Dark Horse Canton

My review is for the «restaurant» side of things here:
I’ve been here several times, and I have NEVER had something that did not taste good. Every choice is a good choice. This is a great place for foodies in the mood for some delicious takes on «pub fare». Let’s talk food recommendations. I HIGHLY recommend the wings! There are like 20 different kinds of sauces that you can try, like «PB & J», «General Tso’s», and «Honey Chesapeake» (which is honey and Old Bay). I try to get a different flavor each time I come in. Another thing I’d highly recommend: ANYTHING with Crab, or «Crab Dip» in the description. The «Crabby Tots» have both crab dip and cheese on top, and they are DELICIOUS. We go out of our way to come down to get our hands on an order of that deliciousness. Check out their wide array of «Grilled Cheese» options that they have available. My personal fave is the «Carolina» one, that has pulled pork and cole slaw in between texas toast and melted cheesy goodness. There are plenty of burger options, sandwich options, sides, starters, and drinks. Come in, try something new. Come back, try something new. The possibilities are endless. The service here is great, and they get your food out to you in a timely fashion. There’s a skee ball game in the back, so you can play while you wait too. This has a great sports bar feel to it, as there are plenty of TV’s to help bring you all the game action of the day. Have an adult slushie, Natty Boh on tap, or a mixed drink of choice. They’re far enough away from The Square that they’re not as busy, so you’ll always find a table, minimal wait. They also have convenient business hours, so they stop on by whenever you’re on Boston Street in Canton!

I’ve been coming here every Thursday this winter with my skeeball league (hey…us adults gotta get our exercise in somehow!) Aside from people in skeeball league shirts, the place is empty aside from the occasional group playing pool. Never been in here on a weekend, but not sure how they are staying in business!
The food is pretty decent, but the service is horrible!!! They used to have 2 female bartenders who were pretty rude and mouthy and slow as molasses! They disappeared and now they have new bartenders. They are friendly, but super slow as well. I waited nearly 45 mins for tenders and fries to go the other week! The place is huge and seems to have the potential to be great, but the crowd and service is lacking. Typical bar food too, but they do have a great selection of wing sauces! Plus there!

I’ve gone here the last two weeks for trivia night and have been pretty disappointed.
1) Bad service (not enough bartenders and no table service).
2) The food is not good. I had nachos last night and they were cold and soggy. Disgusting. I have several friends who also said their food was not very good to mediocre at best.
3) If you like good beer, their beer selection is poor and nothing special.
4) If you pay with a credit card and they ask you to pay using an iPod square credit card reader, make sure you ask to actually see your bill, not just the total. I’m pretty sure they ripped me off — 3 beers and nachos should not be $ 35.
On the plus side, there are a lot of TVs if you like to watch sports and the skeeball is fun to play.
There are much better places to visit in Canton/​Fells Point if you like good food and beer with much better service.

Went here to watch the Ravens vs. Broncos playoff game… terrible service! They were not prepared for the big crowd that they had. There were no servers going around to the tables to take orders, so we had to order at the bar, which was packed. Then it took over an hour to get our food.
Plus we had to pay a $ 5 cover, which was ridiculous!
Not a good place to go when a big game is on and it is crowded.

Not bad, just nothing really jumps out. Never seems to have much of a crowd when I go in or drive by, and I drive by at different hours all week. It’s not bad, just nothing about it that makes me want to go back.

