You know you’re officially part of the WTGW group when you get an official pick. Welcome aboard, Cassi!
The first one is always the most intimidating, because, well, us. I mean, I think there might be a photo of us next to the word ruthless in the dictionary. We get it.
But I have to say Cassi did well with her first pick. I personally was impressed straight off with the fact that she found a place I had never even heard of before. Like hadn’t even crossed my radar. And I keep a damn LIST of places for future reference. Yeah, I’m THAT guy. I know.
Although maybe this one fell to the side because the name had “Lounge” in the title. That’s right up there with “Chalet” on the list of names that probably are frequented by an age group a few demographic rungs above ours.
Fortunately for us, though, George and Gus don’t seem to have the same clientele. I mean, yes, there were older people in attendance. But also much younger than us as well. And businessmen, and guys who could’ve been bikers, and groups of millenials, and date nights … pretty much any group of people you can think of were cycled in and out of this place in the time that we were there. It was quite the interesting group of people under one roof, to say the least.
I think we probably fell under the title of “newbies” to anyone (else) looking to label people that evening, since we walked in and were obviously clueless about how things worked at George’s. Now, to our credit, it’s more than a tad confusing. Let’s do a re-enactment, shall we?
So you walk in the door and basically smack directly into the person unlucky enough to be seated at the bar with their back to the door. Hi, random stranger, nice to meet you. But while their seating location might be unfortunate, the fact that they even have a seat at all is pure luck. Because – as we found out after some awkward loitering and finally the pity of a server who noticed our huddling uncomfortably in a corner at the back and gave us the lowdown – the place is seat yourself, although no sign or person will tell you that right off. The bar is also about the size of my living room, so “seating yourself” becomes a bit of an Olympic sport when you have about 25 barstools and a handful of tables to choose from. There was a strange little back room, too, that Cassi peeked into … but it appeared to be consumed with large groups and someone I believe might’ve been squatting on all of the remaining tables for his friends who were supposedly showing up eventually. Helpful.
I think you could seriously sell “seat at George’s Tavern” online via Facebook Marketplace and make a boatload of money.
Luck smiled on us, though, as we spotted two open seats at the back of the bar … and just as we were about to at least grab those while we scoped out access to a booth (read: stared awkwardly at anyone who looked like they may leave soon), the guys to the right of those two bar seats offered up that they were about to leave and we were welcome to steal their two seats as well. Score.
Obviously they hadn’t thought about that Facebook Marketplace thing yet. You can thank me later, previously kind gentlemen.
The first thing we noticed was that the beer list was rather impressive. Like where are you keeping all of these beers when the place barely holds seating for as many people as there are names on this list?
It’s also divided into sections – $2, $3, $4 and $5 options. Beautiful. Thank you for making this easy.
Well, for us anyway. Cassi and I each chose a Ciderboys cider that we’d both had before and liked. Shane continued his Hamm’s kick (hey, $2!). Ted tried to order something that – according to the bartender – the computer said there should’ve been five left of, but then when she checked the cooler they weren’t there. Whoops. Maybe they found an open booth and were holding it down for future drinkers of their kind.
Undeterred, Ted discovered some milk stout from North High Brewery that looked appetizing, so he went with that. And then changed up to something else completely different for the next round, so I guess that tells you what he thought of that first one.
This week’s food theme seems to be “great minds think alike,” as we all ordered some variation of the same thing it seemed. Starting with apps: Shane and I got the jalapeno cheese poppers, while Cassi got the pepperoni ones.
Ted got pretzel bites, because, well, they don’t contain cheese. Although in a nasty twist of fate, they did come with a cheese dip … which Ted didn’t discover until he dipped a pretzel bite into it and smelled it, then determined it was his nemesis, cheese.
Shane was nice enough to take that one off his hands. What a friend. Of course with this group it’s probably less about friendship and more about not wasting food, especially if it tastes good.
I was a little skeptical of the poppers when they arrived, since they more resembled a Stromboli than the typical jalapenos or bread filled with cream cheese or regular cheese and pepperoni. If they hadn’t said “poppers” when they set them down in front of us I might’ve thought they got the wrong seats.
Although after tasting them I don’t care if they had made them look like a plate of spaghetti, I would eat them without question. They were that good. Ours came with ranch to dip in, and it was also some of the best ranch I’ve ever tried. I mean, I know that’s not saying much considering I don’t typically eat ranch dip in the first place so the competition isn’t fierce in that category. Whatevs. Maybe the fact that I was eating it at all was the bigger compliment.
Close-call-cheese-incident aside, Ted liked his pretzels. He was also a bit worried when they arrived, since in the “appetizer costume contest” that seemed to be going on here they chose “little deep fried balls of grease” as their cover. Interesting. But they turned out to be really good.
For dinner it was burgers all around. Fingers crossed I get these picutres in the right order.
