Food Review: Garbonzo's Pizza Pub

Garbonzo’s Pizza Pub
 University of Winnipeg AnX Building,

471 Balmoral St, Winnipeg, MB R3B 2E3

UPDATED: March 2014

Someone once told me “you go to Garbonzo’s for the company and you end up staying for the food.” This pretty much sums up my experience with the place. It's well set up for groups: there are large tables. There are board games on hand, as well as giant Jenga and a fussball table. It doesn't get very loud, even when it is full. On the other hand, the service is consistently poor and the food is mediocre. It doesn't seem to matter how many people are there; your order is taken quickly, you can get a beer in minutes, but food comes slowly and I have resorted to hunting down my server to ask for the bill more than once. Then you wait for a long time to get the debit/credit machine. This happens when there are five people there and when there are a hundred. I don’t really understand it.


I have ordered:

            

-       Pizza: Vegetarian, Perogy Pizza (minus bacon bits),  The True Italian (minus the sausage) Greek, and Spinach, Ricotta & tomato pizza

-       I’ve had the pizzas as calzones

-       Greek Salad

-       Fiesta Taco Salad (minus beef or chicken)

-       Bonzo Bones

-       Basket of Fries

-       Awesome Blossom

-       Extreme Nachos

-       Various drinks

The pizzas taste pretty much the same. The only one worth getting is the Spinach, Ricotta & Tomato (which they have renamed as the Five cheese & "Fresh" Tomato (the quotes are my addition)), which is quite good. The other reason to go is for the deals that they regularly have on food. Monday is half prize pizza and 4$ margaritas [This has changed since I last went here]. Tuesday is all you can eat pasta and 3.75 Pabst Blue Ribbon, Wednesday and Thursday are deals on wings and Saturday is a half price deal on burgers. On these days, the food becomes a good price for what you are getting. They also have a trivia league, which would probably be a lot of fun. There is live music later in the evening, but I have never stayed late enough to tell you if it's any good.

So, you can probably already guess what my verdict is on the place: is it worth going to with friends? If you want a place to play board games, have a few pints, and maybe order a pizza. Definitely! If you want to experience an amazing pizza pub and a large beer selection, go somewhere else.

UPDATE: My most recent experience was consistent with my previous visits.

Until next time,