The Works

I tried the Sexy Burger with elk meat along with the chips. The meat was dry and the flavors of the Sexy Burger with cream cheese and sweet chili sauce wasn’t great. I was very displeased because of the low standard of food and somewhat high prices. Waterloo residents seem to hold this place in high regard but if you’re going to charge a premium on a fast-​food staple like burgers then you must innovate and deliver on quality. I’ll give them props for trying to innovate but that’s all they did and didn’t think about the overall l taste of the food.
Furthermore, the portion sizes are very large and hard to finish even on an empty stomach and the dry meat just got cumbersome after a while. I couldn’t finish nor did I want to take any home.
The service was also very slow (the place wasn’t even packed) but the waiter was friendly enough and the décor was eclectic. We also got the milkshake and onion rings as an appetizer and shared — they were okay.

After that delicious burger in Ottawa, I was delighted to see the Works in Waterloo on King Street South. Man, the Works has grown and expanded a lot over the years. Entering in, they did not change their signature measuring cups or their light bulb salt and pepper shakers. How impressive.
Again, the server was very friendly, this time we were here for a birthday celebration and in addition to the burgers, we got the tower O’rings. Incredibly impressive with onion rings stacked from largest to smallest bottom up. This time, I had to choose another signature burger. I got the Ho Hum #34 which consisted of sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions and cheddar. Yes, this isn’t an extremely special burger, but I still LOVED it. Mmmmmm, dripping hot sautéed mushrooms with nonburnt, melty cheese and a steak cooked medium rare on a piece of bun.
I must admit, I probably drank two liters of water while I was there because eating meats makes your mouth so dry. The washrooms are clean and located downstairs. Nevertheless, I still loved it.

We went yesterday for dinner and was seated relatively quickly. We ordered our four burgers and had to wait 45 minutes (way too long!) before our food came. I ordered the Nacho Libre with the ground turkey. I thought mine was pretty good but the others said that the Canadian beef patty that they ordered was a little dry.

Originally, I thought this place was the best. But after trying a variety of burger places in San Francisco and Toronto (Umami Burger, Wild Burger) I realized this place is average. Probably a bit higher than Hero Burger for me and definitely better than any fast food burger places.
Saying that, it probably is the best burger place in Waterloo … and one of the only places that specializes in burgers in Waterloo. It’s decent burgers and a great place to go with friends to hangout and grab a beer too. They have nice table decorations like light bulbs for the salt and pepper shakers and you drink water out of measuring cups.
It’s sometimes pretty packed on weekends, so it might be best to make reservations! In the summer they’re also able to open the front of the restaurant so it’s exposed to the outdoors. And this is pretty nice with the cool breeze and a beer in your hand!

Verdict:
A fun place that serves a great tasting product.
Pros: the food quality and the portion sizes are both excellent! The atmosphere is nicer than an average burger joint.
Cons:
However they do make you pay for it. I recommend only going once in a while for a treat.

I come here ALL THE TIME!
They probably know me well now considering I like to order the same thing over and over again. I also being friends and family members here!
What can I say? Excellent staff, terrific food, lovely atmosphere etc.
The only negative is that it tends to get really really cramped during the weekends but eh, who can blame them?! The food is so GREAT!
Good job guys! Will keep coming

The food is good at this place, but I really have to down rate their speed of service. My friends and I waited more than half an hour at our table for the foods to come, not satisfied! Although I’ll have to say that I love the environment, it is really nicely renovated, great place for any occasion, only if you have lots of patience.

Got the burger with brisket, bbq sauce, and jack cheese. Good stuff. The chips are KILLER GOOD. Wow, nice and spicy. Great service. So fun that they serve water and soft drinks in glass measuring cups.

So many choices available with adorable lightbulb shakers.
Ordered the Son of a Beech burger. It was interesting and tasted good. The portions are huge and you can customize the burger and meal to your liking.
The service was great and the waitress was super nice. It’s cozy and comfortable with its industrial design.

Went to The Works a couple weeks ago for lunch.
Décor was alright. Nothing crazy.
There was a big hype over this place but after eating here, I personally think it is over-​rated. Burger was okay but not what I expected. Waited a while for the food.
Also think It is a little over priced for a lunch.
Don’t think I will be coming back here anytime soon.

