This visit has been quite some time in the making. Ever since we heard the former Silver Swan would be reopening as Ryes & Shine – home of the all-day breakfast – we of course knew we had to visit.

Ted actually tried to pick it once a while back, but that turned out to be before they actually opened. And so Shane and I waited for him to pick it again.

And waited.

And waited.

And every time Shane’s pick came around he threatened to steal it. But respect always got the best of him.

Stupid values.

We almost didn’t make it here tonight either because Ted had another pick he thought might be better – but when Shane’s head about exploded in the car Ted caved and decided to finally stop toying with him.

So here we are.

And guess what, we actually made it somewhere in time for a happy hour! This happens literally never, so we were pretty excited.

Like seriously, who are the people who make it to a place between 4-6 pm on a weekday? Because I want to be you when I grow up.

Anyway, the happy hour special here is $5 margaritas, mimosas and bloody Mary’s from 3-7 pm. They also have $5 apps – which includes onion rings, hush puppies and pretzels.

Naturally we ordered one of each. Of the apps that is. Ted asked about the happy hour drink specials – and then prompted order a beer. Ok then.

Shane ordered a Long Island – which were also on a $5 special but all day and not happy hour.

I got a tequila and soda. When I asked what kinds of tequila they had the server originally said they had Cuervo silver, but it turned out that the bottle he was thinking of instead contained a house made jalapeño tequila. That sounds like a much better option truthfully.

Props to the server for offering to give me a sample – but I decided to live dangerously and just go ahead with that in my drink. Why not.

And I chose correctly, because it ended up being very good. It had a touch of spice but not enough to linger.

So as far as the apps, the giant basket of onion rings were the clear winner for the $5 value just based on how much you get. The other options were one pretzel (which truthfully was a little hard), or a handful of hush puppies.

Another reason to choose the onion rings: they came with beer cheese. Shane and I might’ve divorced one another in order to marry the beer cheese. That’s how good it was.

And if we had just ended our evening here, this review would be a lot different. Because – spoiler alert – this was one of those nights when the apps were the clear favorite over the meals.

*sigh*

Shane got the Reuben. He was wavering between that and the burger. He asked the bartender/server which was better, but it turns out he’s still fairly new and hasn’t had a chance to try either yet. So that’s helpful.

I got the brunch burger. I was really on board with the all-day breakfast concept and wanted to try something from that menu, but as much as I love breakfast I just couldn’t order an omelette while drinking tequila. So this was my compromise.

Ted got the fish and chips. He was wavering between that and the corned beef skillet, but also decided to forgo the breakfast concept.

He also got six of the jerk wings. Because it seemed like st least one of us needed to order wings.

When the food arrived, Shane had real food envy over Ted’s meal. For some reason he was fixated on the cole slaw and kept asking Ted how it was very time he took a bite.

Shane: “So is it good?” “It looks good” “I bet it’s good.”

Ted: “Did someone feed him crack today?”

When it comes to my meal, it turns out I maybe should’ve gone down that breakfast route because the burger was definitely not my favorite. The patty was super thin and very well done. And I somehow missed the part about there being an egg on it? Which seems odd because I don’t care for eggs on burgers and so I believe I would’ve not ordered it for that reason alone.

This is the part where the voice over voice would chime in that I really hadn’t missed that, because the egg was NOT in the description on the menu. But we’ll get back to that part later.

I also had ordered the burger in part because the description said it came with a chipotle aioli. But I didn’t see any on my sandwich. So, apparently tonight the part of aioli will be played by a semi-fried egg. Got it.

Truthfully the best part of my meal was the potatoes – which again were even better with the leftover beer cheese from the apps. Because I’m convinced beer cheese makes everything better.

Continuing the theme of things that made us go hmmm about this experience, Ted’s wings arrived as a sauced wing, which is odd considering that jerk wings are usually more of a spiced rub. He said they were kind of a lime and ginger flavor. Ok.

They were good but just not what he was expecting. Maybe because he ordered something totally different? Just a guess.

His fish and chips were also just ok. Not great but also not horrible. So edible. Got it.

Shane said about the same for his sandwich. He said it was pretty greasy, and almost needed some other sort of condiment on it with more flavor to cut the grease. The concept was good – it was different than a normal Reuben – but it was missing something.

Like a flavored cole slaw. Seriously I do not know why he was obsessed with cole slaw this evening. We’ve been married for 13 years and I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen him order it anywhere. But tonight it was all he could focus on.

We all thought this place has a lot of potential, but they need to work on a lot of things for that to be realized. Like maybe not just making up the ingredients to the food on the fly? I mean, menus exist for a reason. If you want to just have random foods available or make up the dishes as you go then maybe don’t write them down in one place for people to choose from. Just a thought.

We also learned that as far as Ted’s wings go, the bartender admitted that the cook actually didn’t have any jerk sauce left so he had had to improvise. I mean, ok, if you don’t have that sauce left then I get it, you can’t make the dish. But like maybe come and ask the person if they still want it before just wandering over to the bar and asking the bartender for some lime juice so you can just make up a new sauce on the fly? So he’s clearly just making something up.

Maybe they should change the name of this place to Russian Roulette and the tagline to “spinning the wheel of ingredients all day” instead of the breakfast focus? Again, just throwing out ideas here.

That being said, the list of specialty iced coffees did look good and I do think I’d like to try some of them along with real breakfast. Maybe there’s less improv when the kitchen staff isn’t just hoping for an early closing? But for now I think we’ll be skipping any additional evening visits – unless it was just for drinks and something on the happy hour app menu that comes with beer cheese.

Picked by: Ted