Champps Americana
5835 Landerbrook Drive
Lyndhurst, OH  44124
440-605-9222

I cut out of work early to meet up with a friend for dinner and few drinks.  We met at Champps around 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon.  Walking through the door, I was pretty impressed with the lay out of the place.  It had your modern day franchise sports bar theme with more than ever needed HD TVs.  Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there.  

I want to start off by saying that what landed us there was a gift card that my dinning partner had received from work.  Definitely a marketing scheme to get people through the door, but may I suggest a decent dining experience to make the customers to come back for more.

We were seated and waited about 10-15 minutes and watched multiple servers walk past us and glare at the table.Now, there were only about 4 tables full in the restaurant at this point and probably about 10 servers. And note to management, if you have that many servers on waiting for the big dinner rush, don’t let them hang out in groups in site of your patrons where the side conversations can be heard!

Finally the nice young lady that I bet my dining partner was our waitress came along and asked “Has anybody waited on you yet?”  That right there pisses me off.  Did none of them know what tables they had?  Regardless, we waited way too long for how slow the joint was.  I do want to state though that after our waitress finally came over and said hello, she was generally nice and provided descent service.

Now on to the important shit.  Yes, I am getting irritated just reminiscing.  Our food was terrible.  No other way to put it.  We had the Chicken Nachos for an appetizer; best described as a bunch of tortilla chips, maybe a couple of shreds of chicken and cold shredded cheese.  I ordered the Spicy Buffalo Chicken Sandwich for my meal.  Yep, also bad.  Very bad.  So bad I didn’t even finish half of it, and it is seldom that I don’t clear a plate.  They should rename this one, Not Spicy At All Tendon Filled Cut of Chicken Dipped in Dirty Dishwater Sandwich .  Thank god for the side of waffle fries.  Kind of hard to screw those up!    I have never been so lucky to have a Miller Lite to wash that shit down.  My dining partner had the BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich .  He didn’t even take but 2 or 3 bites.  The new name I designated this sandwich sums it up: BBQ Pulled Dime Sized Clumps of Fatty Grizzle Sandwich. 

Speaking with a few other people that evening they shared with me their stories of pretty much the same experience.  Bad service and horrible food at a high price.  When a “sports bar” charges  $10.00 for a sandwich, it had better make me crave more.  Somebody should call Wendell and tell him he needs to go take back their Miller High Life!  So long Champps Americana, your gift cards will not bring me through the door again!  Thank goodness we ventured on to the Fox and Hound and found a great happy hour to cheer us up.  

I want to end this dining story with a free plug for my dining partner’s band.  They have talent and a great sound matched by meaning behind their music.  Check them out online at:     http://www.andyjohnsonexplosion.com/   Rumor has it they are just finishing up a new album.