Our family has been a fan of Smugglers Inn for many years now. Back in May last year, I took my mom and daughter to enjoy a weekend brunch. It was amazing and we aimed to return soon. And finally after a busy year, I was able to finally gather again with family for a weekend brunch to celebrate Chinese New Year with our party of 8. This time, the experience went downhill. 1) we were seated in a darker section of the room, close the fire place which made it a little colder than usual 2) the Prime rib was disappointing… 3) we were told drinks (juice, coffee etc) were no longer available. 4) many of the items at the chocolate fountain was not refilled. 5) we were charged extra by accident (which was corrected later)
Overall, I was not pleased. I am not sure if we will go back again anytime soon!
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 3
Service: 2
Jason Andrei
Huge thanks to the team at Smugglers! We were there for our 23rd anniversary with friends last night when a water break hit the restaurant. Despite the emergency, we received a fantastic meal and top-tier service. Kelsey was our waitress and she was absolutely wonderful—so upbeat and professional while everything was being shut down. Great job team Smugglers!!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Deverlyn Panton
It was a nice dinner with my husband last saturday Valentine’s Day,the food was great and our server Lorena was amazing and very friendly. Thanks Lorena! We will surely comeback soon.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Christina A
First visit to Smugglers and it did not disappoint. The food was outstanding and Kelsey provided excellent service. Great experience all around!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Chris Hrabi
55$ to have them run out of prime rib and brisket so much for a buffet.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
L Schuck
Smuggler's prime rib/brisket Sunday buffet is relatively new (running less than a month when we tried it) so growing pains expected. But the overall quality was very disappointing -- VERY basic salad bar, steak soup nowhere near as good as the original Smugglers we loved, and they ran out of brisket with many people still arriving. Also ran out of plates and took awhile to restock. We checked out their regular menu and sadly my favourite cajun prime rib not on menu anymore. Wish they hadn't broken a great steakhouse.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 1
Orvz Ad
Not worth the hype. Don't waste your time and money here. You pay $50 for the buffet and there's nothing left on the buffet table. 😟
Heather T
Terrible. Came for the prime rib buffet. Bad experience from the moment we walked in. Had a reservation, showed up 5 minutes after our reservation time and were told they were just bussing our table for us. No problem. Except somehow that took 15 minutes to do and during that waiting 2 sets of customers were walking out disgruntled and told us on their way that if we were there for the buffet not to bother because they had run out of both prime rib and brisket and they were leaving to go to the keg instead. What!? Not to mention that wasn't mentioned by the hostess, and even once she finally came back to seat us still failed to mention it to us or the people waiting behind us. So we asked if it was true and she confirmed. We decided to stay and just have regular menu steak since we had driven in from out of town and after calling around there was no room at other local restaurants for our group size. Service was terrible, you'd think every waitress and hostess in the place was on their first day and were completely lost. Then came the food... Two of us ordered steak, one of us ordered chicken, another ordered shrimp, one ordered a burger and another fish. The steak was absolutely horrendous, it was somehow cooked to a gross mushy texture and tasted like parmesan cheese, not steak seasoned with parmesan cheese, no just straight up tasted like cheese and was absolute goo in your mouth without even chewing. We didn't eat our steaks other than sharing a couple bites with the others at our table to laugh at their reaction of horror to the flavour and texture. Then the chicken seasoning was straight kosher salt, like A LOT of salt, you'd get less salt flavour if you licked a salt shaker... Luckily if you peeled the skin off the chicken inside was good. But on top of it all even if the flavour of things was good the portion size was laughable. 55 dollars gets a little medallion steak and about a large tablespoon of mashed potatoes no gravy and a handful of vegetables. The shrimp came with just 4 large shrimp on ice for 26 dollars but at least tasted good. The burger and the fish were decent but still small portioned and who comes to smugglers for a burger? When it came time to pay the bill the waitress didn't even address the fact we had barely touched the steaks. Sadly I was so excited to come to smugglers after I hadn't been in a few years and remember it being so good before so the disappointment hit hard. I hope tonight was a one off of bad cooks and service. But I definitely won't come back and would never recommend it. I will admit it made for some laughs and an experience we won't forget but definitely not for the right reason.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 1
Service: 1
S. Chiem
My family and I have been coming to this restaurant for well over a decade. Post covid, our experience at this restaurant gradually became more negative than positive and this recent experience has put the final nail on the coffin. We made reservations for a family dinner on a Sunday, which is usually their dinner buffet, so how does a restaurant run out of their main protein (prime rib, beef brisket) on a style of dinner they have been doing every Sunday for a while? On top of this, the staff was unable to keep up with serving plates, utensils and food. Servers were almost no where to be found, we also witnessed servers arguing at the bar in front of other customers. Due to the poor service and lack of food for the customers, we noticed alot of people walking out too. To save our evening, we ended up walking out as well. We do hope Smuggler's will turn around for the better.
