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| - After a horrible initial experience during their first week of operation, I finally decided to give them another chance 6 or so months later, but unfortunately, nothing much has changed. The food was edible enough (it's kinda hard to screw up steamed hot dogs), but the blatantly ridiculous part of the operation is a complete lack of employee training. During both visits, it seemed like the guys behind the counter were ripped directly from the customer line-up, with zero knowledge of the menu, or how to serve and prepare the steamies being offered. They seem to have greatly reduced the steamed hotdog options since opening, which is not surprising, since the guys dolling out the tube meat on my first visit had no clue what I ordered was even on their menu, leading to confused faces between the two gents before they checked every nook and cranny of their stations before finally putting two and two together. My second order was also a bit weird, with the guy at the cash being perplexed that I'd pay for a $3.75 order with a $10 bill, as if he had never made change before ("you know it's only $3.75, right?"). This was followed by his obviously freshly hired underling asking him how to properly fold the foil wrappers of the hotdogs when preparing my order, something one would assume would be covered in the first three minutes of training. He got neither of the two wrappers right btw, despite instructions being printed on them. Considering how perpetually empty the location is, I'm surprised it's lasted this long. Perhaps the other Smoke's locations are keeping it afloat? The visible increase of poutine on their menu (it now takes up 3/4 of the menu screens, as opposed to less than half at opening) indicates that they're smartly moving away from the clearly failing "Weinerie" concept. Maybe if they would have spent even 5 minutes training their staff, it wouldn't have been this sad.
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