Smokeless Joe

Holy Thai– the mussels are out of this world. My friend and I decided to find a low key place to wrap up our busy an overly inebriated week in Toronto and settled on Smokeless Joe. How we came to that conclusion I can’t recall but it was an excellent choice. It’s a small pub with a small menu but an extensive list of beer on tap. Upon recommendation from, well, everyone, we ordered the holy Thai mussels. HEAVEN. I wanted to the whole bowl to myself and an entire baguette to sop up the sauce. But alas I didn’t, and I’m regretting that decision.
The only reason I don’t give this place 5 stars is because there was an extremely irritating patron that was making some irritating bird/​creature from outer space noise for approximately 10 minutes. I suspect she’s a regular, so if you go you may find yourself out on the patio in the cold to escape it like we did. But don’t let that stop you, all the bird noises in the world wouldn’t keep me from those mussels.

Decent, if pricey microbrews. We came here for a birthday last weekend. Our first server was knowlegable and friendly and we had the upstairs to ourselves. The place was kinda dead, so a much less friendly server kicked us out at 12 (ON a Saturday!)

Première fois dans ce petit restau-​bar sympa! J’y ai mangé un petit sandwich à l’avocat avec frites — mais il parait qu’il faut venir ici pour y déguster les moules. Autrefois au centre-​ville, dans le quartier financier, le restaurant s’est reporté sur Collège et connaît un succès réel. Non seulement on y déguste des moules frites, mais le choix en matière de bières de qualité à la pression est impressionnant. Le rendez-​vous est pris pour une autre aventure !

Great food. Ordered the ham and cheese panini & it hit the spot. The poutine was also super delish and old school, Montréal style. Our server was nice, checking in without being overwhelming. And for the portion sizes, the prices were great.
Only odd thing: a man walked up and asked us how our food was. He then came by 20min later & took a picture of my food. We later found out he was the owner; but his behaviour, without actually introducing himself, was kinda creepy.
I would def go back for the food but may have to eat mob-​life style: back against the wall, surveying the whole room.

We only stopped in for a beer since their back patio was open on a slightly chilly but very sunny day. Service was very strange, I’m not sure if the guy is the owner but he comes off as drunk and homeless (although nice and somewhat pleasant). He gave us very good beer suggestions… but again something is off with him. I really don’t meant to be offensive, but the server and service is part of the experience of dining/​drinking out. The back patio is wonderful, it’s so private and secluded I could see us coming back here again.

Place is «cozy» and busy. It’s a bit loud on the main floor. I’d check out the second floor if you want a quieter experience.
Servers were nice but once it got busy, my drinks stopped getting filled.
Had crab cakes for $ 11, which came with 2 small crab cakes. They were really good, but I was expecting a little more for $ 11.
Muscles were $ 16 a plate, tasty and quite big.
Added one glass of white wine, which was cold and crisp, and bill gave to $ 57.
I left feeling a little hungry, however, my date was stuffed.
It’s a bit pricey, I think the quality may be there but the quantity is lacking.

Now that Smokeless Joe has moved to College, it’s different. In some ways it’s better (sweet back patio! way more taps!)… but in most ways it’s worse (just not the same, lots of my favourite staff left for BarHop, no more vegan chili? definitely smells different…)
Celebrating a birthday here yesterday with mussels (still excellent) there were a few pretty serious issues…
Most of the beers weren’t pouring. They said their delivery guy brought them an empty gas tank instead of a full one by accident, which isn’t their fault, but it’s annoying because it’s a beer bar! There were a few that were still okay so we still had beer, but I was down to my third choice by the time I got a «yes that one is okay.»
When I went to pay their debit and credit machine wasn’t working and they don’t have a bank machine. They should have told us this when we walked in. I wanted to treat my birthday guest but instead she had to pay for her own birthday dinner (and mine!) because the staff didn’t advise that it was cash only (when it’s usually not). The waitress said «…but there is a BMO like, RIGHT there» — it’s actually not that close when there is a foot of slush everywhere and you’re thinking about leaving a friend waiting for you while you get cash (2 streets away, definitely a 10+m round trip).
Other than the cash only thing, which really left me soured on this place, the service was pretty good and the food was good, but after making a special trip last night I don’t think I would do that again. If I lived in the neighbourhood I would swing by here more regularly, but I am not going to drive across town to dine here again.
Pros:
— If you are already in Little Italy, it’s a good choice for beer selection
— They have a huge variety of mussels
— The food is good
Cons:
— It’s a bit expensive
— If you don’t eat seafood there are less than 4 things for you to have

I came here with a group deal and brought a friend. We had Thai muscles, the mushroom salad and a dozen oysters. Everything was delicious.
The muscles were fresh and the sauce was incredible.
The mushroom salad had huge portobello mushrooms with cheese. Yum!
It was busy and our server was still attentive and helpful. She recommended a spiced beer that I didn’t care for, but otherwise it was a perfect meal;
Smokeless joe’s exceeded my expectations.

