Here's the final review from this weekends Sports bar mini-crawl.
Having achieved Buffalo Wing nirvana at Rooties, followed by enough beers at New Direction to quench a moderate thirst, the lovely Rebecca and I decided to end the afternoon. (Ok...it's dark by now, so sue me) with one last adult beverage at Buffalo Wings and Rings. I've been to W&R before and really wasn't that impressed but considered it my civic duty to investigate this establishment, a self proclaimed "Titans bar" on a football Sunday.
Speaking as a veteran Sunday afternoon "bar-gater" lets start this out by saying that I am highly suspect of any sports bar where the first thing that greets you as you enter the door is a bank of gum ball and candy machines...As is the case at W&R. Somehow it just sends the message that tossing out a few well placed cuss words when your QB throws an interception is probably not an acceptable option. W&R is loosely divided into two sections, as you might expect a restaurant side (with numerous TV's) and a "bar" side (and I use the word "bar" loosely) with even more TV's. The decor is rather "corporate like" with every picture and TV in it's place and a place for everything. Sunday evening the restaurant side was fairly busy and confirming my early suspicions was pretty well populated with the suburban "soccer mom and dad" crowd, complete with offspring (so much for those cuss words). The bar is rather smallish and cramped and was still packed with the remnants of a football crowd...Not so much "fans" (as no Titans colors were observed) but more like dads who had used a trip to Home Depot as an excuse to get away from the wife and kids for an hour or so. We didn't really see alot of food in evidence but based on my past experience it's pretty pedestrian...in fact almost commissary like. Past visits found the wings to be average...on a good day. The fries and burgers are pretty much "meehhhhh". In other words they'll do in a pinch. Haven't tried the rings. Who knows, maybe they're good...Something has to keep these people coming in.
Taking the last high top in the bar we were greeted by a server who I came to call "The boy with far away eyes". I asked the young man if they had any kind of game-time drink specials going on, to which he replied that he would have to check. Coming back to the table he replied in the negative, so after looking over (another) weak beer selection we settled for a couple of Guinness (which judging by the price they were extremely proud of). Settling in to take stock of our surroundings (I was surprisingly able to still peer out of both eyes) we noticed that every TV...all 8 or 10 of 'em had signs taped to them, declaring exactly which games would be shown on which TV...in other words don't come in and ask to see a particular game on a TV next to your table. Far away eye boy came back a time or two to check on us and as his luck would have it each time he showed up I had a question for him that required him to "go check". In his defense he did know where the rest rooms were and seemed to be pretty proud of getting that answer right...the first time. Maybe it's just me but if I'm running a sports bar, on a Sunday, I'm going to have my "first string" in the game.
Anyway, long story somewhat shorter, we enjoyed our Guiness (which BTW were served at something approaching the correct temp) and I loaded up my designated driver in the passengers seat and we herp-a-derped on down the road. All in all W&R is not a bad place...and might even be a good place if your happen to be in that mini van time of life.