Kris Marshall
Food was cold and very few options in the buffet for sides other than a bowl of lettuce for a salad. Brisket was over cooked and almost inedible Very disappointing
Went out for Valentine’s Day, as you do. Our reservation was at 8:15 — we had to wait for a table, which was fine. It was kinda busy, I get it. Once seated, our server was very nice, but she wasn’t really around when we needed her. It took about 20 minutes before she came to take our orders. My boyfriend ordered the prime rib, and I got the sirloin. We waited about an hour and a half for our food. When his prime rib finally came out, it was completely uncooked — like it had just come off the cow. My sirloin was pretty lacklustre, though it was tender, which was the only saving grace. We let the waitress know his steak was undercooked. She took it back, and they “seared” it again — but it was still pretty red inside. At that point, we had both lost our appetites. We waited to speak with her again, and she said she would get the manager. It took another 20–30 minutes for him to come over. What really confirmed my disappointment in the whole experience was a random woman giving me a thumbs up for speaking to the manager — like it was brave to say something. It shouldn’t feel brave to expect properly cooked food on Valentine’s Day.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 1
Service: 2
Melford Berndt
Valentine,s meal at Smuggler,'s in short was poor at best. I am not none who posts often, but I thought I would give others a heads up. We had a reservation at 4:30.... you would think going early we would get good food, and good service... WRONG O.... SOUP, was barely warm and you felt like you were eating warmed up gravy. Baked potatoe was not baked. It was hard. Vegetables under cooked Wife had Penne, and the sauce was disgusting. Certainly not fresh. And the noodles were like sucking on pure sea salt Oddly enough the prime rib was ok. But certainly not exceptional. You could already tell by the serving staff that they were used to serving poor quality food. No smiles, avoidance, and certainly not happy about having to take payment. A sure sign of a failing restaurant. Ah well. The relief is we will definitely not return, ,and save us from the grief of paying a big price for another big failure. Buyer beware!
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 1
Laura Schlosser
Our reservation was for 5:45 pm and it wasn’t busy at all. In fact, it wasn’t busy at any point of our stay even when we left around 8 pm. Our waitress was very young and not very talkative, but she did a great job and was attentive. Water came immediately and our cocktails came within 15 minutes. We ordered the Burnt Ends as an appetizer which is supposed to be smoked brisket ends with teriyaki glaze, green onions, sesame seeds crispy rice chips. It was the most disappointing “burnt ends” we’ve ever had. Besides being cool, there was no smoke flavour and tasted like day old stewing meat. Tough, and no burnt to it. It really was awful.
We ordered 2 Smuggler’s cut prime rib with baked potato and it did arrive within the hour of being seated. It presented well, but it was cold. How do you serve food lukewarm or cold? The veggies could have been cooked a bit longer; the Yorkshire pudding was burnt and the potato and prime rib cool. The prime rib had no flavour at all.
Lastly, we ordered the Crème Burlee for dessert. It was okay but again, ICE COLD in the middle. Creme Brulee should be served at room temperature with the top warmed up with a flame. It felt like it was heated in a microwave because the dish was the warm part.
The quality of the food is there, just poorly executed. The kitchen needs to learn how to serve food hot. Sadly, we won’t be back again.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 2
Service: 4
John Molberg
This was such a once in a lifetime experience I thought I'd best share it in the hopes they can learn.
