Sure enough, at 5 p.m. Wednesday, the neighborhood’s newest restaurant and bar — Go 4 It Sports Grill at Northwest Highway and Plano Road — opened its doors, a few months behind the original schedule. At 6 p.m., according to an employee, “you could hear crickets in here”, meaning that the place was empty. By 6:30 p.m., though, he says the place was mobbed, and when we turned up around 7:15 p.m., I saw two empty chairs. So much for a quiet, “soft” opening.
The place looks like a winner, although it’s a bit unconventional for the genre. For one thing, there are lots of windows, and none of them appear to be screened or shaded. Most sports bars, or at least most of the ones I’ve visited, generally are somewhat dark and tend to have the seedy, spilled-beer smell permanently wafting in the air. This one appears geared to families, and the soft opening featured lots of kids. There are plenty of TVs, the chairs were comfortable, the huge U-shaped bar looked to be made of granite, the prices were pretty standard for bar fare, and I spotted a Golden Tee machine, a pool table and some additional spaces, presumably for darts and a few other game diversions.
As for the food, last night probably wasn’t the best time to judge things. The kitchen was literally overrun with orders, so much so that around 8:30 p.m., our waiter told us the place had to quit taking food orders because the kitchen couldn’t keep up. We had ordered earlier, though, and our chicken Caesar salad and house burger ($7.95 each) were good. I had ordered the burger “medium” and it came out “well-done”, but the meat still tasted juicy, and I’m not that picky, anyway. The tater tots, in particular, couldn’t have been better — just crispy enough, salty enough and tasty enough to be memorable. I saw onion rings and fries being toted to other tables, and they were both golden-brown-looking, too. And the chips (nice and crunchy) and hot sauce (spicy) were good, too. Good thing we were full before dessert; our waiter said the dessert hadn’t shown up yet.
Overall, this looks like a place that will stick. Families should be comfortable here (the after-school sporting-event crowed apparently has already found it), there’s plenty of well-lit parking, there’s a spot for smokers outside on the sidewalk and they can still see the TVs, and the service was friendly and attentive, even if a bit harried. The place will be open daily until 2 a.m.
