- Restaurants |
- Nightlife |
- Shopping |
- Coffee |
- All
Categories: American (New), Dive Bars [Edit]
1130 Queen St EToronto, ON M4M 1L1
Neighbourhood: Leslieville
(416) 466-8934
- Price Range:
-
$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Attire:
- Casual
- Good for Groups:
- Yes
- Good for Kids:
- No
- Takes Reservations:
- No
- Delivery:
- No
- Take Away:
- Yes
- Waiter Service:
- Yes
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- No
- Outdoor Seating:
- Yes
- Music:
- Juke Box
- Best Nights:
- Fri, Sat, Sun
- Happy Hour:
- No
- Alcohol:
- Full Bar
- Smoking:
- Outdoor Area/ Patio Only
- Coat Check:
- No
12 reviews for Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
All Reviews
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
7/18/2010
5 Check-ins Here
5 stars for the patio
4 stars for the food (Mediterranean pizza is great)
3 stars because the bathrooms are sketch
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
7/15/2010
Despite years of pestering from the big wigs at Restaurant Makeover, longtime owner and super duper swell guy, Dharam, remains adamant: Long live Stratengers!
"Why fix it if ain't broken" is Dharam's response to the gentrify or die crowd. "If I let them come in they'll change my menu and increase the prices and I'll loose my customers."
Above all, it's his customers that Dharam cares about. Take it from me who begged him two years ago to put in WIFI so I could work and eat, which he happily obliged to do and now sees me at least once a week.
Yes the interior is gaudy and some of his older customers give me the heebie jeebies. But the food is excellent for the price.
Be sure to try their creamy butter chicken and garlic naan, their sizzling fajitas (2 can share) or any of their stone-oven pizzas.
And now that it's summertime, they've rolled out a sweet selection of cocktails, including a yummy strawberry daiquiri.
All in all I love this place. It's my haunt, my dive-bar. Long live Stratengers!
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
6/2/2010
Stratengers is a fantastic departure from the newly chic "gastro Pubs" as they have been dubbed. An unpretentious local favourite, Strats offers a wide array of standard brewpub items, but also provides exceptional wood burned pizza's and a surprisingly strong sampling of Indian staples. The butter chicken is rich and creamy and comes with a side of naan bread for convenient dipping.
The patio is stellar, as is the service, Strats will not steer you wrong.
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
8/26/2010
Pizza is excellent. Curries are ... ok, but don't compete with Little India not too far away. The beer is usually out, frozen, or oxidized. The clientelle are questionable, and can get outright scary at times. The decor definitely needs work.
I say sell it to someone who knows what to do with it. Shame about the pizza though. Better than Lady Margherita though. It's an establishment, but so is the Duke and Jillies, so that says a lot about heritage.
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
8/7/2010
Nice Patio and if it weren't for the patio I'd probably be scared to enter this place. Tasty Food. I had a Italian Sausage, Onions, and Olives pizza that is supposedly made in a stone oven. They also serve a nice selection of indian food but I didn't try it. The super Nachos were tasty as an appetizer. Iconic type of Place. Service was good.
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
6/2/2010
Remember the old days when a bar is just a bar?
Well Stratenger's is such a bar. A place to go to drink. Funny that people seem so concerned with defining exactly what kind of bar it is.
For me, and the others in my neighborhood it is our local. A big ol' bar where the beer is always cold and house wine is about five bucks. A place where you can walk in wearing your Crocs and not worry if anyone sees you ( I personally would worry. Crocs are gross). A place with a big friendly patio where you can seat yourself and servers aren't crabby if a single person is sitting at a table for four. And yes the food really is good, and the decor really is bad.
They don't use the word 'gastro' , they haven't heard of 'fusion', and it's still affordable to get good and hammered during the week, and perfectly acceptable to go back and do it all over again the next day.
It's exactly how a bar should be.
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
11/4/2009
6 Check-ins Here
This place is so enigmatic -- I don't quite know what to make of it. It's at once the most bizarre and inexplicable venue/restaurant/dive bar I've been to. When you walk in, you're punched in the face by the aroma of mushrooms and woodchips. There are weird upholstered booths, tapestries and ceiling fans from the 80s. They serve Indian food but the decor is pure Motel 6. I'm certain that the film director Davids (Lynch and Cronenberg) come here to brainstorm character ideas.
We arrived at 1am on a Friday for food but the kitchen had just closed. Our server, a modern day Pauly Shore (where's that guy been, anyway?), was a hoot. Greg C had promised a menu with flowery and hilarious descriptions but Stratengers had since upgraded.
KAT: Hey bromigo, where are the old menus?
SERVER: I dunno man. I just got back from LA.
