Wildwood Sports Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Rochester

I was underwhelmed. When I walked in for lunch the place was not crowded. The smell of stale beer immediately hit me. It's the musty smell when beer seeps into the floor boards and anything soft and just doesn't get clean. I proceeded to look at the menu (which was sticky) and a couple items seemed unique. Eventually the server made it around to us, but it seemed to take longer than I expected. I tried the Duck Poppers, followed by the "Loaded" Nachos, and my guest had the Key West sandwich. Unfortunately, it took an exceedingly long time for our food to arrive. I try not to be picky, but I timed it at over 25 minutes. For lunch, this is just too long. The Duck Poppers were very tasty. The raspberry sauce was amazing! Unfortunately, the "Loaded" Nachos were clumped together with poorly melted shredded cheese and difficult to separate. The pork on them was decent, but very under-seasoned, and the pico was average (I mean, as long as it's fresh, hard to screw up pico). Apparently there was supposed to be nacho cheese but either someone forgot it, or there was so little it went unnoticed. The nachos were so dry they were difficult to eat. I'm not one to waste food, so I took them home, spruced them up and they were edible. My guest said the Rye bread was very good, but the portion size made the mahi-mahi disappear. After removing the bread, the reaction to the mahi-mahi was no better. She said it was dry and lacked any real flavor (granted mahi-mahi is a bland fish, but seasoning helps). However, I LOVE THE FRIES! I would have to admit that these fries are probably my favorite fries in all of Rochester. I've also been told that the wings here are pretty good (although I didn't order them because I believe they were a bit too expensive for the portion - BWW's seemed a better value if I want wings). Additionally, we didn't see our waitress again for quite a while. If I have a hankering for wings and fries, I might try the place again. If I go back, I'll try to provide feedback on the wings. Otherwise, this was a pretty big disappoint... and the...

No stars for you Wildwood!

I ordered the appetizer and specifically said to hold off on the entree because I didn't want it sitting there getting cold. I didn't want to feel rushed to shovel food in my face in order to be able to eat my meal hot.

I was at the bar and made eye contact with the cook that happened to come out when the bartender told him to hold off on the entree. I even jokingly mentioned I was looking forward to a slow steady flow of good food, and a few drinks of course.

But sure enough the second bite into my appetizer and here comes my hot food that's going to sit there and get cold in front of me.

The response from the bartender was

"we can't control when food comes out of the kitchen."

I looked at him dead in his eye and said astonished:

"...hold up here.... that's exactly what you do at a restaurant, you control when food comes out of the kitchen! The whole process is designed to be able to time and control when food comes out of a kitchen....!"

The manager was more interested in controlling a conversation between the bartender and I, so was zero help in getting that point across.

That said it all to me.

Sorry Folkert, they f**d ya on this one, cuz that dude is an idiot and the manager...

We had a really good experience here. My father-in-law wanted to watch one of the final four games on a Saturday, and this place was recommended to us as a good sports bar in Rochester (we are not big sports people ourselves). We were hesitant to go at all because we thought it would be crazy busy and we wouldn't get a seat, especially since we were arriving right about when the game started. Much to our surprise, there were a few tables open when we got there. We didn't have to wait, and we got a high-top with a great view of the game from several angles. Everyone liked their food as far as I remember. I ordered the fried portabella sandwich, which was sort of like chicken fingers inside a pita, and you could toss it with whatever sauce you chose (I had buffalo sauce). Also, I ordered sweet potato fries, which turned out to be sweet potato waffle fries that almost blew my mind. So yummy!

We will definitely go back at some point. Sports bars aren't our usual hang, but for people that are into that, this place is great. The food, service, and atmosphere were all nice....