Review of Shoeless Joe’s – Ajax

In Ajax, across from the Home Depot/Wal-Mart plaza on Highway 2, lies a collection of restaurants just waiting to be visited.  We’ve already reviewed Eggs Up Grill for breakfast so for dinner, we decided to try out the new Shoeless Joe’s in Ajax.

What we found was quite surprising…

Details:  Shoeless Joe’s Ajax, 283 Kingston Road East, Ajax ON, 905-619-2200, www.shoelessjoes.ca

Ambience:  You could tell it was a brand new restaurant.  Everything was nice and shiny, TV’s at each booth, tons of wide-screen’s all around.  While there was definitely a sports vibe in the place, the dark colours, cushioned booths and tasteful decor didn’t make you feel like you were in a locker room.  Very friendly wait staff made a huge difference.  I forgot to bring my camera so I’ll post pics after our next visit.

Kids Stuff:  Two page kids menu with lots of activities and new crayons make the restaurant’s ‘kids stuff’ offering pretty neat.  Wait staff also paid attention to the kids.

Kids Food:  Good selection on the menu with reasonable prices (includes drink).  Book Boy ordered the pasta and meatballs.  The meatballs were very tasty.  Unfortunately, the pasta was overcooked and quite tasteless; in Shoeless Joe’s defense, they apologized and took it off our bill.  Ballet Girl enjoyed wings (it was Wing Night) with a baked potato and had a messy blast.

Parents Food:  Both Clean Mom and I ordered some mild and honey garlic wings, breaded.  Unfortunately, our order didn’t come breaded.  The wait staff came to the rescue again, allowed us to keep our un-breaded wings, got us another order and even took one order off our bill.  This is an excellent example of understanding the long term value of a client.  By doing this, they exceeded our expectations and here we are raving about it.  If they didn’t do it, I’m not entirely sure we would go back.

Back to the food.  I thought the wings were actually not very good (tasteless) but Clean Mom enjoyed them so let’s call that even.  Clean Mom’s french onion soup was tasty but a bit on the salty side.  My Caesar salad was ok.

Coolest Thing About Restaurant:  All the wait staff really helped each other out (cleaning off our table, anticipating family’s needs) and our waitress was amazing at making things right when our dinner wasn’t going so well.

Worst Thing About Restaurant:  Food quality was disappointing.  Given how we were treated by the staff, we would give them another chance but probably order something else.  Also, as we were walking out, I asked to speak to Noah Henderson (the owner) but got a curt “he’s really busy right now” from the hostess.  If I were an owner of a restaurant, I would think that speaking to clients who care enough to want to talk to him and give him some feedback would probably be high on the list of things to do… maybe next time.

Who exactly is Shoeless Joe?

Here are some interesting facts about Shoeless Joe from Wikipedia:

- Joseph Jefferson Jackson, nicknamed “Shoeless Joe”, was an American baseball player who played Major League Baseball in the early part of the 20th century.

- He is remembered for his performance on the field and for his association with the Black Sox Scandal, in which members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox participated in a conspiracy to fix the World Series.  In response to this, Shoeless Joe said,” I am going to meet the greatest umpire of all – and He knows I’m innocent.”

- Jackson was reported to be illiterate, and he was sensitive about this. In restaurants, rather than ask someone to read the menu to him, he would wait until his teammates ordered, and then order one of the things that he heard.

- According to Jackson, he got his nickname during a game played in Anderson, SC.  Jackson suffered from blisters on his foot from a new pair of cleats and they hurt so much that he had to take his shoes off before an at bat. As play continued, a heckling fan noticed Jackson running to third base in his socks, and shouted “You shoeless son of a gun, you!”, and the resulting nickname “Shoeless Joe” stuck with him throughout the remainder of his life.

Overall Experience:  The food was disappointing but the ambiance, tv’s at each booth and, most importantly, the wait staff were great so we’ll probably come back to try it one more time and see if the rating goes up after that.

(Rating adjusted based on most recent experience as detailed in comments below.)

Rating: 3.0 stars out of 5

Other Posts That Might Interest You:

1. Review of Halibut Time – Ajax
2. Review of Eggs Up Grill – Ajax
3. Review of Michael’s Eatery – Ajax