Three of us met my wife's parents at Ralphie's Sports Eatery for lunch when they opened at 11am on…read moreSaturday. Being the first customers, we had our pick of tables at the restaurant, however we asked to be moved to a different table, because the music coming out of the speakers above the first table was so deafening that the grandparents could not hear us. Instead, the hostess moved us to a table under a speaker which was just merely loud. While we liked how speedily the waitress brought our drinks -three waters, a diet, and a Pepsi- when we said we needed a few more minutes to review the menu before ordering food, we were surprised that she took over 10 minutes before she checked back with us again. The menu is big, but not that big! Eventually we were able to place our orders: wraps for my in-laws, southwestern chicken chunks with onion straws for my wife, buffalo mac 'n cheese for my child, and for me, the chipotle BBQ bacon cheddar burger -cooked "pink" please!- with onion rings.
While our food arrived in a reasonable period of time, it looked ... off. The southwestern chunks and buffalo mac 'n cheese had clearly spent quite some time under the warmer, because the cheese at the edges of the plates were crispied and cooked dark brown and hard, whereas the cheese in the center was separating into the watery whey and the curds. Likewise, my burger not only was not the "pink" I had requested, but it had been cooked down to a dry, nearly flavourless disc. The chipotle BBQ sauce might have been tasty, but it had been so stingily applied to my sandwich, I could not tell (there was so little sauce on my burger, that not a single drip of it came off my sandwich to land on my plate while I was eating). On the plus side, the onion rings were hot and tasted good, and my mother-in-law said her club wrap was good.
Service during our meal was ... uneven. After she took our orders, the waitress never checked back with us until the food arrived. As such, my Pepsi had long ago run dry, and my wife's diet was nearly empty. After that, she did better at bringing refills for our sodas, but never once asked the water drinkers if they wanted more. The waitress also was not very engaging with us (my father-in-law described her as having no personality), and she mostly just seemed to be going through the motions in a perfunctory fashion.
PROS: the music was so loud that I could not get myself in trouble with my in-laws by telling any off-colour stories; also, the onion rings were good
CONS: food that over cooked and over warmed, and wait staff who were just phoning it in
Overall I am going to rate Ralphie's Sports Eatery as being Meh and say that we might or might not return.
