West Wichita’s news sports bar opened their doors this week to the public and we stopped by to get an unbiased and secret shopper opinion on this new chain in town.
Hurricane Sports Grill and Wings, which is a chain based out of Florida, has 80 restaurants around the country and decided to bring their flair to the the Air Capital. Their official opening was on Monday so after a few days, a few friends and I stopped in on a busy Wednesday evening to get a glance at the ambiance, service and food.
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8641 W 13th St N
Wichita, KS 67212
316-260-9686
Sunday – Thursday: 11am – 11pm
Friday – Saturday: 11am – Midnight
Cash/Card Accepted
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The first thing you’ll notice when you walk into Hurricane Grill’s island themed restaurant is the place is BRIGHT inside. It’s the first thing each of us said as we walked into the restaurant. Lights shine down from everywhere so it feels like daylight at all times. Plus with bright colors and decor all over the place, they really do what they can to give it a daytime island theme.
While Hurricane Grill seats 142 diners, the place looked fairly small and narrow inside. But that’s probably the least of anybody’s concern. It just surprised us as we were expecting this big huge restaurant. For sports fans, there are 28 televisions strategically placed throughout so you shouldn’t have any problem finding a seat with a good view.
One of the things Hurricane Sports Grill is popular for are their 35 dipping sauces. There are so many to choose from it can be intidimidating. Fortunately they have a little sauce bar that allows you to sample every sauce available at your convenience. You can check out their list of flavors here. We sampled around 10 different ones and enjoyed Boss, Hot Teriyaki, Honey Chipotle BBQ, and Sweet Red Chili. But that wasn’t even a third of them so I’m sure there were more we would like.
Hurricane also has a fully loaded menu and 20 beers on tap. We couldn’t leave without trying some of their food. So for dinner we ordered the following:
- Hurricane Nachos: Crisp tortilla chips loaded with house chili, queso cheese, and jalapeños. Drizzled with Ancho Chile Lime crema and topped with diced tomatoes, red onions, and sour cream.
- Steakhouse Sandwich: Grilled sliced steak served medium on toasted garlic bread, topped with Monterey jack cheese, jumbo onions rings, and a spicy horseradish sauce.
- 10 bone-in wings and 10 boneless wings
- Hurricane’s Garlic ‘N Parm Fries: Natural-cut fries tossed in our Garlic Parm sauce
No one goes to a sports bar expecting the food to blow them away. But after finishing our dinner, everybody was very pleased with what they ordered. The Steakhouse sandwich was a big portion and my friend found her steak to be very tender. She finished half of it and was excited she had lunch all ready to go for tomorrow with the leftovers. While the Hurricane nachos were on the salty side, it included homemade chips along with real chili and chicken which made for a unique combination but overall a tasty one. The wings weren’t mind blowing but they were just really good wings with a fair amount of meat on each wing. I was tempted to order the jumbo bone-in wings but ended up opting for their regular ones. And if you love garlic and parmesan, you’ll love the flavor. Only gripe about the fries was they were a big soggy and lacked any crisp to it. The flavor was there but the texture of a good fry was missing.
For the ambiance, I read reviews that people found it to be too loud but that wasn’t the case with us. We sat by the bar area and had no problem hearing each others conversations. The ambiance was nice aside from how incredibly bright it was inside. The service was very friendly. Ticket times were pretty fair for how new and busy they were that evening.
Hurricane’s future (and interior) looks bright. The west side of town isn’t really known for their plethora of sports bars. So if Hurricane can get the service down right, they just might have found their niche in the 13th and Tyler area of town.
Happy Dining,
Eddy
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Not a very good value for the wings.
Happy hour would be ok. After that forget it.
Don’t order a side of broccoli No value
Burger good but not big enough for $10.99
Undercooked burger had to send back and didn’t offer any consolation.
The bartenders are very rude I had to wait 30 minutes for a beer and 20 minutes for a menu everyone was very rude.