Michael Willems/MVWPhoto
Wendel Clark at the grand opening of his new restaurant in Oakville on January 28, 2010
Michael Willems/MVWPhoto
Ribbon cutting with Wendel Clark, Mayor Rob Burton & Sam D’Uva
Wendel Clark’s Classic Grill and Sports Lounge is an upscale sports restaurant and lounge with gourmet food and great service. It is “more than just wings and beer” and cleverly combines the comfortable and warm atmosphere of a lounge, with the upbeat energy of a sports bar. Wendel’s is a casually posh venue featuring a state-of-the-art audio system and 70” inch HD LED TV’s throughout the space to capture the game the way it was meant to be seen.
The menu has been created by Executive Chef David Copperwaithe, an Oakville resident, specifically to appeal to health conscious sports fans, families, and those with a cultivated palette. Signature items include specialties such as; the Vaughan location favourite, The Wendel. This HUGE burger is a half pound 100% ground-chuck beef burger piled high with lettuce, tomatoes, dill pickles, double smoked bacon, Canadian cheddar cheese and beef steak onion rings. Just try and get your mouth around that (few people can!). New items specifically created for the Oakville location include soon-to-be classics, Korean style Kalbi Beef Short Ribs and a Roasted Whole Rack of Lamb.
Sports fan or not this is a great restaurant to dine in and enjoy.
Location
Address: 370 Dundas Street E., Oakville, Ontario
Telephone: 905-901-5117
Hours: Mon-Wed: 4:00pm-1:00am, Thurs-Fri: 4:00pm-2:00am, Sat-Sun: 11:30am-2:00am
About the author: The Editor
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WOW! One of the worst restaurant experiences of my life! Came in with my wife on Saturday. Advised of 15 -20 min wait. No problem, went to the bar with a “Flashy” thing and ordered a beer and Wine. The bartender took my $20.00 and never brought change. After 30 minutes I went to the front desk to ask about the table. They said I was next. Ordered another beer at the bar but 30 minutes later still no table. Waved down the same girl who said – “Ya – you can go over there”. Left more money at the bar – but never did see this beer get “rung in” and there was no “tab”. If you don’t have cameras then I would suggest you invest insome survelance ASAP!
Finally, one hour later and at a table – Quickly ordered burger / ribs, coke, beer. ONE MINUTE LATER we got a burger despite our objections that it could not possibly be ours.
Eventually the Manager explained that there had been a screw up – we cancelled the other food and hoped to survive on the burger between us but too cold. Went over to turtle Jacks for wings!
The nachos have cheese wiz on them. Yuck!
Was at Wendels last night with a buddy and our wives. Should have clued in when there was hardly anyone there on a Thurs night. Sat 15min at a table before waitress aked us for drinks… nacho platter we ordered next while we thought about the menu..took 20mins and had chilli when we wanted them plain…placed are entrees..way below standards…Harvey’s is better! Phyllo shrimp weren’t in phyllo…then went Yuk Yuk’s…no one wanted to take a drink order talked to a waiter who then disappeared…28mins…ordered some snack’s…terrible service…ordered second round of drinks took so long to come we forgot…1st comic terrible…2nd one really good
THE WORST SERVICE I HAVE EVER SEEN – even the management was horrendous. Bad food, WORST service ever!!!!!
Most sports fans are avid BEER drinkers.
For an upscale sports bar there is an exremely
small variety of beers on tap. Even a mediocre
sports bar will have dozens of beers on tap.
Wow, order 4 drinks, get 3. Try the angel hair pasta, with hair in it. Go for the new york steak, forget to give a steak knife. Serve the fish cold. Server blamed the kitchen, manager said people were new, etc., etc. The spot in Vaughn was excellent. I guess next time we’ll head to that one. Wasn’t even that busy on Saturday night, guess that’s why…
Wendel, remove your name from this sad place.
We went there on Sun Mar 20th, 2011 at 2:30 pm. The place was closed no one around and the parking lot was empty. On the web-site the hours are 11:30am – 2:00am Sat & Sun.? After reading the other reviews I won’t waste my time driving to that place again!
Wow. Some of the worst reviews I have ever read for a restaurant. Time to add mine. My wife ordered wine and I, who like to try new things, ordered a taste of the Rickard’s White draught. The waitress brought me a full pint. I explained that I just wanted a taster. What if I don’t like it? She didn’t really respond. I tried it, it wasn’t my cup of tea – so I ordered a Rickard’s Red, which I’ve had before. She told me that she would have to charge me for the pint of white. Of course, I asked to speak to the manager. He told me that they don’t allow “tastes” of beer. Then, without conveying any sense whatsoever that he was interested in earning our patronage – he explained that he would take care of it “this time”. Unreal. No clue. I was a restaurant manager myself for 10 years and I firmly believe that when a customer has an issue – instead of losing them… it’s an opportunity to win them over. This manager doesn’t get it. I ask this question: if you owned this business – would you want that kind of management? The whole affair kind of ruined our outing.
Went to Wendall’s for Mother’ Day. Restaurant was quite empty except for a large group and 3 other people. Ordered the Lobster and Fetticuni entree – it was ok. However later that night I developed a pounding headache which did not go away over night. Woke up with headache and feeling really nauseous. Will never order that item again and actually only went to Wendall’s as it was my daughter’s choice (Oliver & Bonacini totally booked).
WOW! I am shocked at these bad reviews. I am considered pretty hard to please and just so you know I am not a hockey fan…sorry just who I am. Anyways Turtle Jacks across from Wendel’s in Oakville was too damn nosily so I suggested to the wife we walk across to Wendel’s and give it a try. Thank fully it was not very busy. The waitress was wonderful. We got our food without a great wait. My wife had the paste and I had the stuffed Chicken. Both dishes were excellent. Perfectly cooked and the presentation was way above average as a matter of fact it was damn great. We like it so much we hung out and ordered drinks and desert. The Cheesecake there is from the Cheesecake Factory I believe because it tastes just like it. It was a great evening with great food and friendly faces and the price point is just a little above Turtle jacks but well worth it. I would highly recommend Wendel’s in Oakville and I know I will be returning.
We went to Wendel’s with the intentions of ordering drinks, apps and dinner..however, the beer choices were minimal for a sports bar (really???)..we had ordered nachos with chicken…so we get them and they had a scoop of sour cream, a scoop of salsa on the top and plenty of olives and hot peppers, however we found hardly any chicken and very very little cheese but as we searched through the middle, we did find some liquid cheese on a few pieces!!! These were inedible and was not worth eating so we didn’t…the waitress asked how they were and we were honest about our experience in a polite manner..she brought our bill and we were charged for the nachos which we did not eat…we left and went to Sushi Hour to get dinner and took it home…the cost of our nachos and beer at Wendel’s was $58.00 and we got sushi for $30…imagine being charged for something you cannot eat and enjoy….This is the 3rd time I’ve tried to give them the opportunity to make me happy but they have yet to change things up…there were hardly any customers there on the first really nice day in a while..what does that say??? Anyway, NEVER EVER EVER AGAIN Wendel Clark’s!!! I will spend my hard earned money at Kelsey’s or the Niblik or Jack Astor’s even Turtle Jack’s (which isn’t the best either but it beats you big time!) Getting customers is easy but keeping them takes providing good quality and service!!! Think about it, oh and good luck with that!!!
Really surprised to see negative reviews about Wendel Clark’s in Oakville. I’ve been there a few times with my wife and the experience is always top shelf. The servers are funny, friendly, and take excellent care of us every time. The food is delicious. The Haddock and Chips is a great portion and really tasty. My wife loves the Thai Mango Chicken Salad. The managers always stop by to say hello. I like that they remember me. The GM told us about the awesome daily specials they have. I was really impressed with the experience and look forward to heading over there again soon. BTW, beautiful patio. Keep it up!!!
Just got home and had to comment. This was our first outing to this restaurant and what a disappointment. Looked busy but still lots of tables. Terrible slow service. When we complained about the drinks, no apology no explanation. Next drink – served in bottle no offer of glass. Food took 45 minutes and was mediocre with no offer of ketchup, vinegar or even acknowledging that we existed for another 45 minutes. Lots of wait staff running in every direction and the manager making appearances…but there were a LOT of unhappy patrons in our section. Will never go back. We are usually most generous tippers – but not tonight. Too bad.
