I went to McNellie’s last Wednesday with fellow Collegians Sam Beckman and Abigail LaBounty, along with a group of their computer-science-major friends, to try out McNellie’s four dollar burger night.
McNellie’s, for all you out-of-towners, is an Irish pub-style bar and restaurant located on First and Elgin. The pub has been a Tulsa fixture for years, and is famous for its wide selection of beers.
When we got to the restaurant, it looked to me like it was pretty much packed, although Sam told me he’d seen it busier. A few people were waiting to be seated, which is always a discouraging sight.
Fortunately, a few of the CS people had arrived ahead of us and had secured a table, albeit in the smoking section.
I usually don’t like to complain about service at restaurants because I know being a waiter is a hard job, especially on a busy night like Wednesday was.
However, the service we received was pretty slow, and my companions assured me that they had gotten faster service on busier nights. I don’t doubt them, but it was annoying to see our waiter walk by us multiple times, even though we were a large group sitting in the middle of the room and everyone had shown up.
Once we got our waiter’s attention, we placed our orders, and I was excited to see that we got the choice of sweet potato or regular fries.
Now, I love sweet potato fries. I love sweet potato fries so much that I actually received them as a gift for Christmas this year, and was completely overjoyed. My family has been instructed to put “Loved Sweet Potato Fries” on my tombstone.
On the day of Ragnarök, when the heavens are torn asunder and the forces of good do battle with the forces of evil until nothing of our puny universe exists, one certainty shall remain: I love sweet potato fries. Aside from income inequality, discrimination and climate change, the greatest crime of our generation is the comparative difficulty of finding sweet potato fries in restaurants. No, regular potato fries are not an acceptable substitute. No, you’re being a baby.
You can imagine my delight when I found out that McNellie’s offers the option of sweet potato fries. This is probably partially my pro-sweet potato fry stance talking, but when the food got to the table I found that the fries, rather than the burger, were the highlight of the meal.
That isn’t to say that the burger was bad, it was just pretty standard as burgers go. Probably because of the large number of burgers being ordered, they were all cooked medium, so if it’s important to you that you get it rare or well-done you may have to go some other night.
Also, cheese costs extra, which for some reason was mildly annoying, even though I don’t like cheese.
If you’re in the mood for really good fries, a pretty good burger and possibly a few drinks, and you don’t mind potentially having to sit in the smoking section, McNellie’s is the place to go on a Wednesday night. The worst that can happen still involves a night out with your friends.
