Champs Sports Bar

My girl's folks took us here for dinner one night. The dining area is separated from the bar, which is good, albeit a bit small. Had myself a nice burger. Nothing really to write home about, but I don't have a real flair for the whole RVC night life anyway, so it was just fine for me. The room is loaded with HDTVs, most of which were showing the winter X-games, which was pretty cool.

Prolly will use them again, especially since they are on <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Frestaurant.com&s=c5fe485af4df376130bee54f875814d79c4d7913e1258123b1206d2bdbf4873b" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://restaurant.com</a> ;)

I've been to Champs about 5 times, every time was for a UFC event and I paid a cover.  One time I asked  the waitress when our other appetizer would be ready? She said sarcastically, "you didn't order that, I remember what you ordered and trust me you didn't order it!"  I didn't say anything like "oh ok I trust you?" but thought to myself this is why you should write things down! In all my years in the food business I never spoke to a customer like that, I would simply say sorry and curse the idiot out when I got to the kitchen.  Another time with a different waitress my friends and I were told if we sat at a table we would need to order our drinks through her. No prob we said, 20 minutes later where are you?  3 rounds later she makes a visit, whats going on we whispered thinking she went home, be careful these girls are tougher then the fighters.  The food mediocre at best and that's not my fear/dislike of the wait staff talking it just isn't good. Of the 5 times I was there I can remember only liking their chicken strips that's it.  What I do like about the place,  the bartenders(who understand what working for tips is all about), relatively cheap tap beers, good amount of TV's and of course they have the UFC every month.  I debated whether to give it 2 stars (Meh. I've experienced better.) or 3 stars (A-OK.) and right before I posted this i had 3 stars but I cant do it.  It gets 2 stars because if any of you reading this review go there you cant tell me i didn't warn you.

Champs has really, really good wings. Nice. They have a twenty cent wing night. Also nice. They also have the SMALLEST dining room/bar imaginable. Not so nice. If you come here as I did last Saturday, you'll probably have a good time. Myself and three friends sat at the bar, ordered beers and wings, and watched Lebron dismantle the Knicks for 47 on one TV, and saw the Rangers score three in the second period to crap on the Devils. Excellent. But by ten, all the TVs had been changed to UFC undercards on Spike and PPV coverage of UFC 109.

And therein lies the problem. I can't stand Champs after about ten on weekends and 20 cent wing night. People file in and you end up elbow to elbow, terribly uncomfortable, unable to move. It sucks. Even if you're sitting, the tables are so damn close and have too many people crammed around them for you feel any sort of personal space.

What it comes down to is that Champs is a cool, friendly sports bar that caters itself to the night RVC crowd. WIth so many other nightlife options around there, I kinda wish Champs stayed true to its laidback self.