Smileys Public House

If you spit in here, chances are you’re either going to hit a TV or a terribly-​dressed man.

This was a fun little pub with lots of room and an European feel to it. Vancouver may not admit it but these places aren’t that popular in the US. The staff is somewhat friendly and the food is pretty good. I met a few interesting people and sampled lots of different Canadian made brews.

My art director and I were frequently teased during our extensive time working in Vancouver about our Smiley’s addiction. My boss’ joke was that if he needed us, he’d send out a search party here. So I’m sure he’ll be stunned that this review is only three stars. But really what can you give a place that’s pretty one dimensional?
As a bar, Smiley’s is a wonderful place to sit and grab a drink. At one point, I stopped my fantasy of drinking through the entire on-​tap menu and started sticking to what worked. You’ll find American microbrews here, Canadian ones and just about everything else in between. Tuesday is the best day to go, as the special is $ 3 sleeves of beers from kegs they’re trying to kill.
The food is the biggest miss here. The spare ribs, unless you’re a great white shark, are nigh on impossible to bite through. The sandwiches are decent, but not any different than any other sandwich you’ll find in the area.
Still, there’s sports on the TV and decent beer. Who doesn’t like that?

PINBALL REVIEW
List of Machines:
Theatre of Magic
Getaway
So a couple of really good machines, but Smiley’s can be a bit of a weird place to hang out. The beer selection is vast, but not cheap, and at times even in the afternoon it can be packed, so you might have to play next to a table full of business men. Parking is insanely ridiculous, I wouldn’t even attempt it.

In general I like the atmosphere here, although my first experience here was on St. Patty’s Day, when, despite the slightly off-​the-​beaten path location compared to the other «Irish» pubs in downtown Vancouver (are there truly any Irish pubs in this town? anyone??), the place was packed. On your typical Friday evening after work, in my experience, the crowd is older and the atmosphere is much calmer, although it’s still all about the rapid intake of beer. I do like the fact that they have Irish cider, Magners, which I haven’t seen too often in Vancouver.
The food, unfortunately, was very disappointing. I shared the edamame beans and the nachos with a couple others in our group. You normally expect some salt on the former, but these edamame beans were over-​salted to the point of being extremely unappetizing, to put it mildly. As in it seemed as if the beans were almost completely covered in rock salt. I was looking forward to the nachos because it’s one of my favourite snacks and because we were all very hungry by this point, but unfortunately they were highly disappointing. Not nearly enough cheese and topping and soon we were just left with a giant plate of nacho chips. Sorry, but for $ 16, that’s not going to cut it. I definitely won’t be ordering food from here again. For a place to get an after work drink, it’s fine, but there’s nothing really pulling me to a return visit.

It’s funny I didn’t even know this place existed. Inside the Day’s Inn, are you kidding me!!! Did not have huge expectation (in fact no expectation at all), but it was alright actually. A typical bar scene, with Tv’s and long table. Spacious location though, the small door doesn’t do justice for the size within. It is part of Donnelly Group (unless I am wrong) I only had wines here so not sure how the food was, but the service was prompt and courteous, even though it was her second day at the bar working.

Came here as part of a large group to try their lunch. Besides knowing that the place usually has some space, we also knew that there are several large banquet-​style tables, which would be able to accommodate our group.
Parking here is horrendous, in case you’re wondering.
The interior is typical Irish-​pub style. There are a couple of pinball machines in one corner.
As part of the Donnelly Group, the menu style is very similar to their other locations. One thing that makes me scratch my head is the fact that they have a larger drink selection than food selection.
The waitresses were friendly, but the thing that was most unacceptable was that it took over 45 minutes to get our food. Groups that arrived after us were leaving before we got our food. That was pretty unacceptable. Hence the 3 stars instead of 4. They also somehow messed up our orders (people got the wrong sides, or wrong drinks for example), but our waitress was graciously enough to do everything possible to right things. She must’ve been really stressed out.
The beef dip sandwich ($ 14) was actually quite tasty. The presentation, especially those of the fries, were excellent. However, it is quite small. Each half of the sandwich was not much bigger than a credit card. The dip itself is excellent though.
In any case, I would recommend coming here as a smaller group.

