Broken Spoke

Recent Google reviews

• Russ Robinson 4 · 4 months ago

  We need a quick little outing on a Saturday afternoon recently. I saw that The Broken Spoke had bingo at 3:30pm today along with some burger specials, so that fit the bill. They're located at 1529 University Blvd North, so not all that far from us, which is great. This review originally appeared in the Jacksonville Fun, Eats & Drinks Facebook group. We stopped in here once before, many years ago. The reason for only stopping in once was because they allowed smoking, which I can deal with to an extent but it was like walking into a wall of smoke back then. I saw on their IG account that they've made a bunch of improvements both to the bar itself and the menu. So I figured we'd give try again. I'll get this part out of the way early: they're still a smoking bar BUT our experience today was FAR different than it was a few years ago. I'd read about how they installed a bunch of new filters and so on. So I thought "if nothing else, we'll walk in with good intentions. If a wall of smoke hits us, we'll make a u-turn and go elsewhere". I was happy when we got there and there was no smoke wall. There was faint smell of smoke but it wasn't bad at all. So whatever they did / are doing is working IMO. I don't know if they had food back when we stopped by years ago but I can tell you they have great burgers now. They had a deal going today where all the burgers were buy one, get one half off. We started with Jalapeño Poppers, then I picked the Bagger (mushroom & swiss) burger with tots and my wife chose the Dyna (the standard cheeseburger) with waffle fries. The poppers were standard but good. The bartender suggested the Sweet Chili sauce to go with it. Sweet Chili sauce isn't my thing but it's definitely my wife's thing. She said "I would eat this with a spoon" lol. So for her, the sauce elevated the poppers to above standard. The burgers were pretty great, in both of our opinions! I'm a pretty slow eater for one reason or another and my wife pointed out that she's never seen my eat a burger as fast as I ate that one. So I'd say that's my taste buds telling me I thought it was great. I judge my wife's thoughts on burgers by how many times she tells me she likes it with her mouth full while eating it. That happened about 4 times today lol. We (she) had fun with bingo while we were there even though she didn't hit a bingo. She came close a few times and had fun, which was the distraction we were looking for. The bartender and cook are both worth a mention in this post. Jen was the bartender but she was really all over the place, taking care of the people at the bar along with us and others at tables. She was really nice while doing that, too. Tammy was the cook. We met her because she came out to ask how the burgers were and really seemed to care about the feedback and the fact that people enjoy what she's making. I'm glad we stopped by again. As I said, I totally understand how/why a place that allows smoking isn't for many folks. That's why I'm dropping 4 stars instead of 5. However, my wife went from saying "well I guess we'll never go in there again" several years ago to saying things like "the next time we come here" during today's visit. So if you can tolerate a low amount like her, you may want to try stopping in to see what you think.