Love this place! Loved especially seeing an entire side of a menu dedicated to various MUSSEL dishes. There must have been a dozen different options, mostly priced at $ 16.
The bowl is huge, I would guess 3 dozen mussels. I tried the «Greek mussels» (don’t laugh!) which had tomatoes, black olives and feta along with a nice white wine and oregano broth. The mussels come served with a demi loaf of toasted baguette, perfect for dipping in the broth. They were cooked perfectly.
On Thursdays they have $ 5 tapas as well, there was a small menu of 5 – 6 items. We tried some shrimp flautas served with guac and sour cream, they were crispy. Not bad.
Staff is quite pleasant here and the bar/​restaurant is kind of dark and a bit romantic. They were playing some lovely 80s ska which I really enjoyed.
Lots of craft beers too, if that is your thing.

LOL, What beer selection?
When Smokeless Joe’s was on John St years ago they had at least 50 beers. Great selection.
This new incarnation… I went on Saturday night, took friends who assured them this place would have a great beer selection, and well… no they don’t. They had 9 beers on tap, and none in bottles. LOL 9 beers. AND half of them were Mill St or Amsterdam. Don’t go here expecting to get anything not easily available at any LCBO location. Sorry I thought this was a serious bar for beer, it’s not. Staff are kind of odd too. Won’t be back.
Can’t judge on food as we didn’t have any. But if you are looking for a great selection of interesting and rare beers… try somewhere else.

Bought a groupon, $ 20 for $ 40. Went on a Friday night, looking forward to oysters and beer and mussles.
We were greeted right away, seated and drinks brought promptly. We ordered the chili garlic mussles, the crostini with tomato something or other and serano ham, and 10 oysters.
The crostini was delicious. I think it was bruscetta mix with ham on top, which I love, but could have made at home and for a couple of bucks instead of $ 8 for four small slices of bread. That was really disappointing.
Oysters — good. Malpeques. Good size and the house hot sauces were really nice. $ 2.25/oyster.
Mussles. Oh geez, not good. A huge bowl of broth like water, but it tasted like water, and definitely not enough mussles to charge me $ 18. EIGHTEEN DOLLARS. There was maybe a pound or so in there. Which when I buy it, would cost me like $ 4 and I can get the water broth for free, thanks very much.
Overall the service was good until a whack of people came in for Beer Week on a pub crawl. Our server never came back. Some guy came to take our dishes away, asked how the mussles were and I was honest with him. Not good, tasteless, not spicy and definitely not garlicky. He said, «yeah, well we got someone new in the kitchen, so…».
So???
So I won’t be back.
I am sad I wasted my money here.

Comfortable and welcoming, in a wooden tables and brick walls kind of way — this new location is definitely a step up (and not just because they’re now above ground, ba dum bum). I’ve been twice this summer and look forward to the cozy warmth I’ll find here come winter. They also have a passable ‘garden’ patio (passable as such only in Toronto, where adding a potted plant to a concrete square of outdoor space might upgrade it to a garden patio). Theirs has 4 or 5 tables and a hedgey border that adds a bit of green to the space. Plastic patio tables, though. Blech.
First and foremost a beer joint, they have a great selection of both draft and bottles. If you’re looking for cheap pitchers of something generic, this is not the place for you. If you’re interested in trying something new and interesting and understand that only crappy generic draft can be $ 4 a pint, then Smokeless Joe is your kind of place. Good selection of local microbrews and yummy belgians. Also a reasonable scotch selection.
They have at least a dozen different kinds of mussels. I had the thai mussels ($ 16), which were spicy, tasty, and full of lemongrass (I’d eat them again, for sure), but not my favourites in the city. Lots of other food on the menu. Prices seem comparable to other places that serve the same fare.
Both times I’ve been there the service has been friendly and knowledgeable, with a dash of good humour. The kind of place one could spend an evening chatting with friends or curl up at the bar solo with a book and a pint and feel totally comfortable.

