My family and went here on a Monday night. It wasn't super busy and we were seated right away. Half…read moreour group ordered tap beers from their lengthy beer menu. One of the options we wanted was out which I have heard is a fairly common thing with certain beers here. For an appetizer we ordered the bone-in Buffalo wings. They were so good and the best item that I had during this meal. I would go back for the wings alone. One of the members of my group who has been here before said the boneless wings are not good and he would only recommend the bone-in wings. For it being a Monday night and not very busy I felt like the food was taking longer than necessary, but this was my first time, so I didn't have anything to compare it to. Majority of the table ordered burgers. We all enjoyed them, but didn't think it was the best burger ever. My favorite was the jalapeño popper burger, but I really don't think you could go wrong with any of the burgers. I liked this place and will be back if the opportunity comes, but I don't think it will be a staple restaurant in our house.

This restaurant open where the Old Chicago was located in Ankeny. They did some remodel and it…read morelooks great. Huge bar when you walk in and plenty of seats. We were seated and waiting on in a good amount of time. My hubs loved the cheese cubes. They're delicious. Kids got wings they liked. I got the 1/2 soup and salad. I like they have that option. Hubs got the burger. All food was great. Definite things I want to go back and try. It's bar food and then some. So if this is the environment you like to eat in, I highly recommend. They have a selection of craft beers and many, many TVs to watch what you want!!

Thao and Kara welcomed us to our first visit to the Smoking Goat Pub like we were family. We…read morestumbled upon this place through a different channel, and decided to give it a try. We are so glad we did. The atmosphere is a dicey but very clean and the vibe looks like a great time. It was a quiet afternoon but the ladies went out of their way to make us feel like we belonged. This visit was only for a couple of cocktails but we saw some food come from the kitchen and it looked on point! Kara made a tasty treat and shared it with some of at the bar and that sealed the deal! We will be back in to give it a shot. I will update my review on the food after that! See you soon!

Stopped in for lunch, had the (really good) house specialty burger. The service was excellent and…read morethe staff was friendly. Didn't get to sample any of their beers but the selection was definitely appealing.

Needed lunch and WOW! I left thrilled. The Ornery Chicken & The Crafty Mac --- I'd never considered…read moredill pickles on Mac and cheese but it turned out to be perfection. Looking forward to next time!

Sandwich was very good, same with the tater tots. Instructions on getting your food is unclear. It…read moresays carry out but when we walked in to get our food the cook was very upset and made it clear that we were not supposed to be in the building. Could've went about it in a nicer manner, seemed sketchy

We ventured into Boulder Tap House for a later dinner this past Sunday. Boulder Tap House appears…read moreto be a midwest chain with 11 locations throughout Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. It's amazing how many restaurants are closed on Sunday in Ames... Not much of a demand for Sunday dine-in business in a college town I guess...? Lol Fortunately Boulder Tap House is open from at least 1100 AM until 1000 PM every day of the week. Boulder Tap House sits just off of the Southeast corner of South Duff and East Lincoln Way. It has a large parking lot and it's easy to access. We were greeted right away when we walked in and shown to a booth. Seating is a mix of low and high top tables and chairs, booths, and standard stool seating around the bar. There are TONS of TVs around the dining room and bar; most of which had football games running on them. Our server was named Zach. He stopped by shortly after we were seated, introduced himself and dropped off menus etc., and took our drink orders (Pepsi products). He was back shortly with the first round of drinks and to take our food order. We ordered: 1x Unsweetened ice tea 1x Cherry Pepsi 1x Cheddar house made Boulder cheese cubes 1x Medium (12) order of wings with their honey BBQ sauce. Blue cheese on the side 1x Side salad with ranch dressing 1x Swicy burger and fries Zach was attentive and personable and provided good service the entire meal. He made sure to check on us several times and kept our drink glasses topped off. I HIGHLY recommend the cheese cubes! Choose cheddar, white cheddar, or pepper jack cheese. Served with Burger Co. sauce. The Burger Co. sauce reminded me of a spicy ranch. These things are HUGE. Each will take you at least two bites. They were hot and fresh right out of the fryer. I cut mine in half with a fork to make them more bite size... And to avoid 3rd degree burns from the molten cheese! Lol The wings were sauced well and cooked perfectly! Very good! The swicy burger is where I'm torn. I see other reviews of this burger and everyone really seems to like it. It tasted okay... But I feel like it's trying too hard. Here's how it's described on the menu: "A little bit of sweet and a little bit of spice. A 6oz Angus burger patty topped with ghost pepper jack cheese, fried jalapeños, spicy peach sauce, butter leaf lettuce, tomato and pickles. Served on a toasted bun." First of all there was no tomato or pickles on mine... I didn't request them to be held so I'm not sure what happened there. There was a piece of lettuce...it was entirely covered up by the patty. I didn't even know it was on there until I bit into it. I was okay with this. The beef didn't taste fresh to me. I grew up in a small rural Iowa town of 500 where my dad was the city maintenance man. His boss (the mayor) also ran the local meat locker... It tasted like an overcooked frozen patty. Though I believe Boulder Tap House advertises fresh ground chuck...never frozen...at a lot of their locations. I'm not sure how it's distributed to the Ames location. In any case the taste of the beef was overshadowed by the topping to the point it became a texture v. the focus of the sandwich. All of the burgers listed using the 6 oz Angus patty are advertised the same way. Very heavy on the specialty toppings... The regular burger on the menu is advertised as a 8 oz burger patty (not specifically Angus). Same with the Smashburger (two 4 oz patties). Maybe the patties on these two items are different quality? I took a small piece of the burger itself and it wasn't great. It had the taste you come to expect with frozen patties. It was just meh. It lacked the flavor of fresh beef. I expected better for a $16 burger and fry combo. I kind of felt like the last burger I got at a Chili's was better meat. Now the fries though... Lightly battered and then fried! Served hot. On the thinner side... But these were exceptionally good...! I'd probably avoid the burgers on any future trips to a Boulder Tap House. But that's just me! If you like the novelty of topping and don't care about the quality of the beef. You do you! And I could be wrong about the patty...that's just how it tasted to me. I would go back. However next time I'd stick to the appetizers, wings, or one of the other sandwiches! Our meal overall was good. Payment is done with your server at the table. Everything was reasonably priced. Zach was terrific!

