Restaurant Review: Snakes & Lattes
SNAKES & LATTES
489 College Street ~ snakesandlattes.com Twitter: @Snakesandlattes ~ Instagram: @snakesandlattes Co-Diner: Tim Golem
Board game cafes are popping up more and more these days and I'd heard good things about Snakes & Lattes. They have three locations in Toronto, including their College location in Little Italy, which is the one that I visited. Named #1 Best Date Restaurant 2018 by NOW Toronto and #1 Best Late Night Cafe by blogTO, S&L sounded like a cool place to try. I popped in on a Saturday afternoon and was looking forward to checking them out! First of all, the location is massive. The sprawling room is packed full of tables and booths in every size and configuration that you can imagine. The walls are painted a whimsical pastel blue and lilac, accented by plenty of wooden beams and industrial lighting. Silver aluminum chairs sit atop the shiny concrete floor. It's a very clean and simple-looking space with a cool edge to it. A massive bar sits in the middle of the room, however the focal point is easily the two walls full of board games. Hundreds of them! They're all neatly organized and there are different sections for the various types of games available. They've got everything.
The restaurant wasn't too busy (there were plenty of free tables) and once we were situated I took a moment to peruse all of the games. I grabbed a couple that I thought looked interesting, but truth be told, we really weren't planning to sit for hours to play a game. We were more interested in eating some lunch and simply planned to scope the place out for potential future visits. There are a lot of alcoholic beverages available which would be perfect for a games night with friends. However, given that it was the middle of the day and that the word "lattes" is present in the cafe's name, I thought it wise to opt for a latte. The Nutella Latte ($5.75) caught my eye.
Fancy latte art? Check. I enjoyed the mocha-like quality of this caffeinated beverage and the Nutella flavour came through with sweet hazelnut notes. It wasn't the most incredible latte that I've ever had but it was nice enough. The food menu is made up of pretty typical pub-type fair, with plenty of burgers and fries available. There are lots of shareable items, which makes lots of good sense considering that in most cases, you will be hanging out with a group of people when you visit a place like this. I also appreciated the many vegetarian options. The Southwestern Mac & Cheese sounded good and I loved that they offer Seasoned Popped Corn that comes in four different flavours. I thought I'd try something that I assumed they'd do well, the Peruvian Chicken Sandwich ($13.00).
Peruvian seasoned grilled chicken breast, lettuce, tomato, crispy onions, chipotle mayo.
Served with your choice of fries, house greens or soup, I went with the fries. This sando was fine but it was far from amazing. The chicken seemed as if it likely came from a bag of frozen chicken breasts and the seasoning was alright but fairly generic. The veggies were bright and fresh, which was nice. I barely remember seeing any crispy onions at all. The bun was buttery and soft. The fries looked really good - their deep golden colour promised delicious flavour. Unfortunately they fell a bit flat for me and didn't taste much like anything at all. They likely came from a frozen bag as well. Sadly, the food wasn't much to get excited about. I can see it being a better overall experience if one was to order a bunch of different share plates to eat with friends. The worst part was when we received our bill only to find that we had been charged $8 each on top of our food charges just for being there. Our two year old son was charged as well. This is the fee for playing the games... Only we didn't play any games. Yes, we removed a couple of them from the shelf, but we certainly did not set up any games and take up time and space to play them. We were only there for about 40 minutes and there were plenty of other free tables. As such, this seemed quite unfair to us. We also felt somewhat blindsided as this charge was not printed anywhere on the menu, to my recollection. The servers were nice and the overall concept is very awesome. I can see that Snakes & Lattes would be a ton of fun for a games night with friends. However, the food isn't anything special and you should really only visit if you're intending to settle in for a few hours to play games, otherwise it won't be worth it.