The Works as SO MANY different types of burgers that you will always want to come back to try them all. I have been to a few different locations (Missisauga and Toronto) and they are all about the same.
The burgers: I am not super adventurous so I usually get something that is meaty or the «Beverly Hills Lawsuit» which has an egg and spinach in it. I have tried both the beef and the chicken breast as patties. The chicken breast has always been very dry, but I think it’s because it’s just so thick. The beef is delicious and juicy though. One of my friends always gets the veggie patty and she attests that it is the best veggie patty you can get.
The milkshakes: I’m addicted to the Oreo milkshake. I love it! The snack size is even big enough for me.
The sides: I have always gotten normal fries, or the spicy die cut fries. I prefer the spicy die cut fries more but they are both good.
The portion size: I am always stuffed at the end. Sometimes I can’t even finish the side I get. I think this may be because I am a small person and I always get the milkshake which also fills me up.
The service: At all the locations I have been to it has generally taken a bit longer than I’d normally like to wait. In extremely busy circumstances I have waited up to 40 minutes. I have also been when it is not too full but I still ended up waiting almost 20 minutes for my food. This is the only reason I am rating this ⁴⁄₅ instead of ⁵⁄₅.
The price: After buying a milkshake + the burger and no appetizer, my bill comes out to ~20 $.
The atmosphere: They play classic rock music if you’re into that. It’s a bit loud at peak times but I don’t mind this type of atmosphere.
Parking: Street parking, since it’s in uptown. Sometimes I park at the shops area parking lot and walk down to the Works if I can’t find street parking.

I wonder what my burger will taste like, I have been here with my family for an hour and a half we ordered an hour ago and I still haven’t been served…
I wish there was a negative 1 star rating … I won’t be Back.
Continued:
Apparently burgers are really hard too make, after an hour and 30 minutes of waiting from the time we sat down, we finally got or food. The waitress came by once after we ordered during that whole wait at the hour and 20 minutes mark. (hour and five min after ordering. Didn’t offer any explication just said sorry food will be out next… It wasn’t. still waited 10 min. Not once were we offered a refill on our drinks or an appetizer or anything.
I should have walked out, but I had a starving pregnant wife and two starving kids, and I guess I fell for the sunk cost fallacy.
Burgers were fine, nothing special Casey’s burgers are just as good, five guys are way better for less… way less money.
The fries were cooked in dirty oil, not old oil but oil that had been used to cook pre-​seasoned spicy fries, my wife and baby can’t eat spicy food, gives my wife terrible heart burn and the baby wants to cry and simply won’t eat it… Oh well baby shouldn’t eat fries. Told the waitress about it, she told us politely we were nuts there is only salt on them but she will replace them… 15 FREAKING MINUTES LATER, she brings the new fries… Still spicy… So I ask her are other fries pre-​seasoned and cooked in the same oil. She must have been confused because first she said no, then repeated exactly what I said. Mystery solved.
She did offer another salad but by this time we had been in this good forsaken rip off for over two hours and we just wanted to leave.
She talked to the manager without our prompt the cheap fool didn’t discount anything, he didn’t even come talk to us to apologize, he gave us free freaking milk shakes for the next time we come in. Which is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.
I left the free shakes cards on the table, GO F!@# yourself works.
First time I haven’t left a tip… EVER.

I took my extended family out for lunch here, and were treated to a great burger meal. We ordered a variety of burgers and the choice can be a little overwhelming. It took us awhile to work our way through the extensive menu. It can be daunting, although I love the choice it was difficult for the older folks to make up their minds. However, in the end it was worth it. Everybody thoroughly enjoyed their choices. The fresh cut fries are great.
We had one problem with the server in which we weren’t given enough information about the combo special with pop and ended up ordering a more expensive root beer, but we resolved that issue in the end.
Very packed, but we were waited on and fed in a reasonable amount of time. We will return again.

The décor and ambiance sets the stage for one of the best burgers you will ever eat. The service was pretty good but they did do some thing strange.
They served my burger with my blue cheese on the side and they had to refire it. I don’t think I have ever had a place serve me my cheese for a cheese burger on the side. By the time I got it it was dry and I was full from my fries.
They would need a serious overhaul of their experience for me to return.
Disappointed!

Really impressed with my experience here this week. The service was good, the servers were friendly, the kitchen took good precautions for my allergies, and the food was delicious! I had «The Hipster», which was caramelized onions, avocado, and harvarti on an elk patty. A lot of the times burgers at restaurants are dry and overcooked, so I was pleasantly surprised at how juicy my burger was. My boyfriend had the «Smokey Mountain» with a cheese stuffed beef patty and loved it as well.

A friend told me about this place, and how it was the best burger place in Waterloo. He oversold it. I had the deep fried bacon with bacon mayo as an appetizer and the Dead Ringer burger.
The deep fried bacon was really overdone. The coating on the bacon was really airy and flakey, although really crispy. Apparently it wasn’t supposed to be like that, so I’m definitely disappointed with the consistency of the restaurant. The bacon mayo didn’t add much to the deep fried bacon. As for the burger, it was also a letdown. It consisted of a fried onion ring with smoked brisket and BBQ sauce. I decided to get an elk patty as well. The burger was on the dry side. The patty was slightly overcooked there definitely wasn’t enough BBQ sauce. I also didn’t get much gaminess from the elk. Since it was my first time having elk, I’m unsure if it was supposed to taste as it did, but I felt in this case, a regular beef patty would have sufficed.
It would have been nice to get a more well executed version of the dishes. I’m sure it would have been better. But because of the consistency of food I got this time, I’m not sure I’ll return. We’ll see how it goes…

I had heard a lot of great things about this place and I am a fan of gourmet burger joints so I was excited to try it out– it do not live up to the hype.
We had two coupons for 8 oz. milkshakes which turned out are children’s size but the staff was very friendly and let us combine to make a 16 oz. shake. We got the Beat your Meat burger and Not Yo Burger and while both looked impressive they were simply mediocre. The Beat Your Meat was drenched in BBQ sauce and my nacho cheese sauce was cold.
Overall it cost around $ 70 for two burgers, onion rings and 3 alcoholic beverages which was not great value compared to other places. Most likely will not return.

Ah The Works! I want to love this place so much but unfortunately I only like it. The concept is pretty simple: BURGERS! I personally love burgers and this place will give you a well prepared one with a diverse selection of different pre-​selected topping configurations. The food here is always good and they serve AMAZING milk shakes. If you’re a vegetarian I’ve heard their mushroom cap burgers are great as well. Additionally the aesthetic is really fun and appealing with a garage door window that can be rolled up in the summer to enjoy outdoor style dining indoors.
Now for the things I don’t like about this place. Although service is usually good every time I’ve ate here the food takes FOREVER to come out! On top of this for a place that specializes in burgers I’d like to see more selection than just beef, chicken, veggie and ELK! Like seriously who wants to pay almost $ 4 more just to try elk? I’d love to see something like lamb added to the menu which I find makes the best burgers and is probably much more affordable than elk. Additionally the price point for these burgers is rather high considering they’re just good and not great. Finally I hate the menu; the layout is terrible and difficult to read with way too many selections with none being exceptionally appealing.
Overall this place is close to the mark but doesn’t quite make it, if you want a decent burger come on out and give it a shot but I wouldn’t make myself a regular here.

Finally had a chance to try this place. We came at an odd time: 3pm on a Sunday. Only about a third of the restaurant was filled. They were apparently just switching shifts, so it took 10 minutes for them just to get us water. Bad start, but it did get better.
We ordered a Ho Hum #5 beef burger along with a Lipstick on a Pig poutine. The food actually came pretty quick (probably since it wasn’t that crowded at the time). I’m not a burger person, but the Ho Hum wasn’t bad. The Lipstick on a Pig was delicious. We devoured it and I’d consider coming again. Probably on par with Smoke’s.
Décor: I love that they use measuring cups for drinks and tin buckets for food. The washrooms are also well decorated. Really great atmosphere.
They normally get quite crowded, especially during school season, and don’t do reservations for weekends from what I heard.

So I’ve decided to try this place with my dad after hearing some good stuff from my Ottawa friends. First thing I realized was the «works» design. Feels like a construction alley once you enter…
The menu was long… like really long. They have burgers of every single kind available. The servers will ask if you want the beef (or whatever meat you choose if any) well done or «with a little bit of pink in it», so it shows they do care about how you want the patty to be done. If you’re confused about the menu the servers do an excellent job in assisting you.
The wait for the burger was about 15 – 20 minutes, so we ordered some onion rings beforehand… they were HUGE! Comes with two sauces, in which we picked smoked BBQ and sweet/​sour. The sweet/​sour was better than the BBQ sauce IMO, it was too old fashioned for my liking.
The burger itself… the ingredients were good… but the beef itself lacked taste. Maybe it’s the reason why the server warned beforehand if I wanted well done or «a little bit of pink in it».
Considering our total bill came to $ 45 (even after a $ 2 deduction as my dad didn’t take a side), I didn’t feel I got exactly that I expected. It is better than the typical burger joints, though I feel it’s only just as good as Hero Burgers, which is cheaper.