Sparks Wings & Ribs

Location: Apex, NC

I've been on the hunt for some new wing places in the area, and stumbled across this place on the local new channels website. Went to the Sparks website, and the place has a pretty decent menu. Looked promising.

So after a NCS (NCSportbikes.com) meet and greet at the Raleigh Fairgrounds, a few of us decided to head over to Sparks. It's a small resturaunt and sports bar in a strip mall in Apex. Pretty cool feeling place, and I dug the atmosphere of the place.

We sat ourselves, and within a few minutes our drink orders were taken. It took a while for the waitress to take our food order, but to her defense, not all of us showed up at the same time. About the time she was ready to take our food order, 2 more people would show up and she'd have to get their drink order instead....then 2 more would show up.

I ordered wings....smoked wings actually. The taste of these are quite a bit different than normal (fried....or even baked or grilled) wings. Very good in taste and fairly tender as well! These wings don't come with sauce on them, but you get sauce on the side instead. As always, I got the hottest sauce. The sauce, while pretty spicy, was no where near being in the top 5 of hottest sauces I've had. On a scale from 1 (coldest) to 10 (hottest), I'd rate these around a 6...maybe 7.

The service at this place was average....maybe slightly above average. I can't really complain too much about it. The food came out in a timely manner, and orders were taken in a timely manner as well. Drinks did run dry on occasion, but I never had to wait any ungodly amount of time for a refill. The one big complaint I have is one of the guys paid with cash, and the waitress didn't bring him any one dollar bills with his change...only a 5. Only when he asked her to make change for the 5 did he get it. When service is only marginal to begin with (I'm not saying it was this time), it's a good way for *ME* to not leave any tip at all. If they're not smart enough to bring ones, they get nothing. Luckily, service was better than marginal (as I said, slightly above average), and his attitude may not be the same as mine. ;)

Now, there is something to note about this place. 2 of the 6 of us got sick after eating at this place. One guy puked up everything a couple hours later, and the other guy said he couldn't get off the toilet all night. The other 4 of us were perfectly fine. The 2 that got sick, that could have been purely coincidental, but it sure is a hell of a coincidence. Neither of them ate the same thing though, and neither of their food shared anything in common. Different sauces, one had wings and the other didn't, 2 different kinds of fries, etc. Maybe one cook that had something on him touched those 2 plates and another cook touched the other 4. Who knows. May have not even been related to the place, but I feel it's note worthy. Both of the guys said they would go back to try it again though, and both said the food was VERY good.

Overall, I'd rate the place around a 8.5. Fair service, great food (as long as it doesn't make you sick), and a pretty good atmosphere! If no one gets sick the next time we go, and the service and food is the same, I'll bump this place up to a 9 or so, but I probably won't make another post about it. If someone does get sick again, I'll be rating it a 1, and will surely post it up.