If you’re not feeling Italian food and/​or a lounge and you’re in Little Italy this is great little alternative. Smokeless Joe is a small and dark gastropub, with a hidden backyard patio.
Their two specialties are beer and mussels. I’m a huge fan of both, so SJ is my idea of a good start to an evening out.
My friend and I shared a dozen Malbec oysters and the blue cheese and white wine mussels. Oysters were great. Ask for some of the house’s hot sauce to come with them. Just a bit, they aren’t kidding with their XXX rating. The mussels were good, and the blue cheese didn’t overwhelm them.
I ordered the beer of the night, which the server described to me as ginger-​y. It wasn’t ginger-​y, and I told him I didn’t much like it, in a sweet conversational way. He gave me a blank stare. I wasn’t trying to send it back, more so just trying to suss out if he would recognize perhaps he’d described it wrong and offer me another option… he obviously wasn’t going to budge on that. He later admitted he hadn’t tried the beer he’d described. This incident sort of annoyed me, but I did order the beer* in question blindly, so it’s half my fault… there were a bazillion other options.
COMING BACK FOR: They have half-​priced Oysters on Mondays!
*I seriously can’t remember the name of the gosh darn beer in question. I feel like a sub-​par Unilocaler today. Will start taking better notes. ;)

I like beer.
I like mussels.
If you like beer, and/​or mussels, you will love Smokeless Joe!
When I’m serious about enjoying my beer, I prefer to enjoy my beer in a non-​douchebag type of environment.
This place is just what I was looking for!
You can sit here for hours throwing back pints and catching up.
They have an extensive beer list, so you’ll always have something new to try.
I’m a slave to marketing and they had these awesome «Hops and Robbers» coasters. So, for my second beer, I had to order a pint.
We started with a few oysters each. They don’t have a large selection of oysters, but I was still happy with our oysters from P.E.I. They weren’t cleanly shucked but that’s alright.
I was surprised by the variety of mussels.
If you fancy jerk spice or bacon infused mussels, they’ve got them!
I like my mussels simple. We split a large order of the Belgium style mussels ($ 15) with a Blanche De Chambley base. Once we finished our bread, they brought us a refill! Awesome.
For dessert, we shared the carrot cake with… espresso icing?
It sounded strange… but it was actually pretty delicious.
Even though the cake didn’t taste anything like carrot cake.
I had a great time here! I’m totally coming back.

Brought here by friends, Smokeless Joe is casual and low-​key, a dive bar meant in the best way. The staff were friendly and relaxed, no attitude. Narrow, the main level has a few tables up front, a row next to the bar that properly dominates the space, and more tables in the back. I think there’s another level also.
The beer menu had a diverse selection, one list of bottled imports, fairly expensive at an average of $ 15 for 350 mL or so, the other of their beers on draft, more reasonably priced but still pricey for a session. All in all, an interesting selection to choose from. I tried the Belgian Pauwel Kwak, a pale ale; friends had Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock, Fruli strawberry wheat, Great Lakes Pumpkin Ale.
We didn’t have any food there, but that’s on offer too. Nice place for a bar stop, quiet enough to have good conversation, not crowded enough to have to fight for space.

Smokeless Joe’s blew my mind, completely unexpectedly mental H-​bomb.
Beer Rookie (me) decides to have an enjoyable evening with Friends over few beers.
Accomodating dude sat us right away with the Beer List notes to us a handful of N/​A.
Quite funny actually because the last thing I expect at a Pub is a Memory Test.
If you’re wondering, I bomb’d as I barely knew ¼ of the choices to start.
2-​sided 8×11 Beer Selection ($varies) provided -
1 side. Draft Pints. $Pint Value ($ 6.00-ish)
2 side. Import Bottles. $Massive Destruction to the Wallet ($ 15.00-ish)
Comme ça va? Beer Price Range: $$ — $$$$
At least it’s not that Samuel Adams Utopias.
First time discovery Beer can be $ 10.00+ is a scary moment.
Now I know Premium Beering is not for moi but good as option.
At least not til «someone» from Maple, ON wins Lotto Max.
Btw, Washrooms look nothing like the Gastropub atmosphere in Dining space.
Probably give you the feeling of Home, it is so clean you feel bad messing it up.

Meet the new boss, not quite the same as the old boss. For those who don’t know, Smokeless Joe is a transplant. It’s previous incarnation was a shortbus-​sized subterranean dwelling on John street. The unlikely location was superseded only by the unlikely beer list (hundreds of options) and its outstanding edibles. This new location is no longer an impossible-​to-​find-​a-​seat hole in the wall, but rather a full two floors on College street (right by Bathurst). It’s a grown up pub now, and has thus sloughed off a bit of its erstwhile adolescent charm.
That said, the bar is an awesome place to settle down. They have over 200 different bottles here, and usually a dozen or so beers on tap, but they were out of a bunch of things due to a busy weekend. I ordered my favourite standby, the vegan chili ($ 8). It’s not quite the same as I remember it, but still a fair portion and mighty tasty. I will still a bit hungry, and watching our server shucking sparked an impromptu order of ten caraquets ($ 2.75 each). Good oyster; not very briny and it tastes great with some hot sauce.
No longer the coolest kid in club district, Smokeless Joe is more of an average Joe among the other spectacular options on College street. Still, I’m happy they are back in business. I will surely return.
Obligatory Title Pun: Hey JOE/​where you going with that beer in your hand?
Menu Readability: One rarely needs to invoke bold and italic on the same word.
Need to mention: Their receipts are laughably old school, but they do take credit.
What this place teaches me about myself: I like my underground spots to be literally underground.

Smokeless Joe is a nice alternative to many of the bars on College, which don’t really seem like «bars», but more poor man’s King West lounges.
The beer selection and space is impressive, they’ve got an upstairs party room, a back patio, and the bathrooms are expansive and airy.
What takes SJ down a few notches for me: price per pint ($ 6.75 is high if you’re a session drinker), and the food is hit or miss. I went in pretty hungry and asked the barkeep to suggest something– which turned out to be the BLAST (BLT+Salsa+Avocado). Very underwhelming with a giant, inedible, and stale ciabata, and very thinned out inner toppings ($ 12). I ordered the vegan chilli because I wasn’t satisfied/​satiated and it was much meatier (in a vegan way) and quite deliciously beany ($ 8).
The bill came and is printed out from a machine that has to be older than most of the people reading this and we needed the bartender to tell us what each charge was. Was pretty confusing — although they didn’t have a problem splitting the bill onto credit-cards…so that’s a positive.
I would recommend stopping by for a beer or two… but wouldn’t make a night out of it.

My wife and I used to be fans of Smokeless Joe when it was on John St by King. It was a very small pub in a basement with friendly staff and an excellent assortment of beers on tap and in the bottle. They moved this summer to College just west of Bathurst and just recently re-​opened. We decided that it would be fun to check it out.
I’m glad we did.
The did an excellent job of doing the décor and the place has a warm cozy feeling even though it is larger than the old place. They also have an upper floor. We didn’t go to have a look though.
The staff is friendly as before. Not just the bartender that served us but all the staff were friendly and fun. There are 19 beers on tap and a good selection of bottled beer which they say they are continually expanding. The staff seemed to really know their beer.
In the old place they were known for their mussels and oysters and they carried this over to the new place. The oysters were quite popular and kept Rob our bartender quite busy shucking them. I came close to ordering a couple myself.
It was a fun night. I’m glad that they have re-​opened and glad we went. I really wish they were closer to our neighborhood as this would be my regular spot. Although it is a distance away, it is a place worth going out of our way for.

Smokeless Joe used to be downtown on John Street. They suddenly disappeared in the summer and there were rumours that they would opening at a new location.
Three months later they recently reopened on College Street, just west of Bathurst. We checked it out last evening.
The old location was in a basement and cavernous. The new location is on the street level (they also have space on the second floor) and they have renovated it to be similar to the old digs.
We sat at the bar … Rob, the bartender, took good care of us.
The food menu consists mainly of mussels (they are very popular). In addition to ensuring everyone has a drink, Rob also gets those ready.
The draft selection is good … lots of craft beer. And their beer menu is still quite extensive, though not as large as it was at their old location.
Glad to see them back!

New Smokeless Joe is located on College just West of Bathurst which I found it much better than their old John Street location.
Still the great staff and the great beers selections as the old location and even have more on taps!!!
For the time being, only the main floor is opened but they opening up the upper level soon and by next patio season roll in their backyard patio will be up and running too!
My order of Belgian Style Mussels ($ 15) was great to go with my beer. The bartender was really helpful in helping my Unilocal Drinking Buddy to find the beer that he enjoyed.
Now with the full kitchen in this location, they are able to expand their food menu too.
BTW, kitchen closes at 12 and earlier but you can always order some raw oysters.