Restaurant review: Allsports Cafe, Blacksburg
The Kyle Petty chicken salad sandwich and the Daytona burger at Allsports Cafe in Blacksburg. Photo by Daniel Lin | The Roanoke Times.
By Christi Wayne and Charlie Whitescarver
Special to The Roanoke Times
We were not confused when we entered Allsports Cafe in Blacksburg — it was obvious that we were in a sports bar.
Some 15 flat-screen televisions hang on the walls, enough that no game will be missed, and they are placed high enough that no view is blocked.
Allsports already has two locations in Roanoke and one in Salem. The Blacksburg location opened in November with Terri Kelly as the manager.
When we visited, a host was quick to seat us, and a server came quickly to our table; he even had an update on the game for us. A play-by-play of the featured game on the speaker system was loud enough to hear but not too loud to carry on a conversation. The tables were clean and the room well-lit, so we had no trouble reading the white on black menus.
Burgers, wraps, pizza, sandwiches, appetizers, sides, salads and entrees filled out the extensive menu, but wings are the star at Allsports. Each time we visited, we started with wings. There are 14 different sauces to choose from, with a minimum order of 10 wings ($8.95). The menu advises they could take up to 20 minutes to cook, but we found them worth the wait.
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January 17, 2013 - 1:53 PM
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All Sports has one of the best burgers around! The wings are second to none. The Pete Sanpras sub is killer too!
Big problem though….this place is in the middle of nowhere (at least as far as BBurg is concerned). At the far end of North Main Street in a rather residential area. And I haven’t seen any promotion of the place at all. Doesn’t matter how great the wings are, if no one bothers driving down it won’t last.
I don’t mean to criticize this review in particular (and side note- I love the Fridge Magnet blog in general), but it seems like every single restaurant review posted here is always positive. There may be little things that are negative, such as the burned burger in this case, but the overall language used in these reviews is just so over-the-top glowing, especially considering half the reviews are for places like Allsports and the Waffle House. It’s just hard to take any of them seriously at this point.
@kate: A positive bias isn’t necessarily a problem, as long as the reviews are consistent. You just have to learn how to read between the lines to get a feel for the relative quality of the place. You’re never going to get completely away from personal biases, so an overall positive bias helps to avoid unfairly harsh assessments when a place isn’t to an individual reviewer’s tastes.
Kate, most restaurants don’t have completely terrible food and awful service. Personally, I don’t consider the reviews over-the-top glowing.
They got bad food at Allsports and the staff took care of it right away and took the charge off the bill. That’s great customer service. It should be recognized.
When I edit reviews that are 100 percent positive, I always go back to the reviewer and ask if they are sure there was absolutely nothing negative about their experience. It isn’t that I’m fishing for something bad to put in the review — if they say no, they say no. But I am aware that some readers are suspicious of what they see as overly positive reviews.
In this case, the burned bun was the only complaint. But Mark is right, it could be that another person would not think the chicken salad was too sweet, for example. Restaurant experiences are very subjective.
I appreciate the comment, Kate, and I will continue to try and make sure the reviewers are taking everything into account. Thanks for reading!
I’ve thought the same, Katie…sometimes I read a review and it reads more like a commercial.
Over on the Reviews section, we have Lauren Ellerman (an owner) giving River and Rail raves. It gets hard to differentiate between social media “reviews” and actual professional reviews.
Kristen, I just saw that Lauren Ellerman is reviewing her own restaurant. That’s shady. From what I understand, The River & Rail is doing fine without the owner having to go around posting “reviews” to websites. I wonder if she’s done the same on other sites like yelp.
Lori, the owners have been very public with interviews and write ups in City magazine, social media, etc…I don’t get not at least changing your name, or getting your best bud to write it for you. I’ve also heard it’s doing ok…it seems to get lots of positive buzz.