Lion Sports Bar — Restaurant in Philadelphia

This is not easy for me to write, as I had a great experience during their grand opening. However, I was there with my partner yesterday (we were both at their grand opening too) & one manager in particular made our experience a very negative one. We walked in ready for a great time & went straight to the bar. We were ready for some happy hour fun & noticed the $0.50 wings for Thursdays. That’s a great deal! Now, the happy hour menu is a little confusing because the Happy Hour itself is from 4-6. We arrived at 4:30pm. Under Thursdays, you can see the wings listed & then you see a drink special followed by 6pm - Midnight. When reading this, it seems like ONLY the drink special continues from 6 - midnight, not both the wings AND the drink special. I guess the bartender was also confused by this so she told another group that the wings were $0.50 during regular happy hour. We overheard this & asked for the wings too. She came back & told us that the manager Vic B. said she can only honor it for the one group & not us because it was a mistake. We asked to speak to him & he came with an attitude to let us know that he can’t honor it & threw the blame completely at the bartender stating that she doesn’t work Thursdays & doesn’t know the specials. I was fine up until that point. It should have been his responsibility to inform the bartender of the specials if he knew she’s not a regular Thursday worker. On top of that, we, as customers, were already informed of the wings being $0.50 & we were READY to spend money since we had not eaten in quite a few hours & we heard great things about the wings from the other group. Because of his nasty attitude, his immediate blame towards the other bartender, & his lack of accountability, we had the one drink we previously ordered & left to eat elsewhere. I understand it was a mistake, but the happy hour menu doesn’t help differentiating the time differences for the specials & the manager didn’t do his part to inform the bartender of the existing specials. I’m hoping that the manager, Vic B. can be better educated in handling customer concerns, especially when the information that was provided to us was incorrect...

This was probably my 5th or 6th time here on a Thursday, can’t beat the .50 wing special. The quality is there too, wings are great and the waffle fries are dynamite, perfectly crispy. I will definitely continue to come back but the service is a downside of this place. They can be quite busy on a normal Thursday, every other time before today I sat at the bar. Both bartenders are great but they just get overwhelmed so the service can be quite slow. Also more often than not it takes a long time to get your food (today an exception it was really fast). Today took my brother who’s in town visiting and the service was particularly bad. We opted for a table, they sat us at the very last table in the back by the bathrooms. There were other several open tables so this was kind of off putting. Then we sat for 10+ minutes without anyone even asking if we wanted water. The waitress came multiple times to help the table behind us and yet didn’t come to help us. After we finished it took another 10+ minutes for us to get the check. Seems like the general theme is they don’t have enough staff and expect slow service. Also the drinks are subpar, I got a margarita, which I’ve done multiple times before and the quality is always mediocre but today it was outright bad. Don’t want to give them a low rating even though today was a poor experience because the food is great, staff is pretty friendly and can’t beat the deals. I just think they need to add even just one more staff. They cut corners on the drinks but that’s not usually my main draw but if it is for you...

Stopped in here to watch a game and there were both pros and cons.

Pro’s: the food is good, and you get a nice portion for a good price! I had the General Tso’s nachos and man it was amazing! They also have plenty of tv’s, so it’s perfect for watching any sporting event. There is also plenty of seating throughout the restaurant.

Con’s: it took FOREVER to get both food and drinks! It took so long that my appetizer, entree, and my beer (which I ordered before anything else) came out at the same time, and only after I ran down the waiter. This was a direct result of there only being one waiter working the entire restaurant! Don’t know if this is a normal thing, or just a mix up that day, but either way that’s unacceptable! I watched multiple people leave because it took too long to get their first drink (I was almost one of them). I would love to give Lion Sports bar another shot, but the wait to receive ordered items is a bit much...