It’s been a good year since my last visit to Hurricane Sports Grill. Since then it’s been said many changes have taken place from the food to the service to the prices. Original reviews slammed Hurricane for a multitude of reasons. Since we are all about second chances here at Wichita By E.B., we gave it some time and decided to head back during March Madness to get a glimpse of Hurricane during what should be a peak season in the sports bar world.
==========
8641 W 13th St N
Wichita, KS 67212
316-260-9686
Sunday – Thursday: 11am – 10pm
Friday – Saturday: 11am – 11pm
Cash/Card Accepted
==========
There was a decent crowd inside for the NCAA Tournament. By no means was itĀ busy but it had a steady flow of customers. I was glad to see they still had their sauces out but it was a little sad looking compared to my last visit when they had twenty of their sauces available. You can check out their list of flavorsĀ here. We sampled around 10 different ones and sweet red chili was easily my favorite.
The special of the day was 10 bone-in or boneless wings for $9.99. This was the sale price compared to the regular $13.49 which still seemed pretty high. Feeling in the mood for wings, we went with the two orders of ten wings. The menu said you could add a side of fries and coleslaw for $2.49. We were told wings were made to order so it’d be about twelve minutes and they were delivered as scheduled.
We ordered some dry rub wings along with naked wings so we could try out different sauces. By far the biggest improvements at Hurricane were the fries and food delivery times. Last time I remember the fries being soggy and fairly bland. This time, there was a nice crisp and seasoning to them that left us battling it out for the final fries left on the plate.
The wings were very meaty. I really enjoyed the Jamaican jerk dry rub. It wasn’t spicy but it was very flavorful. As for the naked wings, we felt they were OK at best. Perhaps it was our mistake and we should have ordered them with sauce. We’ve had naked wings before and these felt a little flat.
The service was ten times better this time around. Food delivery was timely, our drinks were refilled at all times and they checked up on us at appropriate intervals.
When we tabbed out, we noticed our bill was much higher than it should have been. Come to find out, if you order fries and coleslaw with your wings, they charge you the regular full price amount of $16. Compared to probably 90% of sports bars in town that is the highest price you’ll find for ten wings, fries and coleslaw. We were told the $2.49 fries and coleslaw doesn’t apply to the special which was fine.
What was funny though, if you ordered the $9.99 wing special and then ordered two sides from the a la carte side menu it would have been cheaper. Yet our server said since she rang up the wings with the fries and coleslaw, it charged us the full $16 price which made no sense to us. But whatever, we paid it after being mislead on their special of the day. As they say, “Caveat emptor“.
All of that just really left a sour taste in my mouth. If you’ve been hit with bad reviews, why not go out of your way to always focus on the customer? It’s annoying to me when servers just shrug their shoulders. Oh well. While the earlier part of our visit was nice, the food wasn’t exactly great to make us want to go out of our way to return. It felt like just another sports bar in town still with higher prices…..
Here’s their menu:
Happy Dining,
Eddy
To nominate your restaurant or event to be considered for a review, please email us with your restaurant information. We are always open to suggestions.
Check out more from Wichita By E.B. by visiting our social media sites:
