Fizzlestix — Restaurant in Ohio

For simplicity, I deleted my original 2-star review. There was a mixup with Grubhub which I was unaware was the driver stealing my food. I appreciate the clarification from the owner.

I tried the food again, however, and I am disappointed. The rundown of my original review was that everything I ordered was unsalted, and everything other than the fries tasted pre-packaged, frozen, or canned. Which for the price is unacceptable.

I decided to give the place another try. My opinion is unchanged. To start, the “pretzels” are basically just greasy breadsticks, but at least they had salt. Greasy breadsticks are fine, unless you’re craving… a pretzel. The cheese sauce is canned/jarred cheese. There is no way it’s homemade. Which again is fine. But it’s advertised as “OUR tangy cheese sauce” and isn’t cheap as an appetizer. Buying the can makes it yours, I guess. But take pride in your ingredients. I know from experience that it isn’t that much more expensive to make your own cheese sauce. A delicious beer cheese or something. There are so many restaurants in the area that do it better. I can give you a recipe if you need. But if that is homemade cheese sauce, I am impressed that you manage to perfectly replicate canned cheese sauce, down to the slimy texture.

Next, the Mexican street fries. “Topped with Mexican street corn.” Where are you getting your street corn? Cuz I’ve never had any that were just frozen or canned corn with jalapenos. Where is the cotija cheese, the Tajín/chili powder, the lime? All the things that would go so perfectly with the somewhat flavorless chipotle aioli are missing. It’s just spicy corn on half seasoned French fries. You could do so much better.

Finally, the burger. I got a firecracker burger. I’m thinking “spicy, sweet, salty” reminiscent of a jalapeño popper dipped in that bronco berry sauce from Arby’s (iykyk). I got a bland burger that didn’t have a lick of spice. There wasn’t even salt and pepper on the burger. If there was, you might want to consider upping the amount because you can’t taste it. You want that crust from searing a salty burger on a blazing hot griddle. The burger tasted like boiled beef, topped with chewy bacon (ya gotta go crispy), and some random jelly. You could’ve told me it was Welch’s grape jelly, and I wouldn’t have argued with you. It was bottomed with the tiniest hint of whatever that cream cheese was supposed to be. I had to dissect the burger to make sure I got anything other than cheese and bacon on it. Before writing this review I forgot that it was called a Firecracker burger because of how lame it was. Season your meat, make a spicy plum compote, add jalapeños to the burger as a topping, use more cream cheese. Anything to add flavor.

Overall extremely disappointing food with no heart or pride put into it. Not remotely worth the price. I hope this restaurant ups the quality and puts some love into the dishes because they’re all great ideas, poorly executed. Or I hope a better restaurant opens up really close so the people of Massillon can get a taste for real food. I wouldn’t shame my cooking skills to serve this low quality garbage to my worst enemy. Stick to your High School Football, Massillon… food ain’t your thing. I just feel bad for the Grubhub driver who stole my food thinking they were getting something good....

Good thing I ordered a salad because it was the only thing I could eat. My husband only ate half of his burger until he realized it was a frozen patty. I only have pictures for a couple of the items because I was in shock as to how bad this was and extremely disappointed at this experience. Based on the reviews I thought this would be great.

Don't waste your time and money on this place. All the photos on the website are false advertisement, I don't know how they are in business at this point. This place purely awful and I would not recommend to anyone. We spent $50.00 here to try multiple items with take out hoping to have found a new favorite restaurant. For the price points it wouldn't have been a bad deal except we couldn't eat most of it. Epic fail.

We ordered:

side salad with ranch was generous in size & dressing tasted homemade: the only item that was good.

philly steak egg rolls were not eggroll size, possibly homemade but way small, quality control on items not consistent, flavorless & dry, cheese sauce was watery when used: not good at all.

tiger twinkie: stuffed jalapenos wrapped in bacon and topped with bbq sauce, only got 5 small pieces for the price, bacon way under cooked: couldn't eat.

buffalo chix mac: mac & cheese topped with buffalo chicken tenders: the worst mac & cheese I've ever had, I had one small bite, my husband didn't believe me until he tried it. It was worse than any cafeteria mac & cheese or fast food mac we've ever had, the chicken was soaked in a red sauce that left an aftertaste of cheap hot sauce: absolutely awful & inedible.

cuban frita burger: fresh never frozen LIE! I wish I would have taken a picture. This was most definitely a frozen patty hockey puck, my husband ate most of it until realizing it was a frozen disk, it was smothered in toppings & sauce so easily hidden and he stopped eating half way through: very bad- do not eat burgers here, they are not fresh!

fries: husband said they would have been better if they were fresh but again we had gotten it to go so that's why

update

I emailed the owner about our awful experience and got this response:

"I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I am the owner of Fizzlestix and we are in Perry Township. I only have one location. So you must be getting us confused with someone else. I can 100% guarantee we only use fresh burgers, I am here everyday and know what I buy and sell.

Sorry if you didn't like the macaroni, we have people that absolutely love it. Everyone has different taste buds, and everyone like different things.

But we 100% do not sell frozen burgers. I STAND BY THAT COMMENT, 100%.

Hope you figure out the correct store you are trying to reach.

Thanks, Jeff"

No accountability or customer service...

This was our second trip to Fizzlesticks. The first time was just after they opened and we were unimpressed, so we agreed to give them some time to settle in and give them another shot. One thing that struck us on our first visit is how the owner/cook/manager visited the dining room regularly in very dirty clothing. This was not our experience this time. The owner/cook stayed in the kitchen.

ATMOSPHERE: Nothing much to say here. The atmosphere was better when it was Vito Corleone's. Now it is a bit blah. It is dark and featureless. It very much has a "family run" feel.

FOOD: The first time at Fizzlesticks, I ordered a steak. Don't do that! This is a burger joint!

This time we ordered the Patty Melt, BBQ Pork Fizzle Fries, Mexican Street Corn Fries, Waffle & Chicken Tacos, Veggie Burger, and Appetizer Burger X2.

The burgers for us were just adequate. Nothing special, and certainly not something we would go back for. The Fizzle Fries were also a miss for us. The toppings generally just make them soggy. I would opt for standard fries in the future.

HIGHLIGHT: The best thing on the menu is NOT the burgers, surprisingly, it is the Chicken Waffle Tacos. This is the second time my son has ordered them and his friends have all given them rave reviews as well. The chipotle maple syrup has a pleasing duality of sweet and hot. If you are going to give Fizzlesticks a try, get the Chicken Waffle Tacos.

With so many great food options in the area, it is unlikely that we will give Fizzlesticks a third visit.

UPDATE: We did it. We thought "Maybe we just missed twice and the third time will be the one where we see what others are raving about." The result: the food was better. Nothing I would be in a hurry to get back to, but better. The service was NOT. The servers were fine. Friendly even. Then, the owner showed up and ruined our dining experience. He was not at all accommodating to my mother's needs. He made my mother feel uncomfortable, and was just downright rude to our whole party. It is obvious that he doesn't want our business, so we will...