We went as a couple for Sunday brunch on our anniversary. We were seated about 20 minutes after our reservation time. The hostess took us to an empty table by the south facing windows. She asked if we knew where the buffet was. That was it.
The table had no utensils, no cups, no dishes, no placemats.... Just a single drink menu. Somewhat confused we went to the buffet.
The food selection was good. The meat was exquisite. However they were out of many items. When they arrived (yorkshires or waffles) they were cold. There was no fruit.
We returned to our empty table. With no one serving us we scavenged for forks and knives around the room. After about 15 minutes someone dropped 2 mugs of water.
We finished our first plate and returned to the buffet to see if the missing items had arrived. They had not. We waited by the buffet for 10 minutes until the eggs Benedict arrived.
Back at the table out plates were still there. After seating a waitress spoke to us for the first time. I ordered an orange juice that arrived 10 minutes later.
Then we decided to leave having never truly been served. I went to the bar to pay. I didn't feel bad not leaving a tip as we never were even introduced to a server.
Never in my life have I felt invisible as a customer at a nice restaurant. Smugglers is a staple of Calgary. I've been going for almost 30 years. I hope they learn from this.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 1
Mike H
I have been going to Smugglers for year. It has always been my favorite place to go for prime rib. I took my wife there on our first date and had an amazing meal. We went back tonight for Valentine’s Day and after tonight I’ll never go back. First we waited over an hour and half for our food to come. It came out cold and we complained to the manager. He said he would have it remade. When it came out it was our original meal that had just been thrown on the grill with fresh potato add and again everything was cold. After getting the meal back for the second time the manager didn’t even come to check and see if we were happy with the meal. As for the service our server had a difficulty with the English language. After ordering our first drink and finishing it the server never came back to ask if we wanted a second drink and basically ignored us most of our visit.
I will never be going back it is so shameful how poorly restaurant food quality and service has gone down and prices have skyrocketed. I am heart broken that one of my favorite restaurants has become just another low quality place to eat. Our local pub has better food and way better prices.
Our family has been a fan of Smugglers Inn for many years now. Back in May last year, I took my mom and daughter to enjoy a weekend brunch. It was amazing and we aimed to return soon. And finally after a busy year, I was able to finally gather again with family for a weekend brunch to celebrate Chinese New Year with our party of 8. This time, the experience went downhill. 1) we were seated in a darker section of the room, close the fire place which made it a little colder than usual
2) the Prime rib was disappointing…
3) we were told drinks (juice, coffee etc) were no longer available.
4) many of the items at the chocolate fountain was not refilled.
5) we were charged extra by accident (which was corrected later)
Overall, I was not pleased. I am not sure if we will go back again anytime soon!
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 3
Service: 2
Huge thanks to the team at Smugglers! We were there for our 23rd anniversary with friends last night when a water break hit the restaurant. Despite the emergency, we received a fantastic meal and top-tier service. Kelsey was our waitress and she was absolutely wonderful—so upbeat and professional while everything was being shut down. Great job team Smugglers!!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
It was a nice dinner with my husband last saturday Valentine’s Day,the food was great and our server Lorena was amazing and very friendly. Thanks Lorena! We will surely comeback soon.
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
First visit to Smugglers and it did not disappoint. The food was outstanding and Kelsey provided excellent service. Great experience all around!
Atmosphere: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
55$ to have them run out of prime rib and brisket so much for a buffet.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
Smuggler's prime rib/brisket Sunday buffet is relatively new (running less than a month when we tried it) so growing pains expected. But the overall quality was very disappointing -- VERY basic salad bar, steak soup nowhere near as good as the original Smugglers we loved, and they ran out of brisket with many people still arriving. Also ran out of plates and took awhile to restock. We checked out their regular menu and sadly my favourite cajun prime rib not on menu anymore. Wish they hadn't broken a great steakhouse.