I’ve been coming here now about once a week for a Skeeball league I joined with some friends. I think the place gets kudos for just that alone! I love me some skeeball! Regular nights the place is dead and we all seriously thought that this latest venture was/​still might be snakebitten (several concepts have rotated through this location).
Pros:
~Skeeball! They have 2 machines for regular nights and 1x a week there is a ‘league’ that plays. It’s a lot of fun.
~The wings are good and they have a HUGE selection of flavors.
~Buffalo chicken wrap is wonderful– spicy and moist
~fries– skin and and delicious– but not as good as boardwalk, kislings, or Frazier’s
~tots-​ok– the tots are pretty dang good– second to Alonzos!
~Fish tacos are flavorful and moist– I get the special tacos that are grilled, NOT the fried version. Make sure you specify as the fried ones are not nearly as good.
~Burgers are large and juicy– not the BEST (like Abbey Burger or a few other places, but still good) and with a side of tots. yummers.
Cons:
The bartenders are SLOW and seem to ignore people– I mean, wouldn’t you want to make eye contact once in a while to make sure people don’t need a drink? At one point the 2 bartenders spent 7 minutes trying to figure out who ordered a dish that came from the kitchen, completely ignoring the entire bar length of thirsty patrons– and we were all looking at each other like WTF? Service is pretty bad here. Also, management doesn’t always seem to realize that if you have 2 or more events taking place on the same night (which is not a good idea anyway), you might want to increase the # of bartenders and floor servers, just sayin’.
Trivia night is fun (same night as Skeeball, not very good planning on management’s part) BUT it is SO LOUD. I’m not old (I swear) but the people running the trivia night must be freaking deaf. Turn it down a bit– it hurts people’s ears. I stopped going to Field House for this same reason.
They also have NO non-​alcoholic beers AT ALL– might be a good idea to stock at least one.
The food is great but service is pretty bad. I don’t think the McFall Brothers own it anymore so maybe that’s why?

Great food! Large bar so people are not on top of each other. Parking is never an issue. Great music with Kenny Der!!!

After visiting Dark Horse several times over the past few months and being generally satisfied, my negative experiences the last 2 times over the last 2 weeks have forced me to voice my opinions about the steep decline I’ve noticed in this place.
First — Their Service —
The service level is abysmal — besides the fact that it took forever to have anyone come over to our table to offer us menus or drinks, our waitress refused to write any of our orders down and had to come back FOUR times to clarify items we ordered — and to top it all off, our food order was still wrong when it came to our table. Worst of all — the waitress tried to argue that the food we had sitting in front of us was in fact what we ordered. It wasn’t.
Second — Their wings —
They have over 30 flavors and most of the flavors I tried in the first 2 – 3 months were great! Recently however, their wings have been overly dry and almost rubbery in texture — the last two visits, the wings have tasted like they have been previously fried and then reheated, causing them to reallllly dry out, and to top it off, there’s almost no sauce to speak of on the wings anymore. Also, a minor observation, but an observation nonetheless — the blue cheese dressing is very obviously watered down now, it used to be thick and creamy, and now, what comes with the wings looks like a small cup of frothy foaming spit from the mouth of an angry pitbull. bleh.
It sucks that this place started out pretty strong, but now after 2 – 3 times of poor service and continuously declining food quality, I had to let the internet masses know to try to steer clear of this place — they have an awesome trivia night on Wednesday nights, buuuuut, if you’re hungry and want good food and prompt and accurate service, eat somewhere else beforehand.

Wish I could give zero stars… Terrible ownership and mediocre food. Unattentive bar staff made waiting for a drink unbearable. Would never go back.

Horrible!!! New owners claim that they can’t use
even though it was purchased the same day as my visit. Bunch of crap! Had to spend 35 to get 25 off. Manager made me pay full bill. I will never go back and will tell everyone who asks me or comes down to visit to not go there. Made me pay the full bill. Put up a sign saying you don’t accept restaurant. com if that’s the case. They claimed that
will not take them off the list. I called
and they said they were never contacted and they refunded the 10 I spent right away. New management sucks!!!

Bottom Line: Food was meh, Service was good, had «No Dancing» signs posted everywhere, refused to honor my Living Social voucher (which was for the Dark Horse Saloon).
Details: Went last Thursday around 6pm. Was very empty but started getting more crowded as we were leaving (I think there’s a corn-​hole league there). Had «No Dancing» signs posted everywhere. Not sure what that was about.
Wings were pretty good, the mexican dishes that we got were pretty mediocre. Beers were reasonably priced. My biggest complaint was that I had a $ 40 Living Social voucher that they refused to honor. Apparently there is a new owner who decided he doesn’t want to honor previously purchased Living Social vouchers. Thought that was pretty lame. Don’t think I’ll be returning on that annoyance alone.

