Spanky's Roadhouse — Restaurant in Denver

We’ve given this place two chances (because hey, we all have off days) but man oh man...on the second try everything got worse. To recap our first visit a few months ago: service was slow. An hour or more to eat simple breakfast...with no offers for refills on coffee or waters. Server couldn’t be bothered but as I said, we all have our off days.

Now our second visit this past weekend: seated immediately and then ignored for the better part of 10 minutes. Servers for other sections would look at us from across the room and then press on with their duties. Finally, after asking someone, we were spoken to and our orders were taken. Food arrived promptly and cold. We asked for a reheat and by some miracle, they were cold again after being reheated...what...how? My pancakes were rubbery and the cinnamon butter was actually cream cheese that was gritty and thick and just...not cinnamon butter for crying out loud. We mentioned the problem about cold food again and thankfully the manager (who never made an appearance) did not charge us for the few bites we took. It was just a bad, bad time. Server had an attitude and it just ruined our day.

Besides the crummy food and “service,” this place is just...not good. Most of it is under a tent with drafts and heat lamps; it’s small and cramped and loud and just not what I want in a casual breakfast brunch place.

Also worth mentioning are their mimosa and Bloody Mary bars...open jars everywhere ripe with bacteria from people picking stuff out of it. That is gross...

We came to Spanky's for nostalgia reasons. We used to live on the same cross street as Spanky back in 1994 and it was a place we would visit frequently for a easy night out with a beer and a burger. We were back in the area on vacation and saw that it was still open so we decided to take our daughter to our old hangout.

While there have definitely been some upgrades and expansions since we were here last, Spanky's immediately brought back some great memories and is still serving a similar menu to what we remembered. We started with the fried cheese curds and the fried pickles for appetizers because our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. I preferred the cheese curds, who doesn't love fried cheese right? The pickles were really salty and we ended up leaving those behind while we devoured the cheese curds.

For our meal, I got the fish and chips. The fish was cooked well and you got three nice pieces of the flaky fish to enjoy. Served with lemon and tartar sauce you had everything you needed for a great fish and chips meal. The fries were pretty standard fries, and since I do not eat a lot of fries I do not know that I can judge them fairly.

We also ordered the fish tacos at our table which looked delicious and got good reviews from my wife. The bacon cheeseburger was also a hit. I walked out feeling stuffed and with renewed memories of a great time at this little neighborhood eatery that is just a good place...

I went in on Valentine's Day, knowing it would be busy. Was asked by the host "what can I do for you" and I found that odd - what else would I be in a restaurant with another person for? To bug them? Was sat immediately. Menus are paper, not laminated, crumpled and dirty and damaged. Also found that odd. Drinks aren't listed on the menu. Server didn't come help us for 6 minutes - I'm a server, it's busy, I wasn't concerned by it. She finally came down and asked if we would like some waters: why ask? Do people say no to water? She disappeared and didn't come back for a solid 11 minutes. Returned with waters, asked if she could do anything else for us(no, I'm not hungry. What?? Take my order, silly!). Ordered eggs Benedict and the gyro. Both came out cold, server didn't check on us, so we didn't get it fixed. My friend got the bottomless mimosas and sat empty-handed for 20 minutes before another server came by and refilled it. She spilled mimosa all over our table and ignored it, and I was genuinely appalled. Didn't get our check for another 25 minutes, it was no longer busy, our server was standing around chatting.

TL:DR; Service was incredibly awkward and inattentive, the menus are unprofessional, the staff is tunnel-visioned and the food was cold and gross. I wanted a job here but I don't want to deal with...