It Was More Like "I Like This Bar"

Between my schedule and hers, my bud Doona and I have a hard time getting together. It feels like we have to schedule weeks in advance. So, when we do go out, we need a place where it's comfortable to sit and BS for hours. Some restaurants make you feel a little uncomfortable because their money is made in turning over tables but bars are good. Bars want you to sit for hours…and order drinks, of course.

After tossing several dates back and forth, we finally agreed to meet at a new place last week. Toby Keith opened one of his "I Love This Bar & Grill" operations at Mesa Riverview so we decided to check it out.

I got there before Doona so I wandered around the place a bit. The whole thing is pretty big with a huge bar in the middle that has lots of seating. There are several well placed TVs and they open early on Sunday so it might be a good football/sports place. There are several pictures of Toby, signed albums, framed uniforms from his troop visits and lots of picture of the troops themselves. Nice.

Doona did NOT steal these menus but she did squirrel away other mementos.

Also nice was the music. You know, I like two kinds of music: Country and Western. They had lots of Brad Paisley which made me very, very happy. Of course, there was plenty of Toby but I liked the variety of other artists.

Food is served in all areas: bar, cocktail and restaurant. We chose a cocktail high top table and had pretty quick service. They were running some happy hour specials so we ordered onion rings, boneless buffalo wings and Doona got a salad. The onion rings on a paper towel holder (as Doona named them) were pretty good and her salad was huge. The wings were actually more like tenders with very little sauce. I found them to be a bit disappointing.

That's a big beer!

They had Four Peaks Kiltlifter on tap so I ordered one and was asked "pint or mason jar?" Mason jar, of course! Man, it's a good thing I only had 2 beers because those jars were huge.

Service slowed down as they got busy. We were clearly done with some of our dishes and glasses and they didn't get picked up despite the many folks running around and serving food and drink. That's kind of a pet peeve with me.

Just as we started thinking about moseying, a band (maybe just one guy?) started a sound check. There's a pretty nice stage in one end of the restaurant and I can see where it could be a rocking place later at night.

Overall, it was a nice place to visit but I don't know that I'd go out of my way to go there again. I guess I could be persuaded if they had some good live music going on but for just drinking and eating, probably not going to be on my list.