When I first read all of the reviews published I couldn’t believe that a restaurant could be that BAD. I should have believed what people wrote! We arrived before the other couple that was meeting us for dinner so we ordered drinks. The wait staff had to come back and verify our order but other than that our drinks arrived promptly. After the other couple joined us they ordered drinks and we ordered a couple of appetizers. The first appetizer arrived in about half an hour. The other appetizer arrived just before our dinner probably an hour after it was ordered. It was only suppose to be a pound of wings but arrived with french fries. The wings were good the french fries soggy. On to dinner…. my husband’s dinner was completely wrong, the only thing right was the pork chop that he ordered. My hamburger was a touch on the undercooked side and I didn’t feel comfortable eating the whole thing. The fresh hand cut fries were decidedly not and very soggy. The manager came by our table and asked how things were. We gave her a very poor report. Shortly after the manager came by again and offered us $30 in Wendel coupons. She said “I’m not sure if you’ll use these”. She certainly should have said “I hope that you’ll use these”. A drink that was ordered during dinner arrived after we had paid our bill and were getting ready to leave.To their credit the wings, one dinner and the late drink were taken off of our bill. My suggestion: stick to ordering wings, don’t come in thirsty and don’t expect prompt service. Sorry Wendel your place was a BIG disappointment.
I had read a number of negative reviews prior to going to this restaurant, but tried to remain optimistic. Unfortunately, the reviews were right.
I arrived first out of my party of 4 and inquired if we had a table ready under my friend’s name. The hostess replied that she did not see her name. By the time the rest of my party had arrived, they somehow discovered the reservation, however did not have a table ready for us. We ended up getting a table by the front door, make up last minute that we had the luxury of experiencing a cold draft by our feet everytime the front door was opened. We were not provided with menus when we sat down. About 20 minutes later a server asked us if we had been seen. We replied no and told her we still needed menus. She was polite enough and apologized quickly bringing us our menus. We ordered our drinks, but then the server took a while to return to take our meal order. Eventually she returned, took our orders and we sat for another 45 minutes. At this time, the server came back to the table and apologized, explaining that she forgot to punch in our order because she was soo busy. I was completely starving at this point and not impressed. I held back because one person at our table did not want to be embarrassed by an outburst by me. The server said she would provide us with coupons for our next visit at the end of our meal. One of my friends asked for a glass of wine, 20 minutes later she was still waiting for it. A woman came over, looked like a manager, and asked if everything was okay. My friend said she’d ordered wine a while back. The woman went to go and get the wine, as our server was bringing it out. The food was okay, my friend and I ordered a Wendell burger, my other two friends ordered a chicken dish which they were very happy with.
When it came time to pay, we still left the girl a little more than a 15% tip, which I though was waaay too generous. She came back to us and questioned whether we needed change b/c we had left her a lot of money. Clearly she knew what bad service she had provided. After we had paid our bill, various servers came to our table asking us if we required anything else. Where were they when we actually needed them??
We never did get our vouchers for a discount when we return. Probably a good thing because we will not be returning.
Had a steak there a few times with my wife and buddy……. Great steak….. Nobody complained about their meals but they did take their time bringing drinks!!!…… My only complaint, hurry up ppl …… I’m a beer drinker
Hi I have dined at Wendel’s on several occasions and I’m going to point our the fact that some of the people posting reviews run
restaurants in the local vicinity, so you can fully discount and throw out those biased opinions.
Wendel’s is an excellent place for the money..the service is always good when we go (fri and sat nights) and the atmosphere beats places like Montana’s (noisy kids everywhere), Bostons (overpriced full of yappy kids) and Shoeless Joes, Keg etc. You cannot be all things to all people but I believe Wendel’s menu is well priced, with decent portion sizes and very good service. In this day and age, waitstaff are being asked to do 20-30 tables on their own and its gotten crazy…managements in most restaurants only care about bottom line for the most part, waiters and bartenders are disposable napkins and what people remember most is the food…was it good or was it bad ?
So what if you didnt get dropped in on every 7 minutes as per server
doctrine etc. The complaints sound like a bunch of punks from competitive punks working at local restaurants trying to bash the place. That’s my .02 cents you can decide what to do with it…:)
I would like to respond to Barry: A shill, plant or stooge is a person who helps a person or organization without disclosing that he or she has a close relationship with that person or organization. Shill typically refers to someone who purposely gives onlookers the impression that he or she is an enthusiastic independent customer of a seller (or marketer of ideas) that he or she is secretly working for. The person or group that hires the shill is using crowd psychology, to encourage other onlookers or audience members to purchase the goods or services (or accept the ideas being marketed). Shills are often employed by confidence artists. Plant and stooge more commonly refer to any person who is secretly in league with another person or organization while pretending to be neutral or actually a part of the organization he or she is planted in, such as a magician’s audience, a political party, or an intelligence organization.