Fatty Patty's Bar and Grill, London, Ontario: In-Depth Review

You will indeed love Fatty Patty’s Bar & Grill if you visit it regularly like I had done over the past few weeks.(You can’t do a proper review of an establishment in one visit like fine dining reviewers do). I have lived around the corner from this establishment for around 7 years and prior to recent visits only gone to it for an occasional lunch with a friend to talk about stuff over a pint and a good lunch. I always ordered the same one draft and the fish and chips and both were very good.

Well these are some of my observations of my recent visits around dinner hour or just a little earlier. Shift change is at 5 pm so it is a good time to observe the interaction of staff and customers. I have never seen so much hugging in my life in a bar. This place is like Cheers on steroids as I started to see it. There are no fashion police in Fatty Patty’s and yes not everybody knows your name but give it time and they will and they will be able to tell you apart from all the other folks there.

Zeke is the owner and his sister Mary is the manager (as I have seen so far) and it is easy to tell that they are because they are the ones with the worried look on their faces but it’s the good worry kind. You see they care about customers and staff, the building, the service, the products, the décor, the glasses, the floor, the toilet paper, the lights, etc. You get my drift they care and worry about everything as good owners and management do.

There are 22 employees at Fatty Patty’s (as Zeke told me) and I have not met them all yet. Some are just my nicknames for them like Stretch who is a tall blonde quiet type, pretty and looks to be a swimmer/basketball/gymnast/dancer/track type and there is Mary who wants to make sure everything is running smoothly for you not unlike a 2^nd Mother to everyone. I found out none of them are sisters but some look like they could be.

But it’s hard to describe all of the folks in this story properly so I will use just one as an example and that is Sammy since she is probably the first person to show me how it is done at FP’s. She didn’t do that by any sort of lecture or anything like that, she did it by her actions. Sammy is solidly built and is one I wouldn’t want to have to get into an argument with because I think she would kick my ass. But when she walks away from your view she has this efficient motor like movement down there that I hope her boyfriend, husband or both appreciate because she is on a mission to provide everyone with excellent service. She can only spend a little time with each of you, like maybe 15-30 seconds, because as I learned, I am not the only bozo in the place that needs to be taken care of, Everyone is entitled to her attention but that means she has to share it efficiently so you don’t take offense to her having to move on and pick up the plates and one table, clean a pitcher, smile at a new customer, log in an order, keep track of what’s next.

But that is not just a description of how Sammy works at FP’s, it describes EVERYONE who serves you there and they sometimes will double team a table when the food is ready, between hugging customers and staff members who come in on their days off. You see they are all family and when you get to be part of the family, it’s pretty hard to go to any other establishment for food and beverage and conversation and fun.

One of the problems at FP’s is there are only so many bar stools so the Norm’s and Cliff’s take up some of them but that is still my favourite place to sit and I have a second favourite spot which is small table for two where I can watch most of the going’s on in the bar with umpteen TV sets going with mostly sports and music playing in the background and a quieter area over to the left (north side of the bar) with the dart boards and pool tables which is never really that busy at the time I have gone so far.

I’m not a night owl anymore so I can’t comment on what goes on at those hours but there is Karaoke on Friday nights starting at 10 (I am sometimes going to bed then lol) and Sammy says “Karaoke is fun” and I believe her because family doesn’t lie to you ever unless it is for your own protection.

I watched an interesting interaction between staff and customers yesterday and it started with the gal behind the bar (Sammy #7 or #8 or just another Sammy the Server who was behind the counter then) talking to a female customer who had really too many that afternoon and the gal behind the counter was trying to order a cab for her but the customer was too far gone to respond but she was the type of person (the customer) that you really couldn’t tell if she had too much to drink or was just always a fun type person. So the staff and a customer recognized that the first one was what was happening here and a customer said I know her, I will drive her home. That is his beer and pitcher (at the bottom) that he left and he sipped from it slowly upon his return. I don’t know if you can legally take pictures of people in bars but this gentlemen would probably not want any special treatment for what he did I think. Good people just do stuff and don’t ask for anything in return.

The place is generally full of great people and really all you have to do to get a conversation going is just start talking about stuff, ANYTHING, it doesn’t matter what the subject is. They will get it talking about interests them pretty quickly and with a smile.

Fatty Patty’s is a pretty neat place. YA THINK!!! And yes you will love it. There is an awful lot of that going around and boy do they know how to share it. Prices are good and the food is great. That’s a half order of fries in the pic below. I can’t imagine what army you would need to bring in to eat the full order.

I think you should try Fatty Patty’s and more than once. And for those of you who scanned this story like you do all things on the Internet do this. You see this story is more like a symphony or your favourite song where you listen to every note and every word. You see that is my writing style. I don’t do writing on the Internet well.

You all have a wunnerful day and maybe I will see you at FP’s. I’m the guy with no worries on his face trying to get Zeke and Mary to stop worrying lol. They are super nice folks like most of the other folks in the building.