We have not set foot back in Spunks since our original writeup over four years ago. We have returned to some of our favorite places so we are going to offer some chances for redemption as well. The building remains the same…very much bar plus some restaurant. I was struck quickly by two things.

First, they are understaffed…there is one person serving the entire bar and the floor. She does what she can but that is a lot to pay attention to. The second, you stick to everything. The floor, the table, the menus. This place cannot have had a deep clean since we were last there and years of beer and grease have turned it into a human flytrap. I picked my napkin up and three pieces of it remained glued to the table. I was starting to wonder if we shouldn’t sneak out.

We risked their homemade stuffed mushrooms, a wild wing sandwich with fries and a sandwich called the fat man. There has to be a better way to plate the mushrooms, they look way too much like chunky vomit in an emesis basin. They  were better than they looked, stuffed with bits of shrimp and jalapeno whooped into cream cheese and topped with Monterey Jack cheese. Once you got past the visual they were okay. The wing sandwich was somewhere around functional as well. Tenders, fried, sliced, tossed in mild sauce and set on a bun. What else is there to know. It’s served with Brew City fries which are tasty and crispy, but not theirs.
 

I Wouldn't Call Them Appealing
 

But The Shrooms Were Alright
 

Non Descript Chicken Sandwich
 

But The Bought In Fries Are Pretty Tasty
 

The fat man, (the sandwich, not me) comes with two thick slices of toast, philly steak, chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, onion rings, BBQ sauce and coleslaw. I have seen a few places on tv making a name of serving these frankenstinean piles of sandwich and have wondered if they are tasty or just sloppy messes of calories. Spunks is a sloppy mess of calories, no question. The slices of steak were completely unseasoned. The coleslaw soaked every possible hope of crisp from the onion rings, mozzarella sticks or chicken fingers into a disgustingly gooey mush. Individually the ingredients tasted frozen and mediocre and only got worse when combined.

Believe it or not…this trip was better than our last. It wasn’t enough to make me interested in another…even four years from now.
 

This Thing Is Enormous
 

An Enormous Failure
 

Spunkmeyer's Pub
 Wadsworth, Ohio          Date of Visit: 06/03/10                  http://www.spunkmeyers.com/

Now some places are restaurants with bars, others are bars that serve food, and Spunks has forever confused me regarding which they were aspiring to be. There have been outings where the food has been good and others that make me worry about ordering sandwiches. Well, since we started this experiment, we thought we would give them an official try. They have an expansive menu, but is it more than they can manage?

This day was evidently a day we were eating at a bar that happens to have a kitchen. More than half of the patrons were sitting at the bar, restricting themselves to a liquid only diet. Everyone else was at least drinking, indicating that no one had come for food alone.

Entirely Disappointing & Shrimpless "Bisque"
 

The cheesy broccoli bites, I suspect, are not the same they used to serve. I remember the coating being thinner and tastier (saltier) than what we had on this occasion and the sweet and spicy sauce they used to be accompanied by was replaced with a much less interesting ranch.

The burger was fine and the bleu cheese had a nice pungent flavor that stood up to the burger itself. Unfortunately, the fish and chips did not manage to stand up to the perfectly average burger. The plate was huge and hot but the fish had ongoing notes of that ammonia-esqe stink that screams “I’m not fresh!” The service was friendly but not necessarily well trained and half of the t.v.’s were not working or turned on resulting in some chiropractic-like adjustments to catch a score or two.

Hot Broccoli Innards

Burger was Okay
 

On a positive note, the beer of the month happened to be Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy. While I typically prefer a more bitter and darker brew, this was a bright hoppy and lemony summer ale. If they had brewed it in-house they might have gotten more credit. Given our most recent experience, you might be better off trusting your palate and lack of sobriety at the rail than in a booth at Spunkmeyers.

One Note of Redemption