Spirits Pub & Grub — Restaurant in Cary

PLEASEANTLY SURPRISED!! Good food, great service, and overall positive experience.

Decided to go to Spirits Pub & Grub for their weekly trivia on Wednesday nights, we were hesitant going in because the menu seemed kind of generic then when we arrived we seemed to be the only ones under 30. Those judgments were quickly placated by the warm atmosphere and delicious looking food.

For apps we ordered onion rings and the beet salad. Beet salad was delicious: lettuce, walnuts, goat cheese, and of course beets w/balsamic dressing was a perfect combination. Well done! The onion rings, by far the BEST ONION RINGS I'VE EVER HAD. They obviously make them in house, each ring is more than an inch wide and at least two onion layers thick, making them substantial and not stringy like you often find. When you bite into the onion ring, it actually cuts through the onion and you're not left with a hollow bread carcass. The breading was homemade and also very flavorful obvious notes of pepper, salt, garlic powder (or garlic salt). My only critique on the rings is to reduce the salt/garlic and make sure it mixes evenly in the batter as they were several bites that were overpoweringly salty/garlicky, but still the best onion rings I've ever had.

The entrees we had the reuben sandwich and the breakfast burger (+jalapenos). They brine their reuben in house and on the menu they explicitly call out that the reuben does not use saltpeter. The reuben was good, not great, as it was somewhat bland. Not an expert on reubens though. Came with a side of fries, which were delicious. The breakfast burger was delicious. The beef patty was very moist, contrasted with the salty bacon, and again leveled with the mellowness of the egg on top. (Pro tip: add jalapenos to the burger for a fuller experience). While the burger was very good, I do wish their burger options were more creative. Most of the burger options were pretty generic (one option literally titled 'Basic Burger' was just a burger). They had a burger of the month that was really unique, maybe having another burger of the month that rotated offering a different perspective for the more adventurous patrons.

The night we went the place was PACKED (pun intended because everyone was wearing NCSU apparel) and it took some time to get service, order drinks, and receive our apps, but our waiter went above and beyond to provide fair service to us. As we were engrossed with trivia, we didn't even notice how much time had past before our apps came out, but he had decided to comp our drinks because he thought it took too long. It wasn't asked for or needed, but it was very much appreciated!

Overall great experience, would definitely recommend for a casual dining experience with good food for a family or friends getting together. Would definitely recommend checking out the trivia on Wednesdays!

Sorry the pictures aren't great, was famished and dug in, forgot to even take pictures of...

Went for dinner for the first time. Ordered buttermilk fried chicken sandwich and Nashville hot chicken sandwich. The on-tap brews were great and the fries were fantastic. Some of the best in the area.

The fixins' on the sandwiches were good. The chicken was not. It was a 3 ounce piece of chicken pounded to a 1/4 inch thick to cover the bread/bun and breaded as if it was a 6 ounce piece of chicken. Hence, in order to get the crust cooked right, it was fried for the same amount of time as when folks weren't cutting cost corners by pounding flat chicken breasts. In short, it was dry, tough and stringy (and not brined either, but that isn't expected if you can still turn out a moist piece of chicken).

Service: No checkback on food until meal was over. Was extremely non-plussed at my feedback to the establishment about the chicken (not expecting a refund, but if I was the owner, I would want that feedback).

In short, I expect more for spending $50 for two that consisted of 2 on-tap brews and...

We came in Thanksgiving, and yeah—the place was busy. We were patient, we waited, and when the bill came, there was a small error we wanted to fix. Instead of having a normal conversation, the manager completely snapped. She was clearly stressed, but that’s no excuse for what happened next.

She ripped the bill out of my daughter’s hands, yelled at all of us to leave immediately, and then—get this—called the cops and claimed they walked out without paying. A flat-out lie.

My daughter and son-in-law had to go to court to defend themselves over something that never happened. We were all there. We saw it. Thankfully, the case was thrown out because it was total nonsense—but the damage was done. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. It was a vindictive overreaction by someone who should not be managing a restaurant.

If you check the reviews, you’ll see this isn’t new. The manager has a history of harassing customers, and this time she took it way too far.

This place isn’t...