This place is casual and lively. When we walked in, I can smell the greasy air in the whole…read morerestaurant. We came for dinner with a group of coworkers and half of us didn't like the food. The servers got our orders wrong (we ordered bone in wings and they gave us boneless) and she took it back and have us waited for another 10 mins. My potato soup was horrible, looks like from bottom of the pot that we so thick that I could used a folk to scoop and tasted nothing like potato. The Caesar salad dressing was sour. The cheese curd was good but can't have more than 2. Overall, didn't like the food and experience.

Excellent quality food, friendly staff and service. The only downside is they are so popular…read moresometimes waiting in the drive-thru line can be lengthy. Still worth it though.

The chicken sandwich was perfectly cooked. Super moist on the inside. The outside was nice and…read morecrispy. I didn't even eat it right away and it was still hot when I opened it. I had time to drive home and unload groceries so that tells me it was fresh fresh. The wait was long in the drive thru. I expected that when I pulled in so I can't really complain there. The fries and batter were pretty salty. That was my only "complaint". I think it must be seasoned salt because it had a different taste but yeah, too salty. (Which is saying a lot because I like salt.) I'd eat here again. When I have time to wait in line. lol

This is located in the food court in Merle Hay Mall, I believe they are fairly new. I ordered 6 of…read moretheir Firehouse Original wings and then 6 of their Fiery wings. The wait was a little less than 10 minutes for them to cook/prepare the wings, I was the only customer. (This wait was a little long for food court food in my opinion) The first things I noticed when my order was ready was I had 12 of each flavor in the baskets instead of the 6 of each I order (the charge was for 12 total wings). The friend I ate with stated when they got wings from here in the past they were much bigger, so it's possible they only had small wings so they give double the order. The wings come with either Bleu cheese or ranch, I opted for the Bleu cheese like I always do. The wings were okay...I mean, I probably won't get them again, but it was still reasonable in taste that I would mention it was not good. The Bleu cheese was very very chunky, there were huge pieces of cheese (which is good/bad based on your preference) Honestly, the two flavors tasted pretty identical, I could tell the difference in taste, but it was subtle. Overall, give it a try and see for yourself.

Was a little confused about where to go because the exterior didn't match the name of the business…read more But I trusted my nose and followed that amazing smell of chicken! The women who welcomed us and took our order were so friendly and the chef let us know it would take a bit because he was dropping it in hot. I was surprised to find several drummies instead of a big piece of chicken but made sharing much easier. Chicken was hot and crispy and seasoning was amazing! The waffle was good but was outshone by the chicken. Overall amazing experience and will be following this business and checking them out again!

Chicken, Waffle and syrup, who knew!!!!! My first time eating this combination, experiencing the…read moreKitchen Space and eating from GG's Chicken and Waffles. It was also my first Yelp perks event. Instructions were not clear on what to do when I arrived. Was able to see someone was asking who were at a laptop. A man came out and announced they were going to be making our meals fresh and they would start coming out. I made the assumption he was the chef and owner. I would have enjoyed hearing the history of the business and more from the event coordinators. Hearing their story would add to my word of mouth references when someone asks what have we been doing that is new. When the food came out it was piping hot. It would have easily made a 20 minute drive home and still stay fresh. I choose the original chicken. It had good classic flavor and appearance. I was surprised it was wings and drumsticks as I was expecting a large chicken breast or thigh. The smaller chicken was easier to eat and manage. Chicken was not crisp which made it feel more home made then other restaurant too. It looked and tasted hand breaded which was a great treat and I prefer. The waffle was nice sweet add to the meal. I will definitely try this combination again. As we were eating, we were served fresh peach cobbler. It was so hot it steamed when I opened the container. I immediately stopped eating the chicken and moved to the dessert. It was delicious. Runner then cobblers I typically have. There was enough food I shared with my spouse when returning home.