I wondered about Smileys for quite a while, even before it was aquired by the Donnelly group. I’ve never been very impressed with the beer selection at any other Donnelly pub I’ve been too. But I had heard rumours that Smileys had some good craft beer on tap.
My first introduction to Smileys was for a VCBW event. It was pretty great! Lots of the usual suspects featured during VCBW were free flowing. They staff was hustling to serve up sliders and were pretty happy and excited in the beer geek atmosphere.
Several weeks later I decided to check them out on a regular Wednesday evening. They had a decent selection of craft beer, but the atmosphere was unbearable. It was an abnoxious college crowd, with sloshed screaming girls and douchey looking guys holding onto their barstools to keep from falling over. There was definitely something wrong with sound system… loud 90s Daft Punk-​esque music was cutting out while the channels and volumer kept shifting. The food was fine, but consistantly the wings, burger, and fries were all dry. And not suprisingly the bathroom was covered in urine.
Such polarizing expreiences. Too bad the managemnt does know how to market their pub to the better crowd.
Maybe I’ll try it once more directly after work to see if it has redeaming qualities before the college kids move in.

How is it that the Donnelly group is so hit or miss? Smileys is an alright place! Its strange to go to a place though that is full whenever any kind of european sports are on (Champions League final it was packed) and empty otherwise (immediately emptied out. Now, this likely has as much to do with being in the middle of the day, but at the same time next door at Cactus Club was packed at the same time so who knows?
Anyway, if you like sports this is a great spot. So many bloody TVs you’re hard pressed to find a spot where you can’t see one. Decent service, decent food and decent beer specials. All in all this place is pretty average, but that seems to be what Donnelly Group shoot for.

From the non-​existent service to the pretty much pitch-​darkness to the extremely loud music, I could go lower with my rating. However, I do see the potential if there was a game on, as there’s plenty of TVs and it’s quite a large space.
Plus, going on a Thursday night meant glasses of house wine were $ 4.50. So, naturally, my friend and I doubled that and got pretty much the biggest wine glass I’d ever seen. We were sipping those all night while being blinded by the old movie playing on the televisions.
Seriously, are the candles the only things lighting up the place even when there’s a game on?

I don’t think I have every felt compelled to complain about service, but I would be here if I could find the words to be assertive and still polite.
It’s now been over an hour that I’ve been sitting here without my order being taken :(

Loud. What’s that you said? I said LOUD. HUH??? I SAID LOUD!!!
They play music there sooooo loud, it hurts. I shout to have a conversation.
It’s worse when you have a Canucks game on one of the big screens.
Food? Meh to terrible.
Drinks? Cheaper than Joey’s
Waitresses? No tight little black dress like at Joey’s, but a grey tight sweater-​like pull over top showing cleavage. Did I mention that the female waitresses are all top heavy? OK,… there I said it.
Would I come again? Only because it is close and I need a change from Joey’s.

Although not quite a four star, i would say it is a 3.5.
Great place to watch sports, as there are quite a few large tv’s spread out around the pub. Service has substantially improved over the past year — not sure what changed internally but before i remember waiting a long time for drinks and food — and the last 6 – 7 times (yes i go there alot for lunch because it is close to my work) it has been great!
The food is a 3 star, only because the menu is kind of limiting. i swear i have had the beef dip 20 times there! Which is good, but it would be nice to have some selection like the neighbouring restos. Beer selection is also 3 stars, they dont have a huge selection on tap. but what they do have is great beer specials. i think it is thursdays where they have $ 5 import beers — very rare in downtown vancouver!

Pity I had to give even the one star. The «manager» ruined a night out for all of us this Saturday.
My friend went out for a cigarette and wasn’t allowed back in because she didn’t have stamp. But you never gave me a stamp she said. Absolutely no way we wouldn’t stamp you on the way out was the reply — we stamp everyone. He was totally obstinate and ignorant, there was just no way they could have possibly missed someone. The fact that she was on her own, jacket/​phone/​all her friends inside, was redundant it seems. apparently we were just trying to be clever and pull one over on him. God, little dictator complexes on door staff are really ill advised.
My boyfriend had a similarly bad experience about two weeks ago. Thought maybe that was just a once off… obviously not.

Oh Smiley’s, my expectations were not high but damn did you let me down!
I went in here for dinner the other night, started with a drink, they had a few different shots on for $ 5 or you could get a single highball, a double of the same thing was quoted by the waitress as «like $ 20» Are you freaking serious, $ 20 for a double highball! I sided with a Strongbow which was priced at typical bar prices.
On to dinner I ordered the Mediterranean vegetable sandwich and my boyfriend got a chicken burger. The sandwich was straight up disgusting, i gagged down half of it and gave up because I didn’t care to torture myself further, they boast all over their menu that all ingredients are fresh, local, and organic. Apparently this sandwich is the exception, my boyfriend described is as tasting like something from Safeway that was a week old… his description was pretty bang on! The fries were over cooked and over salted. Overall a bad freakin’ meal!
The server was polite although she didn’t know the specials because apparently she doesn’t usually work Sundays. There service was ridiculously slow, it took like 40 minutes to get our food and it was not at all busy in there!
This is a really nice place inside and I would love to come and hang here on a Sunday afternoon more often but not when the only good part of my meal was typically overprice Strongbow.
I blame you for this Donnelly!

This is our go-​to-​place after work on a Friday. It always has been. That said, I do not know why we keep coming here. It was okay many years ago, but now I say it sucks (Donnelly Group’s doing, I suppose).
It’s got a dive-​y bar feel to it, but the prices are not quite dive-​y. $ 6.00 for a handful of «truffle» fries wouldn’t be so bad except that I can not even taste the truffle. Whatever happened to the regular fries, anyway? Everytime I order «fries — just plain ol’ fries», they give me the posh $ 6.00 truffle version.
Drinks are pricier here too compared to some other pubs. BUT they are one of the very few pubs that serve one of my favourite beer, which is probably the only reason I keep coming back.
Servers are usually okay — some are pleasant enough, but I’d say a few also have quite the attitude (and a little empty up there, which does not help). Service is slow most of the time — so slow in fact, that I have gone to the self-​serve counter on a few occasions. We have also been double-​charged for drinks especially when we have been a large group. I don’t know if this double-​charging is malicious, or if the servers are just incompetent, but either way, it’s not good.
My biggest problem with Smiley’s? It’s not the fact that it has been over a year and they still haven’t fixed the latches in the stalls in the women’s washroom. It’s not even the wankers that frequent the place. It’s the decibel level of the music they pump out of those speakers. When I go to a pub, I want to chill out and converse. But I can not do that here. This place is so loud, I find it hard to hold a conversation with the person sitting next to me. I get knackered just from yelling, that I sometimes give up trying to talk and leave after just one drink.
I’d give this a 1, but I’m giving it a 2 because they serve the beer that I like, Grimbergen. BUT, let it be known that I am now actively campaigning to move our Friday nights elsewhere.

This great downtown pub has been turned into another Donnelly Zombie house, Full of Large breasts and Lots O TV’s. We arrived on Game night just after work and the place was packed with the after work crowd, they were offering Granville Island beers for $ 3,!
We ordered Nacho’s with beef, $ 19,00 when it arrived it looked awesome, started eating and it was so-​so, Beef was a hamburger (?) patty torn up and covered with some sort of Salty spice (very Salty) although the chips were piled high the cheese inside was not melted. Our Party rated them ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ so «three Stars for You!»
Worst thing about his pub and most of the Donnelly Product, Music was way too loud!, which cause talk to be loud (almost shouting) to have a conversation, Would I go back,? If I had parking and it was close, but I would not hop on the bus to get there

