I had heard some good things about Nightowl and decided to give it a shot on date night. I was really disappointed.
The good things - the place is really cool, lots of young people hanging out to have drinks or food. The main floor is the restaurant with some arcade games, and the basement level is a full dance floor with a DJ.
We were able to get two seats right away (no reservation) but the place was always full. They have a cocktail list named after Toronto streets/neighbourhoods - I got the St. Clair and I thought there was barely an alcohol in there. Partner lamented over the poor beer selection - very generic, main stream beers.
Food - we ordered the calimari, shrimp tacos, and mac n cheese.
Calimari - very chewy. They had a sauce on top (peanut?) which was delicious and they serve it with a side of actually hot hot sauce. But super, super chewy calimari
Shrimp tacos - good. nothing great. Shrimp were properly cooked
Mac n Cheese - Served in a small cast iron pot with a great breadcrumb topping it had all the potential to be delicious. But it was not. How do you make mac n cheese taste bland? Like cheese inherently is tasty - you barely have to do any work!! I had to ask for salt to get at least some flavor and it could not be rectified. I couldn't even finish it (and I'll eat KD!)
Our server could not be bothered with us - took a while to get a second round of drinks.
Plus side: they play some great hip hop on the first floor. Maybe I would come back to go dancing but never, ever for the food.