Sharkey's Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Town of Clay

The only place to have a benefit! I had been to Sharkey's in the summer for concerts and bike nights as well as one other summertime benefit but this was my first time hosting a major event here myself. My mom is battling recurring lung cancer and we wanted to come together and celebrate her life as well as raise money to cover her medical and living expenses while she is undergoing treatment. Jim was quick to offer us the facility, catering, staff, wrist bands, sound equipment, and a social media intern to help us design a flier. He met me to walk me through the entire space and gave me recommendations for how to have a great event. Because we picked a Saturday with no televised sporting events we got full use of the upstairs and downstairs. The downstairs banquet room was prepped with linens and provided the perfect environment for the face painting, photo booth, games and kids to run around and have fun away from the bar and crowds upstairs. Honestly, you don't even need the photo backdrop that we brought because the stage and curtain were perfect for pictures. The upstairs has a back room that was perfect for the raffles and food which was elevated on another level of the room. Sharkey's provides excellent, fresh cooked ziti, pizza and salad and allowed us to bring in our cakes and baked goods. The food was tasty and refreshed by the amazing Reggie the cook and Diane, our wonderful server for the day! We had 264 people come through the door and all raved about the venue, food, and celebratory vibe. Many people reached out to say that they had never been to a better benefit. I arrived an hour early and was greeted by Diane who really turned into a friend and took care of our friends and family as though they were her own! Kim, the manager was great at helping is keep up with bracelets for entrance, getting enough tables, and making sure that everyone had a good time. Reggie was amazing at keeping up with the constant pouring in of more and more guests. All of this was provided at $8 a head!!! I could not imagine doing all of this myself and as much as a benefit is about making money, it's also about celebrating the person. Thank you to Sharkey's and their amazing staff, I was able to take a breath here and there and be in the moment to celebrate my mom and be part of the day. Clean up was handled by Sharkey's and my mom, dad, his wife, and I all sat afterward and had a lovely, tasty, very reasonably priced dinner to decompress. By the way, Sharkey's has the best restaurant coffee I've had anywhere. Each cup is fresh brewed and delicious! Great local place who knows how to support the...

Let me start off by first saying... I hardly do this. I hardly write reviews about a restaurant or anything. However, today I have to put it like this...An uncomfortable experience.

The bar tender-A brunette maybe in her mid-thirties-seemed awfully impolite to the point where I was even considering not leaving a tip. I could tell she had a preference on what "type of customer" she liked catering to. A canned bud light was my first drink of choice--to which she replied that would be $5.00, as if I we're gonna run off and not pay. Can you guess the tip I left her now?

The food was OK. I had wings with boom boom sauce and fries. Remember me now?Not once did she ask if everything was good or the food was ok--The chef and another guy serving the bar were the only ones who asked. Sad. I'm from NYC, so of course, I look different. Talk different. So I took my little time with this one. Besides her, the atmosphere was a reflection of her persona. A white, quarterback lookng female across from me kept mean-mugging me the whole time as she wanted to do something. I wish she would have.

I've had similar experiences not just here but other places as well. At the job, I work in Oswego, Ny, and restaurants in around the area. When going to places like BJ's, Wegmans, Walmart, WellNow, gas stations, around the Liverpool to Syracuse area. You name it. There's always that group of people. Whether the cashier or just the guy/girl browsing the isles. It's no different when we lock eyes, and they feed me with a cold relentless stare for a brief 2-3 seconds. It's enough to remind of the grave difference between me and them. They might smirk their faces to not come off awkward, but it sure is. And just like the bartender I'm talking about, I'm saying they're exactly that.

But they gonna get use to seeing my face cause I'll be around for a minute...

It's free games at this point and anybody...

Well things started off great with drinks on the patio listening to some live music. We decided to stay for dinner and went inside, this is where things went South. We were promptly seated and our waitress gave us some menus and took our drink orders, 2 waters and 1 iced tea. We got the drinks and placed our orders, as soon as she left we noticed our drinks had no ice and we're like warm. We figured we'd simply ask for ice when she returned to check on us. I hailed her on her way by and that's when our experience got very negative. I explained that the drinks had no ice. Immediately she became defensive and insisted she had put ice in our glasses and told us all three of our drinks had ice in them when she gave them to us. Mind you less than 5 minutes had gone by so where had all the ice gone? Again she insisted we had received drinks with ice, missing entirely the opportunity to simply give us some ice and make us happy customers. When she finally agreed to getting new drinks for us, she turned her back and exclaimed my wife was a liar! Again how did this mysterious ice vanish? We decided that if your staff is so inept as to not be able to deliver cold water and "iced" tea to your customer...what kind of a kitchen are you running? We got up to cancel our orders and our sour waitress confronted us for a second time with a continued confrontational attitude, and after we asked for the manager she told us that we weren't being nice! So we left, very upset. A restaurant should take pride in it's service which can go a long way to make mediocre food a great experience, when the wait staff submarines the whole process it gets a 1 star review from me all day long. Don't waste your time or money here there are so many better...