Went there to redeem a LivingSocial coupon only to find that they «just» changed ownership… like, a few days ago… so they are no longer accepting the coupons. Rats. Sunday afternoon, place was dead, majority of the taps were kicked, but the Pandora music rocked. Food was decent — we ordered the buffalo wings and crab tots. The wings were more bbq flavored than hot wings, but they were of a good size — definitel plus. The tots were… meh. Cheese had no flavor, dip was decent, but not nearly enough crab to justify $ 10. All this being said, after talking with the friendly barkeep, it sounds like they have some great ideas for the new ownership — more tv’s, less cliché décor, and better specials. Overall, this place has great potential, now let’s just see it!

I have ventured to this establishment a few times and must say I am a huge fan of the slushies in general. There must be at least 10 different flavors to choose from, but I believe they are on the weak side and could use an extra kick or floater of booze. There are a good amount of beers on tap but nothing too fancy.
The Bartender working was very friendly and decided to join in the fun we were having by applying tattoo finger staches to each other. I enjoy that patrons are able to play a game of beer pong and flip cup and have plenty space to move around. The pool table area seems a little on the small side or it’s just not in the best of spots. There are plenty of other games in the room behind the bar to keep anyone occupied for any period of time.
The catered food for a private party I attended was great. There was a huge veggie and cheese platter and there were a variety of wings which all tasted great, but I can’t seem to remember which flavor was the best although I do remember there being peanut butter and jelly wings which I was very hesitant to try at first. I would say they were unique, a creamy peanut butter smothered wing and strawberry or grape jelly dipping sauce definitely a different texture and not something I would normally order, but what the heck sometimes you just have to give it a taste and see how your taste buds react. I may need to look at the menu next time I visit to see what other foods they have to offer.

We had the wings here and they weren’t bad. We ordered the scampi and sweet Thai chili. The scampi was a bit on the oily side and lacked salt but had a nice garlic flavor. The sweet Thai chili reminded me of the stuff you buy in the bottle in the ethnic foods section of Safeway; not in a bad way, just nothing special. Sweet and spicy. The wings themselves were nice and meaty but I prefer my wings on the crispy side. The skin was a tad rubbery, especially on the scampi version.
I’ve also got to add a correction to my last Unilocal about the beer selection of this place. I mentioned last time that it basically sucked and, while in general this is still true my last visit proved beneficial. As I was sitting at the bar I happened to look to the right and there, nestled amongst dozens of liquor bottles on the bar was a collection of 5 taps. Hmmm… what’s this? Upon further inspection I discovered a wonderful collection of some great craft brews:
New Belgium Brewery’s Fat Tire (Fort Collins, CO) — a new addition to the Baltimore scene, sweet, malty and different. A nice gateway beer for the uninitiated
Dogfish Head’s 60 Min IPA (Milton, DE) — been there done it, many times. A great American IPA by a great brewery.
Stone Brewing’s Arrogant Bastard (Escondido, CA) — needs no explanation, it’ll twist the nipples of your taste buds and make them whimper like a little girl
Magic Hat Brewing Co’s Winter Howl (Burlington, VT) — their winter seasonal, a schwarzbier, clean, roasty lager with only a slight bitterness
Evolution Brewing’s Lot #3 IPA (Delmar, DE) — Haven’t had this one yet
Holy shit! Where did these come from? I don’t remember seeing these beauties before. Had I only known… Anyway, after careful consideration I’ve come to this conclusion:
You need a freakin’ beer list guys. C’mon, you can barely see those taps shoved off to the side and how long could it possibly take to print off a few beer lists? You owe it to your patrons. You owe it to the breweries that have busted their asses making such wonderful elixirs and you owe it to yourselves. After all, you do want to sell this beer, right? Also, get rid of the «house ale» tap handle. It’s not just you, Dark Horse, there are plenty of other offenders in the city that do the same thing (Woody’s, James Joyce, Gecko’s, to name a few) and I don’t get it. We know you don’t make your own beer and there’s really no marketing benefit to it. I guarantee putting the actual brewery’s tap handle up will only help.
So I’ll give out an extra star based on the beer discovery and I’ll subtract half a star because the wings were just about average. Overall, 3.5 stars. A decent bar with decent food and any bar that’s got Arrogant Bastard on tap gets my vote.

