The Spot 79

This place used to have problems. They hired new management, got rid of the deadbeat waitresses so the service is now good. These guys prepare great basic food with a few well prepared Asian dishes. If you tried these guys before and were disappointed I would give them another shot. These guys have really improved.

Great little hole in the wall for lunch or dinner and drinks.
This is a very laid back little spot. Great salad and steak bites. I always get the french dip. I also like it for breakfast, usually take out for me. I like the Denver omelette with a side of hollandaise sauce. Yummy.
Michelle is one of the waitresses, she is my favorite. She pours very good, and effective, drinks. Avoid karaōke night, wow, terrible.
All around a decent stop for no judgment dining.

they deleted karaōke so i’m not leaving my house ever again. but they have bomb fried mushrooms chunks holy hell

its a great place to hang if your a crack head or local drunk. if your driving your limit will be 15 hard drinks, remember drive fast get home quicker

EDIT: karaōke has been cancelled PERMANENTLY due to new owners TT_​_​TT so sad, best KJ and song selection

T.V.s all over the place including your own booth monitor. You might have to bargain with the waitress’s to get the remote to actually change the channel to whatever game you want to watch but most games are available-​if anything ESPN Sportscenter is on one of the big screens.
The real deal here is the happy hour cheeseburger and fry for $ 6. Super good greasy love and the fries are the skinny crisp fries.
On weekends they have prime rib-​and it’s no joke. Nice creamy horseradish sauce and/​or au jus with heavy sides-​you will need a nap directly after.
Unfortunately I have to edit my remarks, The service has gone down hill and my friend I have both experienced sickness after eating there within the last month. It’s still nice to catch a game and have a beer but…

Great Happy Hour menu. Friendly Staff and an awesome place to go watch the Hawks on Sunday.

Crab Ragoon is so good! This is a good little bar with TV’s at your table only 1 pool table though and a nice bar staff.

I only give 5 stars to my all time favorite restaurants. I usually come here for their happy hour after 9. The food is really good for what you would expect. It varies depending on the cook I think. The servers are always really nice.

Is there no way to give minus stars? Dirty bathrooms, sticky tables and surly waitresses are the highlight of this dive. Sorry to any dive bars I may offend. I just walked out today after tolerating this place a few times for my boyfriend to watch football. No one should spend good money for service that terrible. Never setting foot in here again.

Stiff stiff drinks, great happy hour menu, and pretty solid prime rib! All in all great dive bar in the Lents neighborhood! New bartenders kick ass old bartender needed his ass kicked!

I usually don’t head out to this area since I live on the west side, but went here Friday night and actually enjoyed it. It does look a little sketchy from the outside, but the inside is actually pretty nice. Good atmosphere and good beer. The TVs at every table were a little distracting, but an otherwise nice spot to hangout.

This place is a toilet. It was once a fun place to stop in, owner and staff changes with layout changes and it is not worth walking near never mind to. When you walk in every eye turns to you cause they are all so lame they have nothing better to do. Basically a bunch of old drunks come here to hang out.

From the outside, it looks sketch. The entrance is in an alley and the door is across from Vice which, from the sign out in the parking lot, is an adult store. Walk inside the place, though, and the décor kinda threw me. I was expecting very divey but it was nice. There were TVs everywhere. Each booth seat in the bar area had a TV (cool!) and there is a larger room with a pool table with large multiple screens.
The chairs are nice and comfy. The food smelled good. We only came here for drinks. We both ordered gin & tonic. It was more gin than tonic.
Would I come back here again? Yeah, I’ll come back here for a drink. Annnndddd, the people watching can be interesting.