Ted got the Spicy Jorge – minus the pepper jack cheese, of course. So maybe it should be renamed the “semi-spicy Jorge” then? Because that really just left some salsa and jalapenos for toppings. Although by his account the jalapenos more than made up for the lack of spicy cheese, since they were definitely of the extra-kick variety. Maybe they used the extra special “we hate cheese so don’t put it on my burger” jar for him.
Cassi got the Wednesday special burger, which I have no idea now what toppings that included, but do remember that when the server mentioned it to us it sounded pretty good. So there’s that.
She said it was good. The jalapeno jam that came with it as a spread was super hot, but also super tasty.
Side note: I think this may be the most I’ve used the word “jalapeno” in one post. Hmm.
I made my own burger, using the grass fed beef, ciabatta bread, mozzerella, bacon and mushrooms, with a garlic aioli as a spread. No jalapenos, sorry. But I just felt the need to type the word one more time.
It was OK. For “medium” it was very, very pink on the inside. Like if I get sick before this post goes up, someone may want to pay George a little visit. Just saying. But the burger itself was still good.
Now the garlic aioli that I thought would be delicious and that I slathered my bun with … well that pretty much made it inedible. I eventually just picked out the burger and ate that – which made me sad because it meant I had to abandon the ciabatta (i.e. my favorite bread and my main reason for making my own burger, as the pre-made options that I liked didn’t come on ciabatta) virtually untouched save for a few bites.
Insert sad face here.
Shane got the Gorgeous George, which is two patties on a regular bun with a fried egg, bacon, sautéed mushrooms and onions.
Now, prior to his meal being set down in front of him we were discussing the George’s Challenge, which is three of those sandwiches, along with a full basket of fries and a milkshake. And you have to eat it in 60 minutes.
Shane, inspecting his one sandwich when it arrived: “Those patties are thin, I could add one more.”
Me, not wanting to burst his bubble but knowing he was wrong: “Uh, it’s not three of those patties, it’s three of this same full sandwich. Like six patties, six buns, and all the toppings three times.”
Thus followed a somewhat lengthy discussion of both me and the bartender trying to convince him I was right. Because, well, I was.
Needless to say he didn’t try it. All of us and our health insurance provider appreciate that decision.
Instead we were treated to the show that was Shane trying to eat that giant burger without any utensils of any kind. Namely a knife. Now all of us rational people get that obviously he could’ve asked for one (I mean, I asked for a fork, and lo and behold it arrived) but I guess that was too difficult. More difficult than trying to pick the burger up and eat it on its own? Seems that way. Because he instead basically ate the one patty with the top bun and the other with the bottom bun like two different sandwiches.
He said it was OK, but the burger patties themselves didn’t have much taste. Maybe you have to eat them together to get the full effect? Just a thought.
Our group had mixed feelings on – of all things – the fries. I know they usually don’t get much play in our postings – typical side dish choice, and really, how often does a place really screw up fries?
Well, for Cassi, they didn’t. She got the regular fries “old fashioned sea salt” fries. They were large cut, seasoned well with salt, and tasty. She choose wisely.
The rest of us got the “fancy fries” and chose the “Italian festival” style, which were topped with balsalmic vinegar, garlic and parm cheese. Sounds good, right?
“Sounds” is the operative word there. Well, the guys will tell you they tasted that way as well, but I was less than thrilled. I thought the balsalmic was overwhelming. Like let’s go easy here, I don’t need an entire bottle on my order. Plus I don’t particularly enjoy soggy things, which is what toasted potatoes basically become after a few minutes of any sort of liquid sits on them. See also: why those tiny ketchup containers were invented.
(BTW, if you’re confused by any of our burgers or what these strange things called “fancy fries” really are, there are handy little illustrations on their website you might want to check out. Why don’t all places have picture menus?)
Because Ted apparently felt the need to try all the alcohol this week, he ended the night ordering one of the alcoholic milkshakes – the strawberry, which he didn’t remember what the menu said was in it after he ordered, but it sounded good. And hey, it’s alcohol, so who really cares about the specifics, right?
The server who brought it out was incredibly surprised when he came to drop it off and Ted was the one to claim it. He immediately looked to us girls, and Ted raises his hand and says “it’s mine!” That alone was worth the price.
Overall, George’s is a cute little place, with emphasis on little. The setup reminded me of kind of a step back in time to when places were just bars and didn’t serve food – so you really only needed enough seats for the town alcoholics. The whole no windows thing kind of lends to that effect also, but whatever. We noticed there’s a space up front presumably for live bands, although I can’t even imagine that noise level in this little space. You can tell this place has probably been a neighborhood bar for about forever, and at some point they had to add food in order to keep the doors open. And then once the secret got out that they had decent burgers it became a pretty hot little spot in the downtown Canton area. Now we all admitted that we’re a little ruined on burgers after the Akron adventure of a few weeks ago, so we may not be able to properly rate any others for a bit … but these would definitely rate a revisit if we ever found ourselves back in downtown Canton and needed some good bar food.
Picked by: Cassi
Where To Go Wednesdays 