Great Korean Fried chicken!…read more You'll spend a decent bit, but you will end up with lots of food and sides! Great flavor on the wings and the sides were well prepared as well. Service took just a few minutes to have our food delivered on a decently busy Friday night, but I think that was more so due to having to make our food to be fresh!

I've tried three Korean Fried Chicken restaurants in the Des Moines metro area and this one does…read morenot cut it. First, we had to clean our table. It had food left over on it and was greasy but they were so busy they couldn't get to cleaning it. We ordered the 5 piece bone-in and boneless chicken plates with the double dunk sauce. The bone-in chicken wings were so small it made me laugh. Needless to say, the chicken did not fill me up at all. Instead, the sides that the meal came with (white rice, potato salad, pickled radish, macaroni and cheese) were surprisingly large and filled my stomach. For $14, I didn't think I would be paying for an entree of sides and a side of chicken. The mini fried chicken was also soggy! I noticed those around us had just their fried chicken with no sauce so they probably figured out it arrives soggy. And it was lukewarm in temperature and not hot out of the fryer. Service was friendly though when they were taking our order. The restaurant is pretty much self serve where you get your own water, and utensils and return your plates to the designated area. The two stars are for the sides and service--not the chicken. If you want good fried chicken that is a reasonable to large size and where the fried batter still remains crispy after having sauce poured over it, I recommend Chikin Lickin.

Wingz On Wheelz is located in the Advanced Auto Parts parking lot…read more I've been wanting to check this truck out FOREVER, but I wasn't sure if it could live up to the hype I'd heard from others. Spoiler... It sure did. I wandered down University Ave to MLK, through the construction in the Drake area, and the truck was easy to spot. I got there at about 620ish PM. There's ample parking in the lot of the auto parts store. A small crowd had built up. Some people were waiting to order...some were just waiting for their food. Social distancing was being observed for the most part. 50 cent wing Wednesdays. I'm not a big fan of a standard buffalo sauce so I really like that they have a lot of different options to choose from. Some spicy some not. Hopefully you can see the list by zooming in on the picture of the menu board. I ordered 10 garlic parmesan and 10 Cajun wings, but I didn't stop there. I had to try the shrimp and catfish too... I don't even want to talk about cost... I spent too much, but I have lunch for tomorrow. The ordering process went smoothly. I had a bit of a wait, but even though I wasn't the only one standing they kept me updated from the window and apologized for the wait when my number was called. Stellar customer service from a very busy truck. The wings were cooked perfectly. Not dry and not undercooked. The sauces and seasoning was nicely done. I like it when the taste of the chicken is complimented and not overpowered. They are a little on the small side, but if I recall correctly they are... Ahhhh... I forget the fancy word. No hormones. They're better for you and the all naturally raised wings tend to be a little smaller. It's all good. The catfish was excellent. Once again cooked perfectly. The breading had a great texture and taste. The fillet broke away easily to expose the white flesh. You could tell it was catfish, but it wasn't a strong catfish taste. I grew up eating bullheads and channel cats. It's something I love. A comfort food for me. I really enjoyed this menu item. These would be perfect for a po'boy. That being said... The shrimp. These are legit. To put anything on these, outside of just popping them in your mouth with the seasoned breading, would be a crime. I can honestly say as far as fried breaded shrimp these may be the best fried shrimp I've ever had. The breading isn't thick, and the shrimp are really nice sized. They hit a perfect balance. This truck has moved into my top three local trucks from the jump. Obviously popular from it's crowd, a good staff, and excellent food. I wish I wouldn't have waited so long to give them a try... I'll definitely be a return customer. Don't take my word for it though... Go check them out.

Well, you know this girl is always all about supporting Black business. I had high hopes for this…read morefabulous truck with beautiful food photos. I visited on a Saturday drive into Des Moines. The food came out in a reasonable amount of time and was fresh and hot. The portions were pretty great and it looked good, but it just didn't taste that spectacular. I had higher expectations for a Black owned food truck serving in a diverse area in Des Moines. The food was cooked perfectly, but it wasn't seasoned well enough. There wasn't much flavor and pizzazz to it. If you care more about crunch then flavor, hit them up. They had a steady stream of business and people seem to like it. Sadly, it just didn't do it for me.