Hangar of Agawam — Restaurant in Agawam

Now that I am reading the reviews, the kind of experience I had with the kitchen and FOH service as a liaison between the customer and the kitchen is more common than the owners want to admit. Train your cooks not to serve cold food and train your FOH to give service instead of snark guys. This place has too many good reviews for the bad ones to NOT stick out like a sore thumb. Now for my evening at The Hangar. When visiting new areas, trying the beer and “the best wings” in or around town is one of my favorite things to do. I am here for work and was driving around looking for a “brewery”. The Hangar was the most popular result on Google Maps, so I go. Normally, I sit, order, eat, drink, pay, and leave; but tonight was an exceptionally bad experience. I walked in and sat at a mostly empty bar, probably 6 people seated amongst the 20ish empty chairs. Without acknowledgment from staff, I choose a beer and decide that I need some of these excellent wings doused in sweet, spicy smelling sauces. Eventually, a bartender comes over takes my drink order, kindly brings me my beer, takes my food order (while double checking I don’t want more food? That felt a bit weird.), and heads to a terminal to enter in my order. Here’s where the problems being for me, the kitchen sold me old food that had sat in a fryer basket, over prepped from a previous order. The cook decided that was okay AND a server/expo/runner also thought that was okay. Wanna know how I know they were old? Besides the wings being room temperature, they came out in under 5 minutes. When I remarked, “Wow… that was fast?” because I am a chef and life long line cook (and human with common sense) and I know how long chicken takes to get to 165. The server who dropped them off didn’t say a word, and walked away. When the bartender who opened my tab came back and asked if everything was okay, I let her know about the wings and before I could finish the sentence I was forming, she cut me off and said that the kitchen would remake them. Okay, no need to get defensive of Jeremy the Fry Guy out back. When I said I’d prefer them just taken off the bill and her face dropped and she gave me a clearly annoyed, “ OoooKayy…” and walked away. That was all it took for me to drop a $10 on the bar to cover my delicious beer and walk out. When someone doesn’t want to risk food born illness, don’t give them crap about it, just take the old, cold food off the bill. Even if I was indignant (I wasn’t) food safety isn’t a joke or worth the $3 in product that fry cook was trying to save your KM. I...

This location used to be great but the last few times I got takeout it's been all over the place... Dine in has been fine tho we don't sit down there very often so who knows.

First off I ordered for later in case I hit traffic but got there 15 min early and it was already sitting out, everything was already getting cold and soggy and would have been ice cold had I gotten there at the scheduled time.

Somehow it was both soggy and hard on some pieces so that was fun.

I ordered asking for 1/3 of buffalo and 2/3 golden BBQ in separate boxes and noticed they were in the same box and asked the girl at the register about it she kind of brushed me off and told me sometimes they separate it with wax paper... Well they used wax paper but just kind of folded it in half in between the different chicken which doesn't actually stop the sauces from mixing which was the entire point of getting separate boxes, tho maybe that doesn't matter because they barely used any sauce on the golden BBQ, which is what makes it gross and soggy. Ontop of that they gave me more buffalo than BBQ! This isn't the first time they did this either. Last time I called and they replaced it but honestly I don't really want to drive back there tonight even if they offered to make it right. Besides if it were like what they served me to begin with I don't have any interest in it.

Finally the portions on the sides are incredibly inconsistent, you eat there and get a pile of fries for a large to big to finish and tonight I got a measly box of soggy fries that is what I'd expect a small to be... Same with the fried pickles that cost $10, I got maybe half of what I usually get.... Just overall one of the worst takeout experiences I've had in quite some time. And if they hadn't already been going down hill with their takeout I probably wouldn't have left this review over one bad meal but...

So, I'd like to say that Hangar in Agawam is amazing, because don't get me wrong, they have moments of greatness, but my experience is usually not that great. I'll start with the wings. The sauces are great, the flavors are great, the wings themselves? Not even close. Even when I specify "not crispy" I 9 times out of 10, get double cooked food. And I know it's double cooked, because I spent almost a decade in restaurants as a cook and manager. If you spend $40+ on wings, and specify not crispy, and you get them home, and they are hard, crunchy, and chewy, you're gonna be severely disappointed. And the best they can do is say "oh, well bring them back and we'll remake them." Or "we can give you a credit on your next order." But after a while, that gets old. At what point do you address the root cause, and retrain your cooks to stop redropping wings? Because that's exactly what it is. Or maybe make the wings a little smaller so they don't need to cook as long. There's so much potential here, and more often than not, it just falls flat. But, I'm hopeful, so I keep going back, and because Westfield is too damn far of a drive for me. Eat at your own risk, you're either gonna get great food, or double cooked, hard, tough, chewy wings.

Tonight 2/5/22 was my last straw with this place. I get it's a Saturday and your busy, but I ordered my food, for pick up and was told 7:45pm, so I got there for 7:45, and was told my food "wasn't quite ready, but would be out in a couple minutes." 30 minutes later, my food finally came out and I was able to go home. Luckily I checked my food first, because they forgot the Bleu cheese..then I get home, and I specifically asked for not crispy, and surprise! They crunchy and chewy and taste like they were refried and then covered in sauce to hide it. I'm done. My initial review was a 3* I'm...