Dear Donnelly Group,
Well, i hope you’re happy. You took what was once my favorite chill bar and turned it into a hang out for douchebags. Why did you have to buy out MY little bar? It was a wonderful little niche that a friend and i stumbled upon after another restaurant was too full, and after that one visit, we loved it so much that it became our new hang out spot for nearly two years until your hostile takeover.
What happened to our waitress i wonder… She was a cool, middle aged lady with a witty sense of humour. She always worked Fridays when we came in, and her and the bartender made the place feel like our own little Cheers. Once, i spill ed my drink right after getting it, and she just laughed kindly, winked and said she’d bring me another.
Donnelly Group, after you bought out Smiley O’Neils, you not only renamed it Smiley’s Public House, you also fired all the genuinely friendly staff and replaced them with the cookie cutter servers you expect at Cactus Club. I hope our former waitress is well. We miss her.
Your food is also more expensive now… Before we realized that our Pub had been taken over, we commented to our new waitress that the prices seem to have gone up, and she denied it. She said it was always that much. When we told her we’d been going here for years, her perky demeanour turned off like a light and she said ‘Donnelly Group just bought this place.’ After that she treated us indifferently. Perhaps they wanted to weed out their old regulars– mostly old guys who’d watch sports and a few middle aged office workers– to make way for people with Ed Hardy shirts?
Maybe if i hadn’t gone there before they bought the place out i would think it was alright. I mean, the interior is great… But i can’t help but remember what the place used to be and how lacking it is in comparison.
In conclusion, Donnelly Group: Get stuffed.

Unfortunately, my favourite ‘damn-​cheap’ Tuesday drinkhole has gone belly-​up — so this broke boozehound had to do some exploring.
Still lukewarm on Smiley’s — but seems to be popular to go to for their ‘Toonie Tuesdays’: $ 2 beers and $ 2 mini-​burgers (after 4PM).
The menu says the $ 2 beers are only limited to GI Lager, but the waitress did give us an option to pick from other domestics — your mileage may vary. It comes in a small-​ish glass, but still a pretty good deal. Pro-​tip: Order multiple glasses per round.
My mini-​burgers were sorta burnt and wasn’t worth the $ 2 to me — especially since Burger King offers sub-​$ 2 so-​good sodium-​laden Chicken Sandwiches on Tuesdays. And if you want post-​drinking eats, go to the drive-​thru after midnight and grab some cheap Wednesday Whoppers. Not the healthiest thing I know, but cheap booze and greasy food go together like ‘week’ and ‘end’.

Looking through the different $ 18 Dine Out Vancouver 2010 menus, Smileys definitely had an awesome menu given the lowest price bracket.
A curious location for a pub — the entrance was rather small and secluded, dark and definitely outshone by the lights coming from the lobby of Days Inn. I almost missed it, while driving by to look for parking. You definitely would not have noticed it if you were not looking specifically for it, or was walking by it.
Surprisingly spacious inside, complete with flat screen TVs on all sides with hockey and basketball showing most of the time. Pretty much like your usual pub.
We ordered the Beef Carpaccio and Cajun Shrimp Tacos as our appetizers, with Garlic and Herb Linguini and Prime Rib for our entrees, complete with two generous servings of warm Chocolate Brownies. Food was absolutely dee-​lish! Everything we ate, we marveled at the fact that we were getting all of that for only $ 18 per person.
Here’s the clincher: Service was very very very sloooooowwwwww. I would think it might be because the kitchen staff has yet to be completely trained to cook this kind of food efficiently. Our meal for two took just a little over two hours to finish off, and not to mention, we were eating as fast as we possibly could to the drum of the parking meter. For the whole course of the meal, we probably ran outside to re-​feed the meter at least 3, 4 times. I think we spent almost $ 10 on the meter, which I guess evens out the relatively good deal we had on food. But I think we would not need to have spent so much on the parking meter, had it not taken about 15 to 20 minutes before and between courses.
Would I go back? Ehhh… maybe. But next time, I would take the bus AND I better not have anything planned afterwards to rush to.