First look: West Chester Bar and Grill

Lori and Andy Valerius of West Chester enjoy a drink with Sravan Reddy of Dayton at West Chester Bar and Grill. (Credit: Thomas E. Smith | Special to Metromix)

If you're looking for cheap brews with a few upscale touches, then West Chester Bar and Grill is the place for you. Oh and don't forget the tasty food.

Having just opened in a strip mall off Tylersville Road, West Chester Bar and Grill is a nice place to relax after work or to catch a game. It has more sophistication than your average sports bar: Silverware is rolled in a cloth napkin and the servers wear black.

But the walls are still wrapped in flat-screen TVs, and a digital jukebox, a pool table and Golden Tee give it the sports bar feel. Choose from 12 beers, domestic and imports, on tap and by the bottle, plus wines by the glass and a full bar for cocktails.

My date and I arrived around 5:30 p.m. on a Saturday to find out that happy hour is every day from 1 to 7 p.m.

The bar was serving $2 Coronas and Heinekens and $1 Bud Light and Miller Lite bottles, and some appetizers, such as black and tan onion rings and cheese sticks, were half off.

We ordered the spinach and artichoke dip with tortilla chips ($6) and each got a $2 Corona to start.

The menu offers typical bar food but also has soups and salads and a kids menu. I decided to try the Chicago- style hot dog, which was a large hot dog topped with tomatoes, pepperoncini, onion, relish, mustard and pickle spears all on a pretzel bun with Saratoga chips - deep fried potato chips with barbecue sauce ($7).

My date chose the giant cod sandwich and substituted his side dish for sweet Vidalia onion coleslaw ($10). The name did not lie: The sandwich was big and topped with fresh lettuce, tomatoes and tartar sauce.

Even though the staff was in the process of setting up for a party of about 100 people that evening, the manager came over more than once to thank us for coming in and to make sure our food and beverages were up to par.

My only complaint was that our waitress tended to disappear quite a bit and took a while to take our order and bring our food and bill. It did seem that the other servers were on top of their game.

Even so, the West Chester Bar and Grill has everything it needs to become a popular suburban hangout.

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