Went for dinner around 8pm last Saturday night. It didn’t take long for David (Bartender/​Server) to arrive at the table with menus. We ordered our food and drinks, and received exactly what we wanted.
The ribeye I’d requested med rare, was exactly that. The spud was loaded, the veggies perfect. I liked the cabernet too…
Ok so the TV’s may be a bit off-​putting, but we were engrossed in each other’s company and enjoying our food… so who cares about it being a sports bar?
I’ll go back again and if the service and food is consistant… will change my rating to Yay! I’m a fan…

My wife and I dined here for the first time this evening. It is our habit to find a new place in the Entertainment Book, look up the reviews, then try it for ourselves. Reviews are a fine concept, but one man’s poison.. .
Our experience was excellent at all levels. We were greeted, seated, and our orders taken within five minutes. I had the prime rib, my wife had the pork chops (steaks, really). The salads were very nicely prepared and presented, and the main courses arrived as ordered as soon as we finished the salads. It is said that presentation is everything — I don’t necessarily agree with that, but it was a moot point in this case — everything was presented beautifully, and the food was delicious, from the meat to the sauteed vegetables and baked potato.
The ‘cons’ are few: The lighting is a bit harsh in the booths, being miniature spotlights. I detest professional sports, so I wasn’t thrilled with the fact that every booth has it’s own beautiful flat screen TV, in addition to all of the other large screen sets liberally placed throughout the club. The back area has one of the most impressive TV arrays I’ve ever seen. To their credit, one of the large screens featured a movie, something I have thought for decades would be a great idea.
Bottom line, we tried Spot 79 in spite of the reviews and had a fine dining experience.

Let me start by saying my expectations are pretty low from a cheap steak house. Also I had been here several times, three years ago, when I lived in the neighborhood, and always thought the steak were a decent value for the money. No one comes here expecting Gaucho, Ruths Chris, or Mortons.
I don’t know what is going on over there but I just ate a meal there about 5 hours ago which was perhaps, the most disgusting meal of my life. I ordered the sirloin steak dinner for $ 12.95 at lunch. I had salad and side options with the putative 12 oz. sirloin steak. I received my side salad first, while it was small and simple, but it seemed fresh, it was odd that my French dressing on the side, was enough for 5 salads, but that inefficient waste issue is between the cook and the owner and didn’t really affect me. I didn’t care for a potato option so the waitress said I could just have «double vegetables», Great. So my meal comes and I have a huge trough of corn with what appears to be a 7 oz steak. If this thing was over 8 ounces raw, I would eat my hat, which would have been a better option in the long run anyway. Never the less, I’m with company so I don’t complain. I start with the corn which was tasteless, unbuttered, unsalted, and all around gross. How do you screw up corn from a can? I don’t know but they managed to do it. Also how did the vegetable option turn into just a trough of corn? My waitress should have said double corn, yay double canned gross corn! So I put my corn aside and start on an undersized «sirloin». I take one bite of this disgusting chewy, unseasoned hockey puck and am in shock. I’m not a picky eater, so I turn the steak around and try a bite from the other side less my one bite was a fluke. Nope, this steak is the worst piece of horse meat I’ve ever tasted. I don’t expect Prime or even USDA choice. I may expect USDA select but at least if you are going to serve USDA caner, cutter, or good rated meat, marinate it first. Acrop has enough good sense to marinate their inferior meat for 2 days before serving it, less you get a chewy tasteless, dry mess. Needless to say I’m done with my meal after thee bites en toto.
The waitress comes over after 15 minutes of pretending there isn’t a problem and gives us the bill. My buddy got the hamburger and fries and that was fine. She seems incredulous that I tell here the steak was horrible and I ask her who her supplier is because I know Sysco and FSA would never deal in this grade of horse meat. She tells me the new owner is «experimenting» with new suppliers. Apparently Pablo the dog catcher is their new food supplier. She then asks if I should tell the cook or have him cook it more. I’m like «honey you can’t cook „gross“ out of this cut of meat.» Besides this the cook had to know this steak was disgusting by how it looked, it was beyond the pale of what would be in the ambit and scope of what could pass off as an edible piece of meat, so «no, don’t talk to the cook,» obviously the cook doesn’t give a shit less than the Honeybadger”.
I made the mistake of tipping 25% after the waitress said she was so sorry and wasn’t authorized to reduce the price. I really didn’t expect a reduction in price in a dive like this, nor would I ever ask for one, but I do regret the tip for two reasons which struck me after I left. First she saw how disgusting the corn an steak looked when she set it down. Secondly she artfully ignored us until we were out of time on our lunch break and had to leave. So her whole deep apologies, and making the customer happy nonsense rings pretty hollow. I just wish I would have put that together and not tipped her but she was a convincing thespian. The cook needs to be fired ASAP and the owner needs to see WTF is going on with his food quality because I’m telling everyone I know about the «worst meal of my life.»

