Chops & Hops — Restaurant in Watkinsville

Okay. Let's get started. I live ‘Watkinsville local’ and have been going to Chops & Hops for 6 years. I have had mostly 3.5 - 4 star experiences with dining (service and food) and 4.5 experiences at the bar; the beer and cocktails are usually 4.5+. I have not ‘dined’ there in about 6 months and had a ‘fair’ Wild and Blue burger to go a few weeks ago. Tonight though was very sub-par. Long story shorter for our party of 4: the dozen ‘local honey, habanero’ wings for an app were lukewarm and bland; the hummus plate app was solid (the boiled peanut hummus was interesting and tasty); the Butter Chicken entree with root veggies had no root veggies (only a few limp green peppers) and made a bland attempt at a curry-ish flavor and looked like a pile of tuna salad (it was a shredded chicken substance) over a buried pile of rice with a handful of ‘sort of stale’ pita wedges on the side of the bowl; the lukewarm fries that came with the bland House Turkey sandwich were a bigger hit than the sandwich itself (only ¼ was eaten); the full Julius salad with chicken was bland, looked like a ½ salad and was only ½ eaten. I leave the best for last. I ordered ‘The Local Legend’ burger. To start, it came to the table 5 minutes after the Turkey sandwich, which came a few minutes after the butter chicken ‘goulash’ and salad. The fries were lukewarm and soggy and no ketchup was proffered. The burger was actually cooked to spec (mostly; just north of med-rare), but it was bland. I asked for the pulled pork topper on the side and it was delivered as such, albeit lukewarm warm. The ‘green tomato chow chow’ topper was on the side in a dainty plastic cup and was a bland, non-chewable, cardboard-like substance. The ‘spicy fried pickle’ topper came out in a dainty plastic cup, but only after I pointed out it was missing from the burger; this was also the only part of my meal that was actually fully heated, as in freshly fried 10 minutes after burger delivery; to that end, they were not spicy and seemed to have all of the salt added to them that the other dishes were missing. I ate 1/2 of my burger with none of the toppings and nothing else on my plate. The Butter Chicken was less than ½ consumed as was the salad and turkey sandwich--no to go boxes were asked for. We told the waitress, who was rushed most of the evening, but did OK. Of the manager-looking people I saw, one was drinking beer behind the bar and some burly, hairy guy with tats was walking around as well, but neither seemed to be doing anything and neither seemed to be interested in what was going on in the restaurant. There was nothing done about what was a moderately spendy meal that was not good and not eaten. The beer was good and those who had cocktails liked them. Overall: I will likely not eat there again until I get first hand reviews from trusted friends. I may...

Sorry but this is going to be long. After hearing and reading good reviews about this place, my wife and I decided to give it a try tonight. We got dressed up to have a special dinner there to celebrate the day we started dating. I had actually called ahead earlier in the week for a table for 2 at 7:30. We got there around 7:25 and were told it would be 15 min., so we waited at the bar and got drinks. 25 min later we got our table, not a huge deal since it's a Friday night before a UGA game. We ordered appetizers and finally got them after about 30 min., and the apple butter chicken wings and cornmeal muffins were the highlights of the evening; they were great even though the menu said the muffins came with bacon and came out with none...we gave them a pass on that one. After our server told us that sides could not be substituted when we were ordering entrees, she brought our entrees out about another 30min later and the sides were different from what we were told they were. Our server said they ran out of the original side and just replaced it with something else without telling us. The "garlic fried" potatoes were just diced french fries that seemed to be tossed in ketchup and were soggy and lukewarm at best. My steak was cold and my wife's marinated kale tasted putrid, but the zipper peas and my wife's sweet potato mash were good. She said her swordfish was okay. Now, rewinding back to earlier in the night my wife asked if she could order a side of polenta in addition to her entree since sides could not be substituted, and our server said we could, and brought it out with the entrees while we sere sorting out the issue with the sides being swapped. After a few minutes of eating, our server walked by and just took the cup of polenta (!) but thankfully we stopped her so we could get it back. Our server seemed incredibly confused the whole night, maybe due to it being busy, I don't know. She was very unfamiliar to inaccurate about the menu (some of this was on the kitchen), and got my wife's beer order wrong. We got the check and left at about a quarter to 10. We were there entirely too long, we were so ready to go when she brought our check. We were going to order dessert but changed our mind because of the earlier mishaps. There were other minor things that occurred that my wife and I decided to let go afterwards, but all in all, we spent what was supposed to be a fun, celebratory Friday night at a local eatery at Chops & Hops and we truly regret it. Dominick's Little Italy in Watkinsville is much, much better overall if you are looking for a fun and tasty dining experience. Our appetizers were good but that's it. A major waste of time and money. Will not go back unless I'm with a group and...

Stopped by when I was in Watkinsville, and scanned the menu and paused to give the place a look. The wait staff said the whole menu was available all day, and they had two soups of the day, so I decided to stay. I wandered over to the bar and had a seat. It was about 2:30 p.m. and the last of the lunch crowd was wrapping it up.

I had the Chops Burger, ordered medium rare, with a cup of the vegetable soup. 9 bucks. I hit the head after ordering and noticed the bathroom was extremely clean and tidy, I peaked in the kitchen through the round window in the door, noticed the kitchen seemed very orderly as well, and then went back to my stool at the bar and connected to the open wifi network, which required no password.

Burger came with a the cup of vegetable soup all on one larger plate with a napkin under soup cup.

The soup was fantastic! The soup was NOT over blended and still had texture of the fresh vegetables and it looks like the chef had sliced up a fresh scallion and added to the hot soup right before plating, so the onion was cooked by the time the cup reached me.. Nice touch! The soup also had a smokey flavor, I meant to ask, but I got side tracked talking about the soup to the server. The soup was fantastic and of superior quality. That was some handcrafted soup! Definitely try the soup.

The burger came on a fresh bioche bun, with cheese, thick slice bacon was, a fair portion, perfectly cooked to order, medium well. I had been on a vegetarian regime for a few weeks, but somehow I forgot this fact when I did see a burger on the menu.

Chops & Hops was extremely clean and tidy, especially the restroom, the food was excellent, crafted from fresh ingredients, and well prepared, the service was great. All these qualities I have found lacking in every other restaurant since my sentence in Athens, Georgia began two years ago.

They have a large selection of draft beer, but that is not my thing anymore, but I did take note.

Chops & Hops is in downtown Watkinsville, about a 10 minute drive from downtown Athens, Georgia and I would, definitely, say it is well worth the drive because you are not going to find food this good, at any price, in downtown Athens.

Very good...