O’kelly’s: O’ffensive

The Nachobears team headed to O’Kellys in Mesa this week, where we were determined to find a positive experience. This is because it has been brought to our attention from a few Nachobears readers that we are being “negative” and perhaps unfair. Negative!? I argue that we are rightfully critical of these venues only because “we care deeply about the chip” (trademark pending). Close your eyes and picture the perfect nacho, slightly covered with cheese, ground beef, sour cream, chives… alone at the top of the chip sits a jalapeno, hot, but not too hot. Crunchy, salty, delicious. It is the perfect nacho. It is the dream.

OK, you may open your eyes again.

We put forth this question: Is it too much to ask for prompt service and good nachos? I’m not even talking about ‘the perfect nacho!’ described above. Only a good one! A two-and-a-half-star nacho! We keep getting one-and-a-half-star nachos. We get the “Big Momma’s House II” equivalent of the nacho world. We get “Red Roof Inn” quality nachos. We get the nacho equivalent of the Ford Focus. IF the FDA had a nacho regulatory arm, they would stamp them “Grade D”. In a world where the quality of the nacho is forever being degraded, perhaps even forgotten, we stand as lone crusaders, fighting for the nacho rights of those who cannot fight for themselves.

Ok, so we digress a bit. Now where were we? Oh yes, we found O’Kellys on the web, they proclaimed themselves a bona-fide Bears bar. We called to make sure, yes, we do have the Bears on and yes, we have nachos!

We arrived to find O’Kellys to be a small, unassuming bar somewhat hidden in a nearby strip mall. We, however, thought it might be a good thing, an undiscovered gem, a proverbial jalapeno hidden in the cheese sauce.

We walked into the dark room and found the Bears game right away--on the big screen, not high def but still ok. It’s the kind of low-def TV where you have to squint to read the scores, downs, etc because the font is too small and the words and numbers run together. The whole place had a early ‘90s vibe to it. We sat at a table in front, next to a lone guy in his mid 50’s staring at another TV, watching cars drive around in a circle. To our astonishment, a good-natured waitress appeared almost immediately! We placed our order for beer and nachos. The beer came in frosty mugs and soon the nachos followed. We told the waitress we don’t use the phrase “off the hook” very often, but indeed her service was revealing itself to be ‘off the hook’.

The nachos had all the fix’ns, inclusive of jalapenos! Woohoo. This bar was turning out to be pretty good, we clinked our glasses together for a quick “cheers”.

…Whoops, spoken too soon. NASCAR. Yes, the guy we sat next to turned out to be a little ‘more drunker’ than we thought. He insisted that we change the big screen TV to watch the last 50 laps of his race right in the middle of the 2nd quarter of the Bears. The race was playing on another TV but the man couldn’t grasp how he could possibly watch it on a smaller TV. So, he proceeded to make obscene comments to members of the Nachobears team, often and loudly, then moved on to complain to management, ranting over and over about how no one would let him watch the last 50 laps and oh yeah, how he is a big “cash cow” for the bar. We had to leave at half-time (by our own choice). We could not take it anymore and our nachos had quickly gotten soggy. As we were leaving, our waitress told us that this was a Green Bay bar, the ‘old owner’ was the Bears fan and the web site is out of date. Schnoiks!

So, recapping: The nachos started off great, but the cheese-colored topping sauce soon soaked in to the nachos, we watched in horror as our crunchy chips turned into a soggy mess, nachos no more.

To show we do have good things to say: The staff was very friendly and FAST! The beer was delicious, in frosty mugs! We had the front row! The urinal cakes in the bathroom were new!

Since we had a hard time concentrating on the game with our belligerent neighbor, we decided to go back to Zipps for the remaining half. At least there we knew we would be with football fans. I knew the Bears could pull this game off and what an exciting nail-biting win!. That is one of the most fantastic finishes we’ve seen in a long time! Great Game!

GO BEARS!!!
(no official nb rating, we did not stay the entire time)

Until next week, keep reaching for the chips, but keep your eye on the cheese.