I previously wrote a positive review of the Sunday Craft Night at Spot 79. I’m not sure why it was taken down but hopefully this one will stay up.
I understand that a previous reviewer had a negative experience. I don’t know her and don’t intend to comment on her views but I think its important that people have more than one viewpoint before they make up their minds.
I originally went because I saw an ad on craigslist. I didn’t know anyone there but it was in the Southeast near where I live and I was looking for creative community. I work nights at a residential treatment facility for adolescent girls. The work is often stressful and always tiring (10 hr. shifts). Saturday evening from 11:30 pm until Sunday at 9:30 am is my last shift of the week.
As you can imagine, sleep is a number one priority. Before I started going to craft night that is exactly what I did, came home and went to sleep. Now, craft night is such an important priority to me, that I take a nap so I am able to head down to the bar at 6 pm. It is such a de-​stressor to laugh and craft with creative, intelligent, funny people of all ages, genders, beliefs and backgrounds in a relaxed atmosphere. The happy hour food is great (although I wish they had a few more vegetarian options). The bartender, Kody, is super nice, funny and always pays attention to the craft night people even though we are down in the restaurant portion, separate from the main part of the bar.
Newcomers are welcome. The only requirements are an open attitude and a sense of humor. I recommend coming once and making up your own mind. We are a small-​ish friendly group and we meet every Sunday from 6 – 9.

Update on 7−21−11
I can’t believe giving 1 star to a business and have to deal with such heartache. Now the friend of the host sent me a long message (fake account or not). Saying all kind of things about me :(but at the end, she wants «resolution to this issue.» but she wasn’t even there when I went to «The Craft Night at the Bar». I write every review from my experience, I do not know how to change my thoughts when they all were from my true & honest feelings! I hope they’ll leave me alone soon, and hope they’ll respect my privacy which I asked before I even posted the first review.
Update on 6−16−11
Trust your gut instincts!!! Glad I did because this person can’t stop herself from making it clearer and clearer of who she is and how awful a person can be. :(She is still posting on Craigslist looking for people to come to her Craft Night at the Bar. I’m just going to warn you guys again not to go against her in anyway because she will not stop at all costs to stalk you and harass you if you don’t agree with her. :(
She rudely put my name on her website now. It’s fine, she probably needs to feel good about herself. But I think it’s just going to hurt the bar and her business more than anything. :(This kind of person will act so so sweet at first but a persons true colors will always show within time!!!
Please be careful if you are invited to this place.
Update on 4÷13÷2011
Unfortunately, I’m being stalked by this person who works here. I asked this person politely not to contact me but she couldn’t stop (via email and Unilocal). She also created Unilocal profile to write about her own business not to review other businesses. She also used my name all over her fake review. :(Please be careful if you are invited to this place.

Since Spot 79’s new/​old owners (apparently they sold it to someone else and then took it back over recently) began running the place again, the changes have been both good and bad. One of the bartenders (I think his name was Nathan) was a great guy and suggested the HH sliders to my boyfriend, which he thought were excellent. As a vegetarian, there is nothing on their HH menu I can eat. I’ve talked to a couple people there about offering something veggie but, alas, it has not yet happened.
On sunday, we decided to go to breakfast and ended up walking out without ever being acknowledged by the only waitress in the place. She had 2 other tables, for a total of 7 people. Both tables were clearly at the end of their meals and we sat there for over 5 minutes before helping ourselves to menus. All the while, the waitress was gabbing with one of the other tables, then after we sat there for another 10 minutes, she ended up behind the bar, chatting with a friend before attempting to sum up a bill for the table she had left moments before. She kept calling over to them «How many bloody mary’s did you all have? How many beers?» etc. All the while, not giving us a nod, wave, nothing. We felt like we had given the waitress plenty of time to help us so we ended up walking out…
Spot 79 was once an old standby, close to home and never very crowded. We’ve already started shopping new neighborhood bars and for now, we will think twice before heading over there again…