St James’s Well Pub

New chef Kristof has turned the food program around — all sourced locally, all made fresh (nothing frozen) and very healthy. The beer and ambience remain the same — lively, boisterous, but friendly enough for me to bring the kids. definitely a solid local hot spot!

Staff are very friendly and attentive, décor is warm and inviting. I’ve been for drinks a few times, but decided to go for lunch on St. Patrick’s Day… not great. Watered down Guinness and weak fish and chips. Chips were fine, but fish was extremely bland and deep fried to such a hard consistency that it was barely edible. Coleslaw tasted like they dumped a ton of mayo on some cabbage. Would go again for drinks, but will skip the food (and the Guinness), nice selection of local beers on tap.

This place has a great vibe to it and is always busy. My wife and I used to come here several times a week. Unfortunately the great selection of beers on tap doesn’t make up for the sharp decline in the quality of the food. Go for a beer and the service but don’t expect the food to be anything more than average.

My boyfriend likes to play the game of «let’s drive around until we find somewhere we want to eat.» Let’s not and say we did. We wound up at St James Well after finally agreeing on burgers at Vera’s. (figure that one out) Our waitress was super nice, friendly and attentive. We had the cheese toast to start and though the smaller pieces were absolutely scorched, it was yum. I had the whisky chicken and I have to say, it was ‘decent’. There was literally a cup and a half of mashed potatoes on my plate. A tiny piece of (tasty) chicken breast and some veggies. The chicken was flavorful and you can tell it’s good quality meat. But that is by and large not a $ 21 meal. You can’t fill a plate with the cheapest vegetable on the planet and charge an arm and a leg for it. To top it off, the menu says $ 21, the bill says $ 22. I’m not going to haggle for $ 1 but c’mon. As a summary, the food was ok but I’d rather spend $ 80 for 2 people at a somewhat nicer restaurant.

Yorkshire Puddings, $ 2 each. There is a special delight in ordering a table-​full of yorkies to eat with gravy or au jus. Huge numbers of savoury, wonderfully-​textured perfection. Yes.
The poutine’s pretty good, but honestly there’s no point eating much other than the yorkies. In mass quantities.
Music is sometimes loud, but cabs are usually available out front, and pretty good bus access.

Went for a nice evening out with my 7 girlfriends. I’m not one to complain but our waitress was horrible. Bringing food and drinks to the wrong people at our table. No apologies, almost arrogant not really acknowledging her errors. It just went from bad to worse… I wasn’t completely happy with my food but I couldn’t even think of complaining because we already had issues that we were dealing with. She told us she would seperate the bill but at the end of the evening we had to go through the whole bill with her drink by drink… food order by food order. Too bad. I won’t go back again especially with a group of people …

Every time I visit The Well, I am always floored by the décor. It’s like I stepped into a little part of Ireland. For charm and ambience, this place wins!!! The servers are very friendly and the Manager is always full of smiles.
This pub offers quite a decent amount of beer, wine, coolers, and some cocktails, so there is generally something for everyone. On their menu, they have a great assortment of your standard pub comfort food. The Cheesy Chive Dip and Stuffed Yorkies are just drool worthy! The Well has a fair bit of gluten free foods on the menu (almost all of their appies and a decent part of their entrees) which I think is just great! The gluten free fish and chips are a little on the small side. The salmon entrée however, was definitely on the generous side.
Overall, this is such a neat little place in the heart of New Port Village. It’s great for casual pub dates with friends or just hanging out to watch a game. Just don’t expect it to get too rowdy! The older, local crowd make up a lot of the business here.

I’ve been coming here for years and it’s always an amazing time great place for hanging out with friends and having drinks and great food. Came in to try the new menu today and it was amazing the chicken wings are probably the best I’ve ever had in the burger I had was the fire hall burger was amazing as well. Our server Samantha was very friendly and he gave us great service we had a big group and she was professional and had everyone’s drinks and everyone’s bills even though we were all over the place she still kept it together great job Samantha probably the reason I will come back

A group of us went for a late lunch on Sat. We had super excellent service from Erin, a fact which will make returning a lot more desirable. Fresh halibut fish & chips was very nice-​a bit pricy I thought. The coleslaw was too plain but suggestion to wait staff to improve it was well received. I’d certainly go back.

Not quite sure what to think of this place.
The food is standard for a pub. I don’t mind it. I recall the nachos being absolutely huge and no way could it be finished by just a couple of people.
The beer is pretty great. They have some good choices and specials on weekends.
I’ve gone on weekdays when it’s pretty normal for a restaurant and also on weekends when they usually have a singer. No doubt this place on the weekends is geared more towards the older people (30 – 40 and above). Singers are usually not bad.
Servers are normal and good. Don’t recall getting bad service here. And the restaurant décor is not bad.
I’d give it a three. Not outstanding but it’s decent.

We took our out of town guests for brunch on April 4, 2015. We were extremely disappointed. Two of us ordered a dish that came with hash browns that were barely warm and had to be sent back. Another had the cream soup with asparagus which tasted like the chef had used too much flour. The toast made not have seen the inside of the toaster. All in all it was bad no pride in the product.

Met up with a friend here. I had the Shepherds Pie with a Side Salad. The Shepherds Pie was mediocre the Salad had shards of broken porcelain from the serving plate in it which I found out about when it was in my mouth. Luckily I did not swallow it. When brought to the attention of the management they offered only to comp the food and not the drinks. Their attitude was one of indignant disconcern. A serious issue that I’m considering bringing up to the health department and my lawyer. Stay away from this place.

