ruin how you perceive a business.

Very poor service. Made me wait at the door for almost 20 minutes. The owner works there and was rude. The food was way too greasy.

We arrived at around 11 am for Sunday brunch and were surprised to find this place absolutely empty. We were a bit skeptical on staying as we were the only ones in the restaurant, but we decided to give it a go regardless.
Through the grapevine I found out that The Charles Bar was previously offering 2 for 1 breakfast – and from noticing the lack of costumers today, I could see why. Although they don’t offer this two for one anymore, they now do 3 buck drink specials with the purchase of brunch. The drinks are the typical brunch suspects (mimoas, caesers, etc).
For breakfast we decided on the Pulled Pork Eggs Benny, the Bacon Chicken Frittata and the Ranchero Benny.
First off was the Pulled Pork Eggs Benny $ 12 (Pulled Pork, English Muffin, Poached Eggs, Fresh Made Citrus Hollandaise and Seasoned Hashbrowns). Pulled pork and eggs benny has got to be one of my all time favourite things – but sadly it wasn’t executed properly here. The pulled pork in the middle of my eggs benny was cold and the hollandaise was bland and not near lemon-​y enough. If you are going to reheat pork — please do it for long enough!
Although we appreciated the gluten free option, the Bacon & Chicken Frittata (11.50 Caramelized Onions, Hickory Smoked Bacon, BBQ Chicken, Smoked Mozzarella, 3 Whipped Eggs, Green Onion and Seasoned Hashbrowns) was painfully average. The frittata itself was well cooked but the flavours were not bold enough and we found this dish to be overall boring. The same went for the Ranchero Benny $ 10 (Fresh Corn Tortillas, Cajun Sauteed Vegetables, Avocado, Poached Eggs, Fresh Made Citrus Hollandaise and Seasoned Hashbrowns).The best part of my entire meal had got to be the 3-​buck mimosa.
The best way to put brunch at The Charles Bar is that it wasn’t BAD but it wasn’t GOOD either. I ended up spending around 16 bucks and felt disappointed because I know I could’ve gotten much better food anywhere else in the neighbourhood.
When you have a venue set up somewhere with so much neighbouring competition you REALLY need to bring something to the table. Painfully average food will leave your restaurant, well, empty.

With so many places close to here, I probably won’t be returning often! Poor layout, the grossest bathrooms I’ve ever seen even for clubs. It can be a fun crowd, and the beer selection and prices are pretty good!

Although not quite a fan… it’s A-​OK. I come here sometimes to watch the UFC events if I’m downtown as it is one of the few bars that subscribes to it. I was very surprised at the cheap beer specials during the day.
It’s a very interesting layout of the bar, there are lots of TV’s everywhere, even mini LCD’s in some of the booths. The washrooms are interesting, although I would hate to be a lady using one. They are unisex bathrooms and individual bathrooms which is fine, but sometimes people don’t flush or lift the toilet seat. To be honest, its gross sometimes without having urinals like other bars to use.
As other people have mentioned, get here early if you want to avoid cover and line if you’re here for clubbing on the weekend.

Finding relaxed Hip Hop and R&B nights in this town can be tough. The Charles Bar on a Friday (and even a Saturday) is honestly one of the most chilled out bars to visit. I’m here often when I go out because there aren’t a lot of pretentious people here, just regular, easy-​going people.
Tip* Arrive before 945 or you’ll be waiting outside in line and paying cover.

Based on the current press given in The Province about the manager screaming «SURREY IS THAT WAY!» to a group of Indo-​Canadians, I can’t say I will ever give this establishment a try.

I’d come back just for the ambience & comfortable seating layout.
Busy bar at the front, and more spaciousness in the back on cool, wood-​trunk tables w/​jagged edges.
Ordered the Chicken cobb salad, w/​bacon bits, egg, avocado, tomatoes over greens, good portion.
But server’s suggestion for their well-​known flatbread pizzas, bbq chicken, just ok – an easy pass if you’ve tried Trilussa or Rocky Mountain.
However, it’s date worthy material & place to be seen, even in this part of semi-​DTES. This whole area has seen its gentrification so kinda nice to see in terms of safety and development, i’ll be back.
Lots of metered street parking.