Meh. This place is alright. It’s spacious, that’s for sure. The drinks are good and kind of cheap, but then again we came with a birthday party that got happy hour pricing on a Saturday night. Plus I got carded every single time I’d try to order a dink or walk between the two bars. Take that as you will.

came here for happy hour on a tuesday. it was pretty empty, but it was a tuesday! i believe there was 90’s rock music playing in the background and espn and other sports channels shown on their multiple tv’s. the happy hour specials are great — there are specials on slushies, beer, wine, and mixed drinks so you can please anyone. i tried the hurricane and ravens slushie — both super yummy. they have a whole row of slushie machines.
their menu also looked good. i ordered pulled pork tots — i mean, you can’t go wrong with tater tots loaded with shredded cheese and meat :) the tater tots were extremely crispy (yum!) and the pulled pork was a little dry, but had a nice bbq flavor to it.
would definitely come back!

So far so good in a location that seems to turn over regularly.
There are lots of nightly specials ($ 2 tacos, $ 3 Dos Equis Drafts, $ 4 Makers Mark, etc.) The wings are decent and cheap (I think .49 cents a pop). A few smoking Indian statues, a Clint Eastwood Mural, and a working pool table and you’re good to go!
Oh, and try the Hurricane Slushie. You won’t be upset.

I really really wanted to like this place.
First the good points — it has a decent location, and the atmosphere is great. I went for a happy hour so I only got beer and crab dip. The dip was really good, and they had a large selection of beer to choose from. clean restaurant and the staff was friendly.
Not so good points– service was slooooowww and the bill was pricey. but the kicker is that they over charged my credit card not once, but three random times for various amounts! Its a good thing I caught it, because while the crab dip was good, it wasnt 200 dollars worth of good. I called the bar when I noticed the mistake and they assured me it wasnt their fault, they didnt know what happened, so therefore couldnt fix it. I had to go to my bank to make sure the transactions were canceled out… what a pain! The bank told me that they must have tried to pay someone elses tab with my card. ugh. Knowing that I just cant recommend it, or return. sorry Dark Horse!

I really really really want to love this place and rate it higher but the service makes this impossible. My friends and I go here quite often for the delicious frozen slushies, the raven is amazing, and the wings. I consider myself to be a wing connoisseur and I love these wings! The special thing about them is that they’re smoked, not fried, and there are 30+ flavors to choose from. I always get classic buffalo but I’m sure there are some other equally delicious flavors. And the price can’t be beat, something like $.49 a wing I believe.
So as you can see there are great things about this place, just not the service. I went in yesterday with a friend around 5:00pm, not rush hour by any means, and yet we waited to be served for at least 10 minutes. When we arrived there were 3 men sitting at the bar, 1 table if patrons, and 1 MIA bartender. When she finally came out from hiding she went and refilled the 3 men and then proceeded to carry on a long conversation about the juke box. All the while my friend and I just sat there completely ignored. By the time she finally acknowledged us she was unapologetic and her attitude bordered on annoyed to have to break up her conversation to serve us.
This was not the first time we’ve had bad service, just the most recent. Because this seems to be trend I thought it was time to get the word out. I hope this place survives, and in order for that to happen in such a competitive city the service is going to have to improve.

This place is a welcome sight on Boston Street. That space cannot seem to keep a bar open, so I wish them luck. I understand they are owners of the bar next door, as well.
I went for a happy hour last week, and saw lots of promise. Friendly bartenders and staff, what looked like a great menu (I ordered a wrap, it was good, it was standard pub grub) and a good beer selection. The novelty that I LOVED was the selection of frozen slushies. At least 10 different alcoholic slushies on display in their respective machines, all just calling out to you. I can’t imagine any woman walking by in this heat and not thinking «Damn I could go for one of those.»
This bar also looks like it will be a good football watching hangout. We shall see.
But finally, and I know this won’t apply to everyone, I took my 10 month old daughter here, not expecting them to accommodate well (I always have low expectations of bars in fells and canton, although some have pleasantly surprised me). I was prepared to stand and feed her in her stroller, but the staff sat us at a table (even though we had a tab going at the bar), and the waitress brought over a high chair and *gasp* wiped it off for me! Well I never…
All in all, a great bar experience and I hope they do very well !