Sickies Garage Burgers & Brews — Restaurant in Wayne Township

So disappointing. I was in town for work for a few days, and prefer local eateries over the safe but underwhelming national chains. A Google search showed Sickies as getting a lot of good reviews and it was close by, so I thought I'd give it a try. This particular location is in what I would describe as a small strip mall. When I pulled in, there were 3 of the kitchen staff standing around a car in the parking lot smoking Marijuana. I know they were kitchen staff because I've worked in many kitchen restaurants and the back end staff all have a certain air about them, similar to the way that military folks do. I don't care about the marijuana use, but during work hours I should have taken that as a bigger clue than I did. When you walk in to this location, immediately in front of you is the large bar area. Between the front door and the bar is the host station, and several signs stating "wait to be seated". As I came in, I made eye contact with a female server, who looked at me and then walked away toward the kitchen. I made eye contact with the bartender, who also ignored me. In fact, he ignored me so hard he looked me right in the eyes, then turned his back to me and got himself a glass of water from the bar, drank it and then went back to what he was doing. While I was standing there waiting just to be acknowledged, I noted three females sitting at the bar, who had obviously been there quite a while as they had their shoes off, empty glasses in front of them and were talking loudly about some tik tok thing. They were obviously regulars, and dressed as though they were working a truck stop parking lot. After almost 5 minutes, the bar tender decided to come seat me. He didn't introduce himself, or welcome me in. He just said "this way please" and took me to a booth. He didn't tell me about any of the house special drinks or anything, just "do you want something to drink?" before I even sat down. I asked for a few minutes, which translated into 10 minutes before he came back. Mind you, this was all at 3:30pm and the place was not exactly bustling. He finally came and took my drink and appetizer order. The drink came pretty quickly, the appetizer also arrived timely but wasn't hot when it arrived. My appetizer and first drink were long gone before he bothered to come take my food order. I ordered the jalapeno brisket burger with tots. I've attached photos of what the menu and website show, as well as what I received. By appearance I was disappointed right off the bat. I took my bun top off to prep my burger, and saw there were a tiny handful of jalapenos, all on one side of the burger. Not even enough to spread around so I got some in each bite. The tots weren't hot. My server wasn't very personable. I never caught his name (he didn't introduce himself) and he seemed kind of put out/ bored with the whole server gig. When I finally left, the 3 women were in the parking lot smoking the mj. Overall, a very disappointing experience. I won't recommend or...

Food: 1-2 Star. Service & Atmosphere: 5 Stars.

My wife and I dined here for dinner while in town. The atmosphere was great. Nice car/race/garage themes, several TV's, background music, good lighting. The waiter was super friendly, attentive, and helpful.

Their menu was a pleasant surprise with a large variety and many types of burgers as well as appetizers, sandwiches, and much more, so I had high hopes for it.

The food, however, was not so good. My wife ordered fish and onion rings. The onion rings were battered not breaded and those were great. The fish was also battered and was pretty good or at least what you'd expect anyway. We tried the Tater Kegs and cheese curds for appetizers. I was happy to see the curds were battered and not breaded, but the curds tasted like they were either re-heated or left under a heat lamp for far too long. The kegs were decent, my wife liked them more than I did but there was nothing wrong with them. My order, which my wife also tried, was not good at all. I ordered the Monte Cristo with fries, and I would not recommend it at all, to anyone. It seemed like it was bland and not very flavorful. It tasted like a grilled cheese sandwich with ham and turkey in it. I'm not sure what the cheese was, but it looked like cheddar and swiss, and there was another piece of bread in the middle for some reason which didn't help. The whole thing was also deep fried, and was extremely greasy and crispy on the outside. I ate about a quarter of it, and my wife tried some of it and also thought it was pretty gross. The fries I got with it weren't bad but seemed a bit cold when I got them, again, like they had been under a heat lamp.

Additionally, I also got a vanilla milkshake which I also didn't like. The icecream wasn't very good at all, my wife didn't care for it either.

All in all, I'd have rather went elsewhere. That said, I wouldn't mind giving another location a chance. Perhaps this location has this issue frequently, perhaps it was just the cook (besides the monte cristo, which is probably always bad). I probably will never return to this location at least, but I would recommend giving it a try anyway, perhaps other food on their menu is good or maybe the cook was new or something, who knows? Just avoid the monte cristo at all costs, I don't see how anyone could like that thing...

Sat at the bar. We always sit at the bar everywhere we go.

Hubby left glasses in truck and couldn’t read the small print on beer menu. He tells bartender he’d like a local pale ale—bartender brings a Sam adams summer ale. Hubs thinks it’s a joke but he is a nice guy so he doesn’t say anything.

I ordered a beer. The bartender brings us both tall size without asking what size we wanted. I said “is that a pint?” He said “it’s a kiddie cup”.

Condescending a$$hole.

I said “it looks like a tall I only wanted a pint.” So he acted like I was a pain in the a$& and brought me a pint.

A few minutes pass and another guest sits at bar next to us. Begins playing a video on his phone-no headphones—volume up. We are annoyed and move to another section of the bar.

Same bartender acts like we are the problem and effectively ignored us until another bartender offered to take our food order—then he jumped in and said “I’ve got this “.

He takes our order— one burger one chicken sandwich. He did not ask how I wanted my burger cooked-and I forgot to ask for medium rare. Of course it comes out well done. I choked down as much as I could because the bartender made it clear he wasn’t interested in us.

Next, hubby’s beer is empty. He raised his glass trying to get the bartenders attention but he was too busy to check in with us. Eventually he showed up with a fresh pour of the Sam adams. Hubby had decided on a different local beer—after I reviewed the menu for him (I had my glasses). So we told the bartender he intended to order a different beer. His response was “you said you wanted another beer “. I said “no we said we wanted a different beer. “

So. He apologized and brought the correct beer. He even comp’d it—recognizing he was being a jerk-way too late by the way.

So. We closed out and left. Feeling a need for a better experience. We walked 20 steps next door to granite city brew.

Long story short we jokingly said we were cleansing our palate after a bad experience next door and the manager offered us an amazing dessert, and comp’d our entire tab.

The bartender literally checked every box you would expect from asking if we wanted the 16 oz or 24 oz to offering tasters of their beers-and simply being nice.

Pretty basic customer service standards. But don’t expect customer service nor quality food...