I've never been a huge fan of Kelsey's to begin with, as I found everything about the chain to be quite average, so after their re-branding, I thought I would give it another try. I heard it was one of the first restaurants in Canada to be re-branded.
I'm kind of puzzled with the outside of the building - big bright HELLO sign lit up, with "Kelsey's" nowhere to be seen at first glance. If you didn't know any better, I'm sure you'd probably think it was just some new bar, which is totally what we thought when they renovated. The inside is more colorful and the servers wear brightly colored t-shirts to match the rainbow-colored handkerchiefs, or whatever they were, wrapped around beer taps. They took down the wall to separate the bar area from the dinner tables/seating, which can be both good and bad, depending on why you're there. I noticed the men were wearing one color and the women another, which I'm not sure I agree with from a diversity and equality perspective, but that's a different discussion.
The menu has changed as well, keeping a couple of the more popular items, but mostly new dishes and updates/tweaks on some of the old ones.
We ordered the spinach dip as an appetizer to share. It had red pepper and onions in it and came with thick and deep-fried pita points. I think I actually enjoyed the deep-fried pita more than I did the actual spinach dip. It was creamy but salty, and seemed like it was just cream cheese, maybe some mayo/sour cream, and some cheddar tossed in there, nothing great and again, pretty average. Also a bit too thick, so we had to spoon the dip on the pita instead of actually dip the pita.
I ordered the Mushroom Ravioli as my main. The last time I checked, it wasn't listed on their online menu, so I'm not sure if it was just a limited time dish or if the website just isn't updated properly. The ravioli was stuffed with portobello and cremini mushrooms and served in a pesto and parmesan cream sauce with spinach, crumbled goat cheese, crispy onion strings on top. It also came with a side of garlic bread with cheese, which was good, mostly because I love garlic and cheese, but over-toasted and hard - I don't know if that was the intent. The pasta itself was actually quite delicious, but the sauce was a little too salty and even more so when eaten with the goat cheese. I didn't want to make the crispy onion strings soggy by mixing them all in with the pasta, so I mixed a bit in and mostly just picked off the rest to eat by itself :) The pasta was cooked well and the portion was just right for someone with my appetite.
The service was OK - our server was nice enough, but the restaurant wasn't super busy and we still had to wave her down a few times because she wasn't checking to see if we needed refills on our waters, if we were done, needed our table cleared, the bill, etc. It was also kind of annoying to be seated at the higher bar tables right by the door - the hostess seemed miserable and we kept seeing staff just standing around talking or texting.
I would come back for dessert, since I hear it's the best thing to get, and possibly a drink or two on a day of the week with a special of some kind. Everything is average priced, so it's completely affordable, especially if you're sharing plates. I wasn't overly impressed, but I didn't expect to be. All in all, OK, but not great. read more