Joyce’s Cafe

Basic Information:

• First Time to Joyce’s - 12/06/12
  Overall Rating: 25

  Lynch Serniak

  Lynch's Rating: 12 out of 50

  Environment: 2
  

  Joyce’s is a small townie bar located in Minooka right on the edge of Scranton. I’ve got to say, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the Minooka bars I’ve been too. This place was not a pleasant surprise. After entering the bar, we headed to the back to the dining area. It was like it was placed in the back of someone’s house. Actually, I imagine it was someone’s house converted to a bar. We were told we just missed the dinner rush, which was interesting because everyone must have left at exactly the same time. There were three people at the bar and then us in the back. The bar allows smoking, which was hanging in the air bothering my eyes. Generally, I don’t mind smoking, but this was a bit overwhelming. The waitresses are a bunch of nice, middle-aged women, but did not provide good service. Perhaps they were winding down after a busy night, but that was no excuse. The wings took forever to come out, then we were sitting there for a while when we were done. We actually put our jackets on and stood up to signal that we were ready to leave. We are usually patient men, but this outrageous wait warranted a sign. The place was clean though. It had that going for it. And the waitresses did ask us how we liked the wings, which was a nice gesture.

  
  Wing Size: 1
  

  These wings were pathetic. They were by far the smallest wings I have had at any place I have been to. As I stated previously, the wings took quite a while to come out, which means they were very crispy and super cooked, which might explain why these wings were so ridiculously small. On top of that, the menu states that wings run $0.40 for most wings, then $0.45 for garlic. When we got the check, the wings cost us $0.50 for most and $0.60 for the garlic. I don’t know why it was worth so much more. Maybe it was the addition of the blue cheese with each order. The thing is, we didn’t ask for blue cheese. In fact, we never eat blue cheese. We made a blue cheese tower out of all the containers of blue cheese provided to us. If it was more for blue cheese, this should have been relayed to us. It’s like those hidden fees with cell phone contracts that everyone hates.

  
  Wing Flavors: 3
  

  This place contained your standard, run of the mill mix of flavors. The addition of the sweet hot wing was a nice touch, but there wasn’t a big selection and definitely nothing out of the ordinary.

  
  Wing Taste (x2): 3
  

  The biggest factor with taste for this place was the fact that these wings were extra crispy. Generally, I like my wings rubbery. I know it’s an oddity. I know most people like them crispy, but I know most people would not have enjoyed this level of crispiness. It was like I was chewing straight into bone. It had an annoying crunch. With them being so deep-fried, it left very little meat on the wing. I ordered Hot, Sweet Hot, and Hot Garlic. The Hot had an all right taste to the, but were extremely salty. I could feel my lips drying up with each bite. The Hot garlic weren’t all that bad. The garlic tasted decent enough, but since they were mixed with the hot sauce, you had a lot of that salty taste again. The Sweet Hot were a pleasant surprise after the other two. It had good flavor to it, with a great level of spice and sweetness. If you had to order one wing at this place, these would be the wings to get. I also tried my friend’s BBQ, which also tasted pretty good. I’m not the biggest fan of BBQ, but these were pretty enjoyable.

  Serniak's Rating: 13 out of 50

  Environment: 3
  

  Joyce’s is a clean place that is a bar/restaurant. You would have no problem going there at any time of the day. It had a very old family/Italian feel to it. They have a pool table and their staff were sweet and very friendly. However, when it was time to leave which was late in the evening for a weekday, we sat for an extra 20 minutes upon completion of our meal. No one walked by to check if were done and wanted the check. Very annoying.

  
  Wing Size: 2
  

  They were small and extremely dried out. I just didn’t get it. I like my wings to be crispy but that was out of hand. They were fried so long that holes were created in the meat to where the meat just fell off in the fryer.

  
  Wing Flavors: 2
  

  There were only a few flavors and they were what you might expect. Hot, mild, bbq, honey mustard, hot garlic and sweet hot. Nothing out of the ordinary besides sweet hot.

  
  Wing Taste (x2): 3
  

  There was nothing special from this batch of wings. The hot and the sweet hot were alright but nothing memorable. It just wasn’t very good.