We planned a visit to Skybox Bar & Grille in Gahanna (Columbus, OH East)
after reading about it years ago on Columbushotwings.com. We found our way to
the quaint little community of Gahanna only to find parking to be at quite a
premium, even more so now that some road construction is taking place. The
bottom line on parking is that it is plentiful BEHIND Skybox Bar & Grille, just
not very visible to the newbie on the block.
We entered to find that Skybox is a true bar & grille, not a restaurant.
There were some booths and tables, probably enough seating for about 35 people.
There were actually two bars, one with neatly lit bottles of liquor with green
neon. We saw that they did have a bottle of Maker’s Mark on display, and it had
been almost emptied. We found our way into a booth and eagerly anticipated a
menu.
There wasn’t a lot to choose from on the menu, but we didn’t care because
we came for the wings. The wings were advertised as “jumbo”, and we started to
get concerned because that’s usually not a good sign. Skybox, like so many
others today, just don’t understand that jumbo wings are terrible for product
quality. The drunks that want extra large wings have no concern for quality and
think that they’re getting more for their money. WRONG!!! We asked that our
wings be as small as possible and our server chuckled and said, “They’re pretty
much all the same size.”
The flavors were listed with little buffalos to indicate the heat level.
If you can imaging the “X” as being the buffalo, here’s what the menu looks
like:
Teriyaki 
Minor League
Spicy Q
Melt Down
Demon
Mouth Mace
The wings were priced at 10 for $5.95, 20 for $10.95 and 30 for 15.95.
That seem’s pretty reasonable until you figure the celery and blue cheese come
at a premium (extra $.50). We ordered Demon wings with a cup of Mouth Mace to
dip in, only to be told that they were out of Mouth Mace. The server said that
Wednesday night was wing night and they ran out. Horribly disappointed, we
placed an order for 20 pieces of Demon as small as possible, extra-crisp. We
also ordered hand cut fries and celery and blue cheese.
We looked around the joint while waiting for the wings, and found it to be
pretty standard for a bar & grille. They do have patio seating out front for
those nice weather occasions. Indoor-outdoor carpet covers the floor, which
leads to a game room on the side with a pool table and a Golden Tee video golf
game. Golden Tee has become the video golf game of choice ever since Café Hot
Wing 8 put one in in the mid-ninties. They lost a few ambiance points because
they have a NASCAR hood mounted on the wall in the game room. NASCAR sucks!
They have 9 TV screens, two of them large, projection type and a couple of
plasma screens over the bar area.
Skybox Bar & Grille is not open for lunch, as we found out the last time we
were in town and attempted a review. For the business traveler, it is somewhat
inconvenient at times to have to wait for an evening review.
The food arrived after the normal 15 minute wait, and the wings were
freshly cooked. There was a lot of steam rising off the batch, always a good
sign. One of the first things we noticed was how thin the fries were cut.
Fresh-cut my foot! These fries were so thin they reminded us of the canned
potato sticks or the fries they serve at Steak & Shake. You know, the ones that
go cold in 3 minutes or less. They were also VERY stingy with the ketchup,
putting it into a little soufflé cup and only giving you one cup. We also
noticed how dry the wings looked, and on the first bite we felt the sinking
disappointment of realizing that this was not going to be a very good visit.
The flavor of the wings was good, but that’s about all we can say on the
positive side for the wings. The celery and blue cheese was very nice.
You’ve all seen or heard the “I can’t taste my beer!” commercials. “I
can’t taste my heat!!!” Although there was some flavor present, the heat level
never reached the level of getting the least little tingle on the tongue. No
afterburn whatsoever. The situation did get marginally better after getting two
cups of Meltdown dipping sauce and another cup of ketchup, but basically all was
lost when the wings arrived. “Jumbo” was not an adequate description. Gigantic
might have been a better term, or maybe Gargantuan or Enormous would have been a
better fit. This place falls into the yellow boxes of the Great Wing Pyramid
with their big, tough, chewy oversized wings. Somebody tell these places to
just stop serving wings.
OK, so now we’re really questioning the credibility of the King and Queen
of wings on Columbushotwings.com. This is the second time this week that we
trusted their site to take us to the truly great wings of Columbus, OH and have
been let down. B C Rooster’s turned out to be no prize, although we realized
they were listed as an alternative wing source and not a true buffalo wing
because of the breading. The site lists Buffalo Wild Wings as being the top
wing joint of 2004, and we have a serious problem with that. The sauce just
doesn’t taste good at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Skybox was greatly anticipated and ranks as a VERY disappointing visit. We
encourage you to take your business elsewhere if you’re looking for great
Buffalo Wings.