KAT: Oh yeah. What were you doing in LA?
SERVER: Oh just whoring around.
KAT: Did you just say whoring around?!
SERVER: Yep.
I'll be back to try the food.
Listed in: The Best Places To Eat, Shop &…
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
1/20/2010
I've been going to Strats since... well before I should have been allowed in bars. They have gone through of alot of renovations and many staff turnovers but still is a decent place to grab a drink and a bite to eat but not pay out the ass or end up in the local dregs.
To call Strats a divebar makes you either a prude, hipster or a person who grew up way too privileged. The staff is for the most part friendly and there are locals that you can always count on for a decent chat. People from the local carpenter, famous writers, obscure music legends and even a teachers party or 2 from local schools.
The butter chicken is quite good and their wood fired pizzas and calzones are out this world.
Strats is a good old haunt that you can't go wrong with.... would you rather be at the duke?
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
11/8/2009
You know that excited feeling you get just before going on a road trip to some cool place with a bunch of people that seem really cool? You let them choose the music for the trip and it's all like Creed this and Nickelback that? THAT, my friends, is what they call a buzz kill and "Strat's" has it in spades.
For some reason we ended up here at the end of the night with the superstars Kat F, Susan C and Dale Medeiros as well as my pal, Matthew. The goodwill vibe dissipated alarmingly fast and the ennui set in.
Seriously, what's up with this place? The partitioned rooms and the harsh fluorescent lighting (see profile pic) just make me want to run the other way.
But we did meet the infamous server "Tommy" who really was wonderful. He has the amazing talent of displaying the cool feigned indifference but incredible customer service most people never reach. Dale walked in the door and arrived to a huge pint before he even sat down. That was awesome.
I didn't try the food this time either but I feel obligated to because of the actual wood burning oven sitting in the front.
The extra star is for Tommy and the original menus which have been discarded, save for this flickr search:
http://www.flickr.com/...
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
4/28/2009
I've been going to Strat's regularily since I moved to Lesliville last year. I agree with the previous review. A total dive bar, but with surprisingly great food. The pizza is outstanding thanks to the proper stone pizza oven, and the pints are nice and frosty.
Their Indian menu is also great although a little salty at times.
The occasional 'character' adds to the ambiance, but so do the quiet nights where you can dine next to local film producers reviewing dailies on their MacBook Pro's.
As much as I would love to see them renovate, it's nice to have a local place like this in Leslieville where you can grab a pint and dinner without having to brave crowds.
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
12/5/2008
1 photo
I will be honest, I truly do not know what to make of Stratengers. It's a dive bar, but has a good run of beers on tap. You'd worry about eating there, but they have a fantastic wood-burning stove out front. I'm lost.
When I first hit Stratengers, it was to interview a friend of mine for my podcast. When we were looking for a place in Leslieville that would be quiet, he suggested a place he'd been to before, Stratengers. Having never been and truly just looking for a quiet place to record, I accepted the invite. As soon as I walked in, I found myself surrounded by original 80s-style furnishings, some fairly run-down fixtures, and staff so friendly and helpful, it became confusing. We found the upstairs patio and set up there for the next two hours to the sideways looks of the locals in for their daily post-work (or mid-afternoon as the case may be) pint.
My friend ordered food and as we mocked him for ordering anything from here for fear that you'd collapse from something, up came a fantastically prepared calzone that silenced our ridicule. When we left the place it was then that we noticed the wood burning oven where pizzas and calzones are prepared. Truly a shock to the system.
So, yes, it's a dive bar but with some polished elements to it. I'd wonder what the place was like in the 80s when assumedly the upstairs dining area and table space below would be packed with people waiting for a slice. Stratengers Trivia Tidbit: It is the local of Canadian music icon Nash the Slash. Check out the display on the way to the washroom.
Stratengers Bar & Restaurant
9/10/2009
I've been going to Strats for 20 years. If you think its a "dive bar" you should have seen it back then. And frankly I think "dive bar" is going a bit far. The place has been renovated in the late-90's and since has remained fairly stable. Its not a cloth-on-tables type place but its also not as grungy as the Cadillac or Lee's Palace. I don't think "dive bar" is a fair representation. The food is generally good. Its good value for the money in terms of quality and quantity. Usually a relaxed and quiet atmosphere and a nice outdoor patio. There is an outdoor patio upstairs too that is heated in the winter for smokers. Stats has gone through many reno's and changes over the years to remain consistent with the needs of the neighbourhood. Back in the early '90s I used to play gigs at Strats when it was a "rock n roll bar" and later when they tried jazz. Later they got rid of the live music and focused on food. Regular bar food, mexican, italian and indian food - all decent. Great meeting place too.
