Sporty's Wing Shack & Smoke House — Restaurant in Pinconning Township

FULL REVIEW- LONG READ:

Now lemme tell ya: I've been told that I know a thing or two about flavors and tastes when I'm cooking. So, according to the people I know I've apparently got a pretty decent palette. The first things I look at when trying a place for the first time are, in order, are do they have a good: 1) burger; 2) pizza, or; 3) wings?

Sporty's covers two of those bases, and then some. I ordered a bit of a sampling of their menu for my wife and I from their menu. For her, I ordered: Honey BBQ Boneless Wings, and a Chimichanga. For myself, I ordered: a double-order of Sweet & Spicy Boneless Wings, a Chimichanga, a Garbage Burger (they don't do the triple to-go) without olives, and a Sporty's Twin burger (something big, but classic-style.) The burgers each came with a side of fries, and the chimmies each came with a side of salsa and sour cream.

ORDERING PROCESS: Their entire menu is online, at their website. Nothing hidden, no frills. They're even pretty descriptive at how high the pain level each flavor of wings is supposed to be. The Honey BBQ came in at a 2, and Sweet & Spicy comes in at a 4 (out of possible 21; specifically reserved for their in-house challenge, rated at 750,000 Scoville Units. Or, roughly 300 times hotter than Tabasco.)

I called in for a to-go order. Jordan, the Bartender picked up quickly, and she was an extremely friendly folk to speak with. The process was quick, easy, and she was quite knowledgeable. A-plus!

PICKUP: Equally as easy. My wife went in to pick up the order, as I'd blown out several joints taking down a tree the day previously. Jordan even helped her bring out one of the bags through the front door! Another A-plus!

THE FOOD: The part you've been reading for.

Everything was PHENOMENAL!

To begin- My wife's take: She found her food a bit on the spicy side. Then again, she finds black pepper spicy. But she found the food so good she ate well past her normal limits. Especially the Chimichanga. I tried to get her to describe it better, but she's not that great at food descriptors.

My take: I dove into my own wings. The sweet and savory mix, combined with what tasted like cumin and turmeric were out of this world. Lightly sauced, perfectly breaded pieces of chicken breast with a FANTASTIC spice rub which gave it that best of both worlds sweet and spicy level, and a bit of smoky flavoring. Those wings disappeared.

Then, the chimmy. Served under a taco-themed salad and tortilla chips, this is not a dish to be trifled with. Beautifully-fried tortilla with a filling of shredded chicken and veggies which remained perfectly tender and juicy, despite being deep-fried. I couldn't make out the seasonings, but the flavor was absolutely on-point with how everything melded together in mouthful after mouthful. I didn't want to stop, but I knew I had to. I had to try the burgers...

Between both burgers, ALL THREE Patties were cooked perfectly Medium. I didn't even order them that way, but that's how I actually WOULD have ordered them. "Charbroiled to perfection," indeed! The Garbage Burger literally comes with EVERYTHING on it. NOT! For the feint-of-heart, or weak of cardiac systems. Not because it has enough calories to feed an Olympian for a day. but because the flavors are phe-NOMINAL! It is SO DIFFICULT to describe the explosion of flavors and pleasure I got biting into the Garbage Burger. You can literally feel your soul trying to leave your body, it is that good.

An experience you MUST try for yourself.

OVERALL: Whether you're from the Tri-County area, or just passing on by, I would HIGHLY recommend Sporty's. They might serve what looks to be typical bar food. And you're not too far off. They ARE a bar. However, they've taken what's just regular bar food and elevated it to levels I personally never thought possible with these simple staples.

Yes, they are a bit on the pricy side. But you also get a GOOD amount of food per portion, AND the quality...

I drove past this place a few years ago when visiting the Pinconning area. I actually took a picture of the place because I knew that I wanted to try it some day. Well yesterday was the day.

MLive actually wrote an article about this place saying that this place had the 4th best wings in Michigan. That definitely contributed in my decision to try this place.

So I went in and sat at the bar. The atmosphere was very nice. It kind of had an up north country feel with a somewhat of a chicken theme.

I looked at that menu and it was a bit overwhelming with the amount of sauces to choose from. One thing that I thought was really neat was that there were about 15 different levels of heat.

I decided to order 7 wings with 4 sauces. I also got some waffle fries to dip the sauces in. So I got the medium, Detroit Lions, skin head, and the challenger, which was their 2nd to hottest one. Ranking the sauce flavor from best to worst, I have to go with: The skin head, which was darker and had a zesty bold taste, the challenger, which was hot af but had a vinegary tone and a hot pepper taste, the medium, which was kind of like red hot but thicker and more flavorful, and then the Lions sauce, which was similar to the medium sauce but a little hotter.

The service was okay. They were friendly but they did forget my waffle fries and had to wait for them to make another batch after I finished my wings. They kind of took a while to get my wings also but it was not a huge concern.

A big downfall of this place was the price. It was $25 for 7 wings and waffle fries and a few sauces. That is really steep if you ask me. The quality of the actual wings were pretty average.

Overall, the wings weren't bad. Were they number 4 in the state like MLive suggested? I can't say they were. Now the variety of the homemade sauces are a really cool concept. But the quality of the wings are pretty average. And it's quite pricey too. I'll definitely be back though to try some...

I love wings and I'm a massive apologist for holes in the wall but I just can't with this place. I've tried.

During my most recent visit (post-lunch, maybe 8-10 customers in the restaurant in total), from the time I ordered a drink it took the bartender fully ten minutes to walk to the cooler four feet away, grab my beer, open the bottle, and hand it to me. I never saw the second drink I ordered 30 minutes later. I was sitting at the bar.

The back of house (which is visible from the main seating area) appears to consist of a fryer and a microwave.

It was a weird experience, looking at the menu and trying to find a flavor that I actually wanted to try. So many of the wing flavors seemed overcomplicated or just plain unappealing (Ginger Thai: "peanut butter, candied ginger, cloves, and spices, then drizzled with a raspberry sauce"???)

I ended up ordering garlic parm wings, which is a dry rub, emphasis on the "dry." They were served in a paper bag, probably because if they were plated it would be consist of a half dozen bare wings on top of a few spoonfuls of loose dry rub mix. There was basically no dry rub on the wings themselves. I think they drop them into the fryer frozen which results in an absolutely calcified wing.

Finally, the atmosphere of this place is just...oddly unwelcoming. It's hard to explain, maybe it's the inattentiveness of the servers or the hyper-aggressive redneck bro language on the menu. But I didn't feel...