Spokes Pub & Grill

It's smokey - we call the place "Smokes" - we visit somewhat often but doesn't mean we love it.  We're stuck in "Mediocre Ville" and while its' not the best they do offer Crown Beer (sometime).  Case in point.  They're continually out of Barnwood Blonde Ale - it's a Crown product so wouldn't they offer a comparable beer as part of their $2 draft night (Friday)?  No, you get what they have or you don't get it - or an apology.  What gives?  Anyway - the fried mushrooms are out of this world!  The Fried pickles are terrific too - BUT as always, slow service and people who don't seem to much care.

I'm actually fairly stunned to read what the other reviews say. I had never been to Spokes up until a couple months ago after living in the area for 2 years but I can honestly say they must have been having a behind the scenes busy kind of day or something. I've never had to wait long for anything here. I take my daughter here for lunch sometimes after picking her up from daycare since it's practically right next door and she loves their penne with red sauce. She hardly eats mine! And I usually take the liberty of finishing off her dish for her (yummy!). I usually get the No. 9 burger, being the col slaw lover I am and all the flavors blended together so nicely! I almost always have such a problem getting my burger medium rare the way I like it anywhere else but they've gotten it perfect here every time! I even pulled the worst thing you can do as a regular customer one time and came in about 5 minutes before they closed and the bartender was still super nice about it and made me an order of onion rings (the batter is amazing! crisp and just the right amount of spice), potato skins and a mushroom swiss burger with bison. I'm a total cheese snob sometimes but the swiss here was really good on the burger, not "plasticky" at all. I'm a stickler for customer service and have been known to not leave tips should I think it is undeserved but I have never had a bad experience here. They're always so nice, personable and sweet to my daughter and I! I'd say the menu could have used a wipe down in the bottom left hand corner of the last page but then I'd just be trying to be a jerk :)

We recently tried Spokes over the lunch hour on a weekday, and it's difficult to find much to say that is positive.  The place was relatively empty, save for a large group tucked away in the corner, yet the service was incredibly slow.  We stood at the empty hostess stand for about 5 minutes before anyone showed up to seat us.  We were then ushered to a table where we waited another 5 minutes for our server to arrive.

The process began with the staff telling one of our group that they could not accommodate a simple request, which we almost thought was a joke until we realized that the staff was fairly humorless.

We started off with some fried pickles, which were simply dreadful.  The pickles themselves were thin, dry, and flavorless, and the equally bland batter simply dampened the flavor even more, giving them the slightest hint of freezer burn.  It didn't help that the ranch that accompanied it was so thin that we were sure it had literally been watered down.  A dud.

I also tried the beer cheese soup, which had a nice flavor, but the texture was too creamy, as if process cheese had been used instead of the real thing.  The big misstep here was the chef's decision to garnish the soup with about a quarter cup of extremely salty bacon bits.  They simply brought an unwanted texture and flavor to the soup, killing almost all of the flavor offered by the beer.

The entrees took forever to arrive.  Again, this was surprising, since there was almost no one else there.  It was obvious that we were on a schedule, but still, it took over 30 minutes to prepare our food.  When we finally got our food, we were left with almost no time to eat it.

I won't speak for everyone else, but I can discuss the burger.  I ordered a bison burger, which was topped with swiss and cheddar.  The patty itself was fantastic and flavorful.  It was a little overcooked (ordered it medium, got it medium-well), but still was nice and tender in the middle, with just the right amount of crisp on the outside.

Unfortunately, all that good meat was tarnished by the toppings.  Like the soup, both of the cheeses on the burger appeared to be process cheese, based upon their melted consistency.  Neither tasted like one would expect authentic cheese to taste... both had a tacky, plastic texture with a sickly sour flavor.  

But, the worst part were the strips of bacon.  Like the cheese, these didn't seem to be authentic, either.  They cooked completely flat, with no visible marbling.  Despite appearing well-done, the bacon was not crisp but tough and chewy instead.  And the flavor?  Straight-up Jack Link's Teriyaki.

Why they would trash a perfectly good piece of bison with such sub-standard and overpowering flavor is beyond me.

All in all, the food was a masterclass in imbalance.  Food either seems to be inexplicably devoid of flavor, or the dishes are a mismatch of overpowering flavors.

The best thing I can say for Spokes is that it was clean and the tables were nicely spaced so that the ambient noise was kept to a minimum.  The walls feature a few pieces of memorabilia from Al MacInnis and Stan Musial, two consummate professionals who always delivered the goods.  However, in terms of both food and service, Spokes is purely amateur hour.  Avoid.