The past few times I’ve been here I’ve concluded that this place is boring as hell. Feel like all the waitresses either cannot hear or are missing that thing between their ears. Wish they had better beer specials. Would probably put this place as a last resort to meet friends for drinks.

Best pub to go to in the tri-​cities. Good food, lively place (opposed to the million holes in the burbs with guys sitting lonely at the bar with their steel toes dying for excitement they will never find).
As I read these other reviews and hear people cite other patrons as a reason to down-​rate, I’m blown away. It’s a pub. Same goes for those trying to procure 5 star meals in a pub. In it’s class, and this stands as 5 star — because it’s a pub. Size this place up against: Rhinos, The John B, The Golden Spike, Treehouse … No question that The Well holds up easily.
If you’re looking for a gourmet meal. Go to a gourmet restaurant. If you’re looking to encounter only those on good behavior and completely sober, go to the library.
If you’re looking for a pub with excellent staff who will always try to make your experience the best, good pub food and a lively atmosphere — Look no further than the St James Well.
(They also have live music as much as they can which is rarely offered in those parts.)

Searching for your go-​to, friendly neighbourhood pub is like playing the dating game. You want it to last, you’re looking for a long-​term relationship but it just doesn’t work out. Be ready to get your heart broken over and over again. Such was our experience with St. James Well. While we love their handsome dark wood interiors and the always friendly service, it’s no trip to culinary heaven. Lovely for a spot of weekday dinner and beers, if you can’t cook at all. If you can, I suggest heading to nearby Thrifty’s and making food yourself cause it’ll be better. That was the case with the some-​kind-​of-​predictable turkey club sandwich BH had. He could have made it better at home.
We were also seated haphazardly by a friendly server, resulting in a (rude, middle-​aged) woman coming in with an eight-​person reservation that was suddenly hard to accommodate. She then snidely commented to the server on how the two of us were taking up a possible 8-​seater table, making my polite husband very uncomfortable. The server did not, could not, do much. Not our fault lady. Take it up with the hostess. This incident reminded me of a musing my middle-​aged mother-​in-​law had on rudeness and middle-​age going hand in hand. Do we suddenly stop caring about social decorum when we hit 50?
Thank goodness we came in with a Groupon deal. That made my bland, dry lamb stew go down a little easier and the experience, a little more forgiving.

Typical me to spend Canada Day dining at an Irish Pub, but what can I say… I loves me a pint of Guinness.
Boyfriend, and I took our friends here because as we all know, pub type restaurants are great for the myriad of pallets one faces when multiple people cant make up their minds.
It’s been about 10 years since I ate here, and I am happy to say that it was a very pleasant experience. I had the Turkey, Brie and Strawberry Sandwich with a side salad, which was fresh and delicious (turkey was real and not processed)…what would make it even better, is to have a choice of breads instead of sourdough… With all the healthy goodness in this particular sandwich, it seems a shame to throw it all away with sourdough.
Great atmosphere… fine service… if you’re looking to keep it local… I totally recommend going here!

If your ever in the burbs, check out this place. Great pub to watch the hockey games. Great service and great eats !
Everyone is your friend at this pub, awesome social atmosphere .
Ask for Rylie Ableman, tell him Sam Kassem recommended this place and he will take care of you !
Cheers !

Decent pub if you’re in the area.
I had the California chicken burger because the avocado and goat cheese aioli sounded sexy.
I opted for the daily soup, jerk chicken, which was very good. Pretty good for an Irish place! I like the potato (?) bun that they used. Welcome change from the typical lame bun used at most places. My only critique would be more sauce.
Service was super friendly. Overall, definitely an upgrade from greasy pub food.

Okay, so it’s not the best food ever (it’s not bad, mind you) but St. James’s Well is a great place to meet up with old friends and catch up over drinks in a cozy environment. I make a point of doing a «bar night» with friends every time I visit BC and if I’m home around Christmas holidays we always nurse our hangovers here on New Year’s Day. This place is within stumbling distance to my parent’s Ioco Rd. home and I’ve always had decent service. The food over the years seems about the same but I pretty much only order the fish and chips (for some reason they don’t do a lot of fish and chips in California and I always crave them). A little added bonus is that there always seems to be good looking men here. I ask… where were all these guys hiding when I lived here??? Anyway…
Decent place for pretty much standard food and (what I’m told since I’ve never had a beer in my life) a good beer selection. I’m a fan of the warm, woody Irish pub décor. The parking situation however kind of sucks (I’ve had to do like a hundred point turn just to get out of that stupid parking garage below).
Overall, a comfortable place to relax with your friends and family.

Oh, ye old stomping grounds. Growing up PoCoMo, there were few choices for proper pints and tasty pub food so it’s no wonder why people flocked and still flock to the Well.
Richly lacquered millwork that shines (and if you look closely at the bar you might still be able to see initials carved in – not by me, but by some of the blokes that used to frequent the bar too), unmarked taps (full of lagers, ales and of course Guinness), a dart board, and a yummy menu! Mini yorkshire puddings, a brie, strawberry and turkey sandwich, Guinness Chowder…
I may not make it out to my home turf very often, but I have no troubles telling friends I’ll meet them at the Well for a cheeky one when I do!