When this place opened, a friend said to me, 'Tucson needs a place like this." What she meant was that Tucson needed a place where parents could take their school-age children and hang out for an afternoon. Kids get video games and whatever esle it is they do while I watch the game. Parents get beer and a couch. World Sports Grille is sort of on the Dave & Buster's vibe, lots of video games, lots of big screen tvs, good beer on tap, plenty of salted, fried food. Tucson does need a place like that. World Sports Grille just isn't it.
It looks promising. The layout of the place is well thought out. There are quiet areas where you can sit and chat, and communal clusters of seats scattered about. There are a lot of video games for the kids, huge tvs for the big kids (including a 103 incher) and somehow, although the place is usually pretty crowded, it never gets too loud to talk.
The service is, well, ok. Most of the time, though competent, the servers seem a bit overwhelmed. But the food and drinks come out relatively quickly.
It's the food that's the disaster.
I like bar food. I like fries, I like sandwiches, I like a big sloppy burger. What I don't like is walking into a bar and being handed a ten page menu. That's a sure sign of trouble.
A bar shouldn't try to be something it isn't. Case in point: World Sports Grille has an entire page of their menu devoted to tangine meals. That's right. A sports bar is bringing Morroccan clay oven cooking to Raiders' fans everywhere. Mistake.
That signal telegraphs a confused kitchen. People don't want to be challenged by bar food. They don't want to expand their horizons. They want tastes they know. Who the hell comes to a bar to eat pepper steak or fettucine? Apparently the owners think we do. They're very very wrong about that. So wrong, I have to wonder if they've ever actually been in a bar. In any case, if you are in any restaurant that hands you a menu of that size, alarm bells should go off. Freaking Eric Ripert couldn't master a menu that size.
But worried or not, we were hungry. First, we ordered a sampler platter of appetizers. That should be nice and safe, right? It also should give you an idea of what the kitchen thinks it does well.
Apparently, what this kitchen does well is cold fried food. But it's potato skins and egg rolls and chicken wings, right? Even lukewarm, that's still going to be good, right? Wrong. Man, are you wrong.
Memo to World Sports Grille. Potato skins should have cheese, bacon and chives on them. Or at least something edible. Not chewy precooked chicken and chopped black olives. Black olives? Really, guys? I almost ate one just to see if it tasted as bad as it looked. Instead, I had my wife try one. I'm still on the couch.
The best thing were the chicken wings. Relatively moist, relatively flavorful. Full of hope, we asked for two full orders for the table, one regular heat, one three-alarm. The three-alarm arrived with dire predictions from the wait staff that we were in for a thorough palate-scorching.
The three-alarm wings turned out to be regular chicken wings rolled in red pepper flakes. And they weren't hot. Not at all. They were bland. Very bland.
World Sport Grille feels like a place that started as a good idea. Big tvs. Video games. Couches. Good grub. But then, somewhere in the middle of development, someone who knows very, very little about restaurants, sports or bars took over. And that person is still running things.
It's the details that make the difference in a restaurant. As a customer, you want to feel like someone is paying attention, that somewhere, there is a hand on the tiller. Because, take it from me, you don't want to see the walk-in frig in a place where noone is paying particular attention. And World Sports Grille has that vibe. For example, a couple of my friends like to drink Corona. I know, but they're good people. Really.
Anyway, what comes with your Corona? Right, a lime to squeeze into the beer. A little wedge of lime. Not a quarter of a lime that no person could possibly fit into a bottle. It's a sad sight to watch a grown woman try to slice a wedge of lime with a table knife. But that's the salient image from our visit there.
World Sports Grille is a pretty good idea. Hopefully, before too long, someone who knows something about restaurants will buy it.
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