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 1
Not worth the hype. Don't waste your time and money here. You pay $50 for the buffet and there's nothing left on the buffet table. 😟
Terrible. Came for the prime rib buffet. Bad experience from the moment we walked in. Had a reservation, showed up 5 minutes after our reservation time and were told they were just bussing our table for us. No problem. Except somehow that took 15 minutes to do and during that waiting 2 sets of customers were walking out disgruntled and told us on their way that if we were there for the buffet not to bother because they had run out of both prime rib and brisket and they were leaving to go to the keg instead. What!? Not to mention that wasn't mentioned by the hostess, and even once she finally came back to seat us still failed to mention it to us or the people waiting behind us. So we asked if it was true and she confirmed. We decided to stay and just have regular menu steak since we had driven in from out of town and after calling around there was no room at other local restaurants for our group size. Service was terrible, you'd think every waitress and hostess in the place was on their first day and were completely lost. Then came the food... Two of us ordered steak, one of us ordered chicken, another ordered shrimp, one ordered a burger and another fish. The steak was absolutely horrendous, it was somehow cooked to a gross mushy texture and tasted like parmesan cheese, not steak seasoned with parmesan cheese, no just straight up tasted like cheese and was absolute goo in your mouth without even chewing. We didn't eat our steaks other than sharing a couple bites with the others at our table to laugh at their reaction of horror to the flavour and texture. Then the chicken seasoning was straight kosher salt, like A LOT of salt, you'd get less salt flavour if you licked a salt shaker... Luckily if you peeled the skin off the chicken inside was good. But on top of it all even if the flavour of things was good the portion size was laughable. 55 dollars gets a little medallion steak and about a large tablespoon of mashed potatoes no gravy and a handful of vegetables. The shrimp came with just 4 large shrimp on ice for 26 dollars but at least tasted good. The burger and the fish were decent but still small portioned and who comes to smugglers for a burger? When it came time to pay the bill the waitress didn't even address the fact we had barely touched the steaks.
Sadly I was so excited to come to smugglers after I hadn't been in a few years and remember it being so good before so the disappointment hit hard. I hope tonight was a one off of bad cooks and service. But I definitely won't come back and would never recommend it. I will admit it made for some laughs and an experience we won't forget but definitely not for the right reason.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 1
Service: 1
My family and I have been coming to this restaurant for well over a decade. Post covid, our experience at this restaurant gradually became more negative than positive and this recent experience has put the final nail on the coffin. We made reservations for a family dinner on a Sunday, which is usually their dinner buffet, so how does a restaurant run out of their main protein (prime rib, beef brisket) on a style of dinner they have been doing every Sunday for a while? On top of this, the staff was unable to keep up with serving plates, utensils and food. Servers were almost no where to be found, we also witnessed servers arguing at the bar in front of other customers. Due to the poor service and lack of food for the customers, we noticed alot of people walking out too. To save our evening, we ended up walking out as well. We do hope Smuggler's will turn around for the better.
Food was cold and very few options in the buffet for sides other than a bowl of lettuce for a salad. Brisket was over cooked and almost inedible Very disappointing
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 3
Restaurantji Recommends
Went out for Valentine’s Day, as you do. Our reservation was at 8:15 — we had to wait for a table, which was fine. It was kinda busy, I get it.
Once seated, our server was very nice, but she wasn’t really around when we needed her. It took about 20 minutes before she came to take our orders. My boyfriend ordered the prime rib, and I got the sirloin.
We waited about an hour and a half for our food. When his prime rib finally came out, it was completely uncooked — like it had just come off the cow. My sirloin was pretty lacklustre, though it was tender, which was the only saving grace.
We let the waitress know his steak was undercooked. She took it back, and they “seared” it again — but it was still pretty red inside. At that point, we had both lost our appetites.
We waited to speak with her again, and she said she would get the manager. It took another 20–30 minutes for him to come over.
What really confirmed my disappointment in the whole experience was a random woman giving me a thumbs up for speaking to the manager — like it was brave to say something. It shouldn’t feel brave to expect properly cooked food on Valentine’s Day.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 1
Service: 2
Valentine,s meal at Smuggler,'s in short was poor at best. I am not none who posts often, but I thought I would give others a heads up.
We had a reservation at 4:30.... you would think going early we would get good food, and good service... WRONG O....
SOUP, was barely warm and you felt like you were eating warmed up gravy.
Baked potatoe was not baked. It was hard.
Vegetables under cooked
Wife had Penne, and the sauce was disgusting. Certainly not fresh. And the noodles were like sucking on pure sea salt
Oddly enough the prime rib was ok. But certainly not exceptional.
You could already tell by the serving staff that they were used to serving poor quality food. No smiles, avoidance, and certainly not happy about having to take payment. A sure sign of a failing restaurant.
Ah well. The relief is we will definitely not return, ,and save us from the grief of paying a big price for another big failure. Buyer beware!
Atmosphere: 3
Food: 1
Service: 1
Our reservation was for 5:45 pm and it wasn’t busy at all. In fact, it wasn’t busy at any point of our stay even when we left around 8 pm. Our waitress was very young and not very talkative, but she did a great job and was attentive. Water came immediately and our cocktails came within 15 minutes. We ordered the Burnt Ends as an appetizer which is supposed to be smoked brisket ends with teriyaki glaze, green onions, sesame seeds crispy rice chips. It was the most disappointing “burnt ends” we’ve ever had. Besides being cool, there was no smoke flavour and tasted like day old stewing meat. Tough, and no burnt to it. It really was awful.
We ordered 2 Smuggler’s cut prime rib with baked potato and it did arrive within the hour of being seated. It presented well, but it was cold. How do you serve food lukewarm or cold? The veggies could have been cooked a bit longer; the Yorkshire pudding was burnt and the potato and prime rib cool. The prime rib had no flavour at all.
Lastly, we ordered the Crème Burlee for dessert. It was okay but again, ICE COLD in the middle. Creme Brulee should be served at room temperature with the top warmed up with a flame. It felt like it was heated in a microwave because the dish was the warm part.
The quality of the food is there, just poorly executed. The kitchen needs to learn how to serve food hot. Sadly, we won’t be back again.
Atmosphere: 2
Food: 2
Service: 4
This was such a once in a lifetime experience I thought I'd best share it in the hopes they can learn.
We went as a couple for Sunday brunch on our anniversary. We were seated about 20 minutes after our reservation time. The hostess took us to an empty table by the south facing windows. She asked if we knew where the buffet was. That was it.
The table had no utensils, no cups, no dishes, no placemats.... Just a single drink menu. Somewhat confused we went to the buffet.
The food selection was good. The meat was exquisite. However they were out of many items. When they arrived (yorkshires or waffles) they were cold. There was no fruit.
We returned to our empty table. With no one serving us we scavenged for forks and knives around the room. After about 15 minutes someone dropped 2 mugs of water.
We finished our first plate and returned to the buffet to see if the missing items had arrived. They had not. We waited by the buffet for 10 minutes until the eggs Benedict arrived.
Back at the table out plates were still there. After seating a waitress spoke to us for the first time. I ordered an orange juice that arrived 10 minutes later.
Then we decided to leave having never truly been served. I went to the bar to pay. I didn't feel bad not leaving a tip as we never were even introduced to a server.
Never in my life have I felt invisible as a customer at a nice restaurant. Smugglers is a staple of Calgary. I've been going for almost 30 years. I hope they learn from this.
Atmosphere: 4
Food: 5
Service: 1
I have been going to Smugglers for year. It has always been my favorite place to go for prime rib. I took my wife there on our first date and had an amazing meal. We went back tonight for Valentine’s Day and after tonight I’ll never go back. First we waited over an hour and half for our food to come. It came out cold and we complained to the manager. He said he would have it remade. When it came out it was our original meal that had just been thrown on the grill with fresh potato add and again everything was cold. After getting the meal back for the second time the manager didn’t even come to check and see if we were happy with the meal. As for the service our server had a difficulty with the English language. After ordering our first drink and finishing it the server never came back to ask if we wanted a second drink and basically ignored us most of our visit.
I will never be going back it is so shameful how poorly restaurant food quality and service has gone down and prices have skyrocketed. I am heart broken that one of my favorite restaurants has become just another low quality place to eat. Our local pub has better food and way better prices.
Atmosphere: 1
Food: 1
Service: 1
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