Shakers Public House

Alright, so at the beginning of the week I promised you chicken wings. