McGinnis Front Row

This is basically a sports bar, but it's migrated over time to being more of a general-purpose restaurant, too. I've never been a fan, and a year ago, we had a co-op going away lunch there, where I had bad food and our receptionist, whose family owns the best fishmonger in town, had terrible fish.

This time, I went with three staff members, largely to acknowledge all of the great work they've done this year. I probably should've paid more attention to the food than I did, maybe eating off their plates (er, maybe not; that'd be rude!), but I will say that it was a better meal than the last time I'd been there.

Service seemed super-slow: why does it take 15 minutes between sitting us down and getting our orders? By that point, the TV at our table (yay sports bar!) was covered up with my menu to remove distractions. And I wish that there were, um, something appealing on their beer list. But once they'd gotten their groove going, they were actually pretty fast, replacing empty drinks quickly, for example.

In the end, I had chicken fingers with seafood chowder. I appreciated that there was the possibility of having something other than french fries with the chicken fingers, and the soup was pretty good. The chicken fingers themselves were tasty, but the breading was kind of boring: I'm used to it being spiced up (and salty), and instead it was more meh.

But overall, this wasn't a bad meal, and the company was great.

I had: chicken fingers with a side of seafood chowder, with iced tea to drink
I paid: lunch for the 4 of us was around $80; the other three people had sandwiches or salads
Verdict:
Speed: Pretty slow, particularly to take our orders
Quality: Fine? It looked like the chips and "avocado salsa" (you used to call it guacamole?) that D. had was good. H. got a burger that came with both onion rings and fries; the onion rings were pretty squishy with grease. She didn't eat them.
Value: This didn't feel appropriately priced. I kind of wish we'd been able to go to the (substantially more expensive) Xmas buffet at the University Club, though; really, the goal was to share some holiday fun with some hard-working colleagues. So that's okay.
Would go back: I can't see why. I'll probably go there because I have to, not because I want to.