12220 Towne Lake Drive, Fort Myers, FL, USA

Who says all sports bars are alike? Typically, they are known for their frozen and fried menu items. As one person once said to me “It’s a sports bar, you don’t expect good food and service.” However, the Boulevard Tavern in Gateway is not your typical sports bar.

We happened to stop by on the night of the first round of the NFL draft, so they were doing a brisk business. The service was sluggish but my dining partner, who had been there before, said that is not always the case. Once the crowd died down it did improve for the most part.

They have plenty of TV’s that were showing the draft as well as other games. They have a nice selection of beers on draft as well as a full bar. The atmosphere is typical for a sports bar. They do have outdoor seating complete with a bar and plenty of TV’s. Inside they have booths and high tops for seating. Outside they have high tops, and tables.

Boulevard Tavern Rockin Wings

The menu consists of typical bar food items burgers, sandwiches, flat breads, pizza, salads and more. Seeing it was NFL Draft night, I was in the mood for wings as was my dining partner…10 wings for $10. We settled on hot and butter/garlic. I must say they were some of the best wings I have had in a long time. The hot was not toooo hot and the butter garlic had fresh minced garlic. They were naked wings and cooked perfectly. The wings had a decent amount of meat on them, so they are using a good product. The sign of good wings is that they are messy due to the sauce and these fit the bill without being overly messy. They use the right amount of sauce to give flavor. We also tried the Black and Blue burger ($13). Ok maybe a bit pricy for “bar” food but it was not a frozen patty of mystery beef parts as they use Angus beef. It is served on a ciabatta bun with a side. We opted for potato salad. This you could tell was made fresh. It is a bit on the sweet side as they seem to use a sweet relish of some sort in it. While I am not a fan of that, they still do a good job on the potato salad.

We had the wings first and then wanted then burger. After some time, we had to ask one of the servers where our burger was? Turns out when she entered it into the system and placed it on hold, she did not realize she had to take it off hold for it to go to the kitchen. I am glad she explained it and once she corrected it, we had our burger in no time.

As it was NFL Draft night, they had a rep from Muscle Vodka giving away free samples. The Budweiser reps were also on hand doing free drawings for t-shirts and a towel. They also gave away free cozies that said Dilly Dilly on them. I did win a t-shirt though. It was our lucky night!

Overall though for sports bar food the Boulevard Tavern is above average. Their service could use a bit of work especially if they are busy.

 

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