By Joe Johnson (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: June 4, 2014
Sneakers Sports Lounge is a place of comfort and commonality. It stakes out its claim in the bar scene by having no pretentiousness about it. It seems to be the kind of place that has found a steady group of devoted patrons who just want a place to eat, drink, and talk.
As it is atop a gym along Old Yale Road, you’re greeted with a flight of stairs at the entrance. When you complete that harrowing climb, you’re presented with a sandwich board listing the daily specials, which can range between $5 and $12. However, they do occasionally have $2 tacos.
At first glance, there’s nothing fancy about Sneakers; it’s actually quite generic. If you’re not there on an event night, the table selection is generally open for your choosing. Entering the lounge, immediately to the right is a lookout glass over a squash court in the gym below. The actual bar is situated along the middle of the left wall, and along the opposing wall there is a pool table.
The night that I was there actually was an event night. One of the recent UFC fights was on all the televisions. Not an avid viewer myself, that wasn’t what enticed me to Sneakers. No, it was my friends who are some of those devoted patrons. With the fights happening that night, it meant it wasn’t just the four of us in the lounge. It was quite well attended, actually. That night I had joined my friends a little after they arrived. By the time that I got there they had already eaten their meals and were on their third pitcher of well-priced beer.
They had all chosen their meals from the daily specials. Being the indecisive eater I am, I figured that I would also narrow down my selection to those three items. I went with a meal of prawns, steak, baked potato, and salad for $12.
After giving my order to the waitress — who, for that busy of a night, was fairly attentive — I had received my food within 10 minutes. It came so fast that I actually thought it was my friends’ food that had been ordered before I got there.
One thing to note is that apparently Sneakers went through a change in management and kitchen within the last year or two, resulting in a definite upgrade of food quality.
Now back to my dinner. Looking down at the square plate, it appeared to be delicious. The steak, which I assume to be roughly 8 ounces, was glistening with a succulence that made it impossible not to devour first. The potato, moderately sized and cooked in a very classic style, came with sour cream and chives. The salad, which I thought would be my least interesting item within the course, actually turned out to be very fresh, bouncy, and full of life. And then there were the prawns. What can I say? I’m a sucker for prawns. There were four of them: moderately sized, served on a skewer, and nicely simmered in a frying pan.
Appearances weren’t deceiving. The steak was the first to go — perfectly cooked to medium-rare. I used the salad’s ranch sauce, which was served in a small bowl, as a steak dip. What a perfect combination. Obviously, the other standout was the prawns. Unfortunately, they were devoured in seconds. The potato and salad acted as a nice palate cleanser and did the job of filling my stomach.
In the end, for the price and being a student, I don’t think this is a meal that I would order every time. However, it was a nice distraction from the fights, which, from what I could tell, were probably boring anyways.
Sneakers is good choice if you’re looking for an easy place to talk that isn’t too hard on the wallet.
