[twitter]When you get hungry at West Edmonton Mall, you can head to one of two huge food courts, or you can split the difference and head to Bourbon Street. Bourbon Street is an avenue of sit down restaurants similar to what you see in Las Vegas. The restaurants are all open concept flooding on to a big promenade. You have Earl’s, Moxie’s, The Old Spaghetti Factory, Hooters, Boston Pizza, Hudson’s Taphouse, Tony Roma’s, and others.

We headed here for dinner on our 2 days in the mall and, for the first time in a long time, I didn’t take a picture of my food. I’m guessing you know what to expect from Old Spaghetti Factory and Boston Pizza. What you may not expect, is the craziness that is Bourbon St in West Edmonton Mall on a weekend.

Up to 150 000 a day can make their way to West Edmonton Mall. The longer the weekend, the worse the weather, the greater the chance the population will hit that number. When we sauntered up to the Old Spaghetti Factory on Saturday at 5, we were told the wait was nearly an hour. The next night at Boston Pizza, we walked right in – but that was at 430.

The waitress at BP said they had a solid wait on the Saturday of the Family Day weekend from noon until 9p. Both restaurants were great with families, the food was as anticipated, and we left fed and entertained by people watching the promenade.