Shawkers Grill & Bar — Restaurant in Rock Hill

Well, it is unfortunate that the time has finally come for me to make this review.

Let me preface this review by saying that I have been a fairly regular customer for over 10 years including a few years that we visited a minimum of once a week. The food and beverages were a great value, the food was consistently delicious and the staff was great. I assure you that the review to follow is not based on a small sample size.

Kitchen Staff/Food: The entirety of the current kitchen staff either suffers from lack of concern for the food leaving the window or is simply incapable of cooking food properly and consistently. I have recently started requesting my fries without seasoning because I could no longer take the mounds they deemed necessary. We have received medium wings (their lowest heat) that have brought me to tears. I had a burger only a few weeks ago that was overcooked and tasted like they had not cleaned the grill in days. The boneless wings and chicken tenders that my wife orders every trip have been delivered so hard we were unable to pierce them with the forks and the sauce is different most trips. The ticket instructions given to the kitchen are commonly ignored and food arrives with ingredients specifically noted to be removed.

Wait Staff: The wait staff is one of the few bright points in an otherly dismal review. Most of them are friendly and try to help out in any way possible. There are still a couple that have no ability to get an order correct and I find it completely incredible that they can still find the section they are covering. It's sad that the owners have run away so many great staff.

Environment: While I am more than a supporter of small hole-in-the-wall businesses, Chicken Shak is likely to be the most disgusting establishment I've ever encountered. The grease-laden carpets that tend to grasp the chair legs with a force that should create envy in the duct tape community have the benefit of the perpetually darkened room so the clientele is unable to see on what they walk. The restroom doors are nearly unlockable despite a myriad of cheap replacement hardware they've used over the years. The front sign lit on fire over a month ago and has yet to be replaced.

Price: Throughout the years I have witnessed price hikes that, while I was not fond of, typically made sense. I began coming here for the reasonably priced food and beverages yet I can no longer state that this applies. The last menu change brought with it an increase of up to 20% on many items. I realize that the cost of food increases but I would challenge that this percentage is necessary. Since the quality of the food has not improved, I find it questionable that they put the price on par with other restaurants in the area such as Chili's, O'Charley's and Applebee's.

Clientele: This may have been the final nail in the coffin for us. There have been many situations (mostly with the same patron) that have discouraged us from returning. We have been forced to tolerate bared rears only inches from our table while we were eating, screaming of insults to fans of other teams almost to the point of blows and even the yelling of the entire dictionary of profanity throughout the restaurant despite the presence of children. I realize that this is intended to be a sports bar but there should be no reason for someone to behave so poorly he is just shy of swinging from the ceiling fans, smacking patrons and urinating in the corner. I have seen people removed from the premises of other bars for much less. We have stated our concerns to the staff who were ultimately told to leave him alone by the owners and managers.

In conclusion, we may very well give Chicken Shak another opportunity in the future to redeem itself but I assure you that it will not be for...

TL;DR - The food was fantastic, the service was awful, the prices were reasonable.

I now live out of state so this is the first time I've been to this restaurant location in about 6 years or so. I think back then it was still Wing King.

Atmosphere: First let me say, I am thankful that there is no longer smoking in there. I remember when you could open the door and smoke would roll out. During that time, I would only order to pick up and leave. The restaurant is much cleaner now and more family friendly, even though it still carries that sports bar environment. There are about 10 tables, sports and other paraphernalia, and TV's.

Customer Service: The service the two of us received was nothing shy of atrocious. Since I take photos for Google Maps here, I have my first panorama (which is published here) time stamped at 2:11pm. There were maybe 2 tables that hadn't received their meals when we ordered our food. Since this place has what I always get from the other Wing King restaurants we ordered our buffalo chicken sandwiches with fries as soon as we could ( right after getting our drinks). 36 minutes later, our food arrived. By this time, it was almost 3pm on a Sunday, and the restaurant was pretty much vacant. However, that didn't stop our waiter from walking around aimlessly from the front to the back of the restaurant, stopping to chat with other waitresses and the cooks, never refilling our drinks or anything. It took me calling for his attention while he was talking to another waitress to get him to come to our table. By this time I had eaten my sandwich and was finishing up my fries before getting my first refill of tea. Now that we finally had his attention, we placed a to go order for a grilled chicken salad and a small count of chicken tenders. Fast forward 20 minutes and I asked our waiter the status of our to-go order. He didn't know so he went to find out. Turns out, as he said, the cook had turned off the fryer and walked away, so he had to get it turned back on and heated to finish cooking our chicken fingers...

Quality of Food: With all of that being said, my buffalo chicken sandwich and fries were very delicious, and better than the food experiences I've had at other locations offering the same meal (Wing Bonz across town and Wing King in FM).

Price: The price for everything we ordered was reasonable, although it used to be significantly less expensive for this sandwich meal a few years ago. That didn't bother me though.

Final thoughts: Customer service is very important to me. I'll definitely go back to a restaurant that I get a sub-par meal from again. However, it's very hard to justify going back to a restaurant that doesn't value its customers. I'm not complaining because our server wasn't there every time I needed him. I don't expect that. However, I do expect them to do their job, and to try to take initiative to at least make themselves look decent, much less the place they...

While the food is great, the service is awful.

We went here last night and ordered the boneless teriyaki and bone in honey bbq wings. They were awesome, and we found ourselves still talking about them at lunch today, so we placed a to go order over the phone. We ordered boneless teriyaki and boneless Carolina tangy gold wings. When my husband arrived at Chicken Shak, they had made bone-in teriyaki and boneless Carolina tangy gold... so he waited while they "fixed" the order.

Unfortunately, he didn't check the "fix" before he left - he assumed that they had already messed up once, so they probably wouldn't mess up the second time. After he got home, I opened the box and there were non-breaded, non-sauced wings. Just little dry pieces of chicken.

I called, and Katie was the manager on duty. She had to put me on hold twice so that she could call the general manager and ask what to do. The only option they offered me was to drive all the way back to Chicken Shak (15 miles away) so that they could either replace or refund my meal. I pointed out that driving 15 miles cost both time and money, and that I shouldn't be punished for their mistake. I asked for them to refund the wings that they messed up and replace them - which I didn't think was asking too much, as I would have had to stop what I was doing and spend two gallons of gas to get back there.

At this point, Katie put the cook on the phone so that he could argue with me about the wings he made. Really? What a horrible way to treat people who work for you! Also, yes, the cook can tell me he made the correct thing, but I'm sitting here literally looking at the unsauced, unbreaded "wings," and I can clearly see that they are not correct.

Katie got back on the phone and told me the same unacceptable options again. I pointed out that by asking me to drop what I was doing and come back to the store, felt like they were punishing me for their mistake. She acknowledged that she understood that it wasn't fair, but those were my only options.

Then she hung up on me.

I seriously don't know how a place can stay in business if they treat...