Winking Lizard Tavern

Oh, Winking Lizard. How do I best remember thee? I have been here more times than I can count, for all kinds of experiences.

And much like an old friend, man do I have some dirt on you!!! If you ever get married, I'm going to have to bite my tongue around your spouse.

What were you thinking? You attempted to complete the entire Beers Around the World Tour, in one night. You began to rally the bar to assist you in drinking the necessary 100 beers. We finally had to get you home when you started shouting "Forza Azzuri" at a bunch of Italian frat guys, while throwing popcorn in their beers.  

In all honesty, I have much love for this place. They have a phenomenal selection of beers, a different drink special every day, free popcorn, pizza specials on weeknights, and a decent selection of various food items. The food is nothing special, but adequate. Personal pizza with pineapple and green peppers, or the veggie wrap were my go-tos. They will accommodate groups of 10+ and have multiple rooms to hang out in.

The Winking Lizard does mixed beers in unusual combos like the "black and blue,"  which is one of my personal favs (Labatt and Guinness). There are tvs to watch the game, and the bathrooms are kept decently clean. They even have an iguana to greet you as you enter the bar! Someone take a picture of that guy, please!

With so many seedy college dive bars on Coventry, this place fills the niche of a moderately priced place for grad students who don't need .50 well shots, but don't want to pay grown-up prices, just yet.

I am torn between three and four stars.
Here the reason: basically I don't like sports bars. Weirdly dressed up people beating the crap out of each other for some melon-shaped ball is very concerning for me, more so cheering crowd watching the above on TV. But what can you do, and when in Rome, do as the Romans. And I have lived in places where there simply was nothing but the sports bar to go to with friends, so there.
Now this one is a little different. It is also am English Pub. It is dark and the furniture are not all from red plastic and the bar is not decorated like a department store window at Christmas, and they have a big fat lizard, an iguana to be precise, safely isolated with all its salmonella (sorry folks, reptiles carry salmonella) from the clients by a huge really comfortable looking terrarium. So that is good.
And then I go there because it's close to my house and they have wings, ribs and spicy bbq sauce.
I usually never eat pork with some off exceptions, and one would be Winking Lizard ribs. Which are ..................................................­............. well, GOOOOOOD.
And the wings. Hmmm. I had their wings and was incredibly satisfied. And then I took a friend and we had wings and they were real crap. I had that day tried a different sauce, Thai something-something, which is basically less cover-up than my usual pick.
And since then it is spicy bbq ever. But I notice that some of the wings and drumsticks are under all that sauce very dry. So I am starting to think they are from the day before, or in any case too old to be served, and the idea is to smother them in sauce and nobody will notice. But I notice and I don't like.
The other question is, when these chicken meat is a tick too old, and that applies to any fowl we eat, we can taste very clearly the quality of it. And if it was cheap chicken and raised with hormones and in tiny containers within a couple of weeks (way too fast for a natural chicken to grow up) then it tastes YUK (unless you cover up with sauce). So the Winking Lizard seems to me not exactly great quality chicken, sadly, and that makes me squeamish to eat it.
Also I conclude, despite the fact that I have no complaints taste wise about  the ribs so far, of the chicken most certainly is not the sort of human raised I assume they don't go the extra length for their pork once been pigs either.
My rule of thumb is: don't hang out with neurotic people and don't eat unhappy animals.
And the next, last but not least important concern is: when I eat anything with the bbq sauce, admittedly my favorite, I feel I can't stop. Same effect as with Pringles potato chips, very much opposed to any other chips, or other wings for that matter.
And if you think the reason for that is that these wings or this sauce is so incredibly delicious than you are WRONG, 0 points. The reason when food has that effect on people is usually flavor enhancers, chemicals that even if you can control yourself or are lucky to be slim by nature so a pile of wings won't do any harm to your shapely appearance it is still INCREDIBLY unhealthy for your whole body and the best way to deal with it would be to stay away from food that does that.
Besides that effect the sauce also contains cancer-causing preservatives as you can read on the bottle, which is for sale on the tables.
Not the next day after you had your wings, but if you get enough of it over time possibly yes.
Not that this is a rare food ingredient in USA, but neither is cancer.
So basically I like the place, but I would suggest some improvements, definitely in terms of the admittedly mainly tasty food.
Beer? Oh yes, they have that, I have seen people drinking it. But I don't drink beer, so what can I say. Looks alright to me, from not drinking it and watching others.

This is my home away from home and I don't even live in this neighborhood. Love this place staff is nice and I have made a lot of friends with being a regular.