I was looking for a place to eat on Main when my beloved suggested Bert’s. It looked inviting, so we tried it out.

The server who seated us seemed friendly and she suggested the inexpensive beer on tap. I readily agreed to a frosty pint of lager. I ordered the Bert’s burger special with rings, and Mrs. C had the deluxe burger and fries. Both burgers were juicy and the fries and rings were tasty and not greasy. The Bert’s burger had a fried egg, which seemed excessive given the two big beef patties :)

The ambience was okay and the w/c was clean, but the place could use an update. I found the service to be quick, and the price was very cheap. Overall, a good impression so I don’t understand some of the negative reviews here. Maybe they were expecting cordon bleu instead of diner food?

Recommended.

This is the type of restaurant that you would often see on the Canadian Food Channel produced show, "Restaurant Makeover". It's all there in the checklist: a restaurant that no longer fits in with its changing neighbourhood, a restaurant that has too many items on its menu (quantity over quality), a restaurant that has no personality, a restaurant that may or may not survive.

As you walk into the place to have dinner you'll notice that the place is huge by today's standards. It's the size of a big McDonald's. The only thing is that you'll see more people in a Squamish McDonald's at 9:30pm then you would at Bert's during the dinner hour. For a large capacity eatery the place is abandoned which is the first thing that should make you wonder if you should continue your culinary journey with Bert's.

When you open the menu you'll notice that selection of food is wide and varied. You'll find Greek food, Italian food, American diner food like roast turkey dinner, etc. But looking towards the kitchen you'll notice only one chef doing the cooking. So then how can this one chef cook so much? That should be the second thing that makes you question the quality of the food.

The food is, in short, horrendous. I ordered the roast beef dinner and it tasted like a Swanson's TV dinner because I suspect they have a full menu full of food in the freezer. It tastes a little bit of freezer burn and the meat fibers have broken down from freezing and thawing. A-ha! That's why they can offer so much selection with on chef. You're just being served TV dinners. That's pretty sad.

What is even sadder is that for such poor quality food, the price isn't that much cheaper than if I were to go to hopelessly conventional places like Knight & Day, White Spot, Red Robins, or even a Denny's, all of which offers palatable food. Bert's food is one of those places where, no matter if you live by the tenet, "Finish everything on your plate", you just don't want to continue eating after a couple of bites. Instead, you kick yourself because you could have just went to Vera's a block away and at least had a decent burger for the same price.

I'm not going to delve too much into things like ambiance, and service because that's not what diners and family restaurants are reknowned for and neither the qualities that drive people to diners.

People who frequent diners want good, if not great, food, value for the money, and to be frequently asked if they would like a coffee refill. Bert's just doesn't deliver on any of these.

My recommendation to Bert's Restaurant is to fire the chef who has the audacity to serve this crap, and to hire a decent kitchen staff. Most of all, serve fresh food. If you're going to serve turkey, there should be a bird being carved in the back! Cut down on the menu items and only serve the best sellers and some daily specials.

Not too much to say about this spot, just solid inexpensive dining. Apparenly I must type more. Service was good, food was greasy (as expected), but good. What else is there to say? Stilll must type...............................................................................................................................................................................................Love this site but...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Since moving to Mount Pleasant over a year ago, I had never ventured into historic Bert's. An article in the Georgia Straight's 'Best Of' gave me the reminder I needed to wander in for breakfast and finally check the place out. I must say that my experience was just fine given my expectations.

Bert's doesn't try to be anything other than what it is - a greasy spoon diner with a clientele in the blue hair range of things (you can almost smell the Old Spice!). The interior is kitchy and tired, but again, it's a greasy spoon people, so don't come here expecting any Main St. 'sheik'.

Our waitress was a grizzled veteren of the diner scene and her charming roughness was just that - charming. She was attentive, funny and did her job very well. The food came quickly, the coffee cup was always full, and she had a smile for us every time. I ordered the big breakfast, whose name escapes me, but it came with eggs, toast, coffee, bacon, pancakes and a small glass of juice. Everything was well prepared and the serving size was fine. The pancakes were especially good as was the syrup to go with them. The coffee, however, needs a serious upgrade in quality.

I will go back to Bert's again.

I think this restaurant would appeal mostly to retired and elderly people. The food is the typical fare: hamburgers, club sandwiches, salisbury steak. They have friendly waitstaff and good prices.
They seem to have a lot of regulars, but again, they are all of an older generation. This seems to be intentional on their part too. I ordered a hamburger as a special meal that came with a drink and dessert, and my two choices for dessert were jell-o or butterscotch pudding.
The food is good if that's what you're looking for, but it doesn't exactly fit in with the trendy atmosphere of that part of town.

I'll provide a counterpoint to the previous 2 posters. I've been eating breakfast at Bert's for over 10yrs, it's always been a great breakfast joint, in fact one of my favorites in Vancouver for your basic "Canadian" breakfast. I only make it out on the weekends but it's always jam packed. I've never had an issue with the service, it's always been decent, efficient and friendly enough cafeteria service, if you are a yuppie and expect to be doted on and told how fantastic you look, well it's not going to happen at Bert's.

My vote is for Bert's as possibly one of the best bacon and egg joints in Vancouver and an all around solid joint.

Food: insulting
Service: acceptable
Overall: my condolence
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Bert's used to be one of our most favorite Sunday brunch restaurants. We have been satisfied with Bert's for years. Although the price was not on the cheap side, the portion and the food were great. However, our most recent visit was very disappointing.

I usually ordered Spanish omelet. When I had it last time, the cook didn't even bother to beat the eggs, and the hash brown was too burnt and too undercooked. I have never thought I can describe food with these two words in a sentence.

I guess there was a reason when Bert's was no longer packed with people during weekend lunch hours. Sadly, I had to cross it out from my list.

We went to Bert's for breakfast.

My dh ordered the Club Breakfast which consisted of 2 pancakes, sausages, eggs and toast with coffee. I ordered the Vegetarian Omelet which came with hash browns, toast and coffee. Standard breakfast fare and not much you can do wrong with it, right? Wrong.

My entire plate seemed to suffer from split-personality disorder. Half of my omelet was completely bland and tasteless and the other half was over-salted. It seemed like the cook forgot to stir the omelet after adding the salt. My hashbrowns suffered a similar fate; half was okay and the other half icy cold -- as if they forgot to cook it and it just came out of the fridge.

In dh's case, he said his pancakes were bland and tasteless. How can a pancake be tasteless?

The service was so bad, it was almost comical. The waitress was having a hard time remembering things. She took our order then said, "I'll be right back with your coffee and juice". After several trips past our table and no beverages in sight, we flagged her down and asked about our drinks. She came back with the coffee and said, "I'll be right back with the orange juice". We waited and waited. No juice came.

Finally, when she delivered our meals, we inquired about the juice. She apologized and said she'd get it right away, and that "the toast will be right up". She came back with the juice, but no toast. We waited and waited some more.

We flagged her down again and inquired about the toast. She apologized again and said something about the guys in back not ringing her or something (but shouldn't she check if it's not out?). Anyways, she came back with one order of toast and said the other one would take a few more minutes. At that point, we said never mind and not to bother.

The waitress was friendly enough. It wasn't busy and she seemed quite experienced. No real reason to be that forgetful.

In summary: bad food, bad service. We won't be back.