The Mac Shack is a brand new restaurant that opened up in Kerrisdale. They specialize in none other than Mac & Cheese! I love comfort food, so I got my friends to drive 40 mins from Coquitlam to try this place. Crazy, but sometimes its needed. I heard great stuff and I needed to see for myself if it is really good.
After a long drive, M, Scarface and BusanGirl were ready for the mass amounts of Mac & Cheese!
I loved the interior, very nice and modern. When we arrived, this place was packed for a Friday night. All the tables were taken up, and we were super lucky to grab a seat since a group was just leaving.
If you know what you want, you can totally build your own! They also have soup and grilled cheese.
They have a few signature items that you can choose from too. There are 3 different sizes to choose from – Regular, Ultimate and Jumbo.
They also have healthier alternatives and desserts too.
After we ordered, we were given a number and just waited at the table.
Tabasco, salt and pepper are waiting at your table.
Green Tea ($1) it was the mighty leaf tea. Not bad. Since the line up was so long, it was hard to get a refill of water since I didn’t want to butt in.
Pop ($1.50) and Water ($1)
We then spent 35 minutes waiting for our orders to arrive. It was a busy night so it was understandable! As time kept going by, we noticed people that were behind us in line already got their food and was finishing up. We tried ignoring it and watched every dish go to other tables. As the restaurant started to empty out, we were wondering where our order was. We asked the waitress where our order was and it seemed like they just started on our dishes.
Creamy Pesto Chicken Mac (Regular – $7) has mozzarella, provalone, chicken, and basil pesto sauce. Since I had the coupon for following them a while back, I gave it to BusanGirl to redeem since it’s only usable on regular sizes. She thought this dish was ok and nothing amazing. 
She’s not a picky eater, but we all agreed it was not Mac and Cheese material. The cheese was just on top of the mac and cheese and none was integrated between the pasta. Even by looking at the image, it doesn’t look remotely what ooey gooey should be similar to. The chicken was dry even though there wasn’t a lot of it in the dish. Seemed more like a badly executed pasta dish.
The Ultimate (Ultimate -$16) has bacon, bell peppers, brocolli, mushrooms, chicken, chorizo, shrimp with mozzarella and gruyere cheese.
Even though it looks huge, Scarface did not like this dish either, he said that there was more meat in a hotdog than there was in this dish. Similar with the previous dish, there needed to be more cheese integrated throughout the dish to call it mac and cheese. The cheese yet again was just on the top.
The Brooklyn (Ultimate -$13) has blue cheese, AAA shirloin steak, caramalized onions, mushrooms with balsamic. M was disappointed in the disproportion between his dish and Scarface’s dish. As you can tell, the Ultimate has more noodles coming out of the pan and this one is kinda missing a large chunk from the bottom left.
M usually likes most dishes when there is meat, but he was probably the most disappointed out of everyone. There was no strong taste of blue cheese, the AAA sirloin steak were 3 thin slices of tasteless meat and the caramelized onion was nowhere in the dish. There was no cheese integrated throughout the dish and there was only the layer of cheese on the top. It wasn’t even gooey either, it was cold and hard. At one point he found a vegetable in it too when there isn’t supposed to be greens.
Bacon Cheese Burger Mac (Ultimate – $12) it has cheddar, monterey cheese with beef and bacon. Out of the other 2 Ultimate sized dishes we ordered, it was the smallest of them all. The cheese on top was warm, but the cheese was hard. You can tell from the picture as well. I saw them broiling it, perhaps they lift it there too long?
Similar to all the other dishes we received, minimal cheese throughout the dish, minimal ingredients inside.
Overall, all four of us left the restaurant with unsatisfied stomachs. Since they are quite new, I do have faith that the consistency in their quality will improve over time. Looking at other people’s photos, they look so much yummier than my photos. I think I just went during a super super busy night and thats where everything went wrong. I love their concept of their restaurant and I love Mac & Cheese in general, but this visit wasn’t good.
Words of Wisdom:
- Avoid peak hours
- Free parking near the residential area
- Price and quality don’t seem to match
- Not very saucy mac & cheese
- Wait few months till they have perfected their execution and consistency
We Rate The Mac Shack: 
Address:
5395 West Boulevard
Vancouver, BC V6M
Website:
4 Comments
Ooooh noooo… I was so looking forward to the opening of this place! Thanks for the review. *gulp* $16 for dry mac and cheese totally doesn’t cut it in my books… like you mentioned, I wonder if they will improve over time… perhaps I should visit a couple of months down the line…
I agree, I also love the concept of the restaurant! Hopefully when I pay a visit the food & promptness of service will have improved. I’ll be sure to let you know how it was! Very nice blog by the way!
Thanks Bernie! Do let me know how it goes!
I agree that the mac shack has a long way to go – I hope they’ll get better and their recipes will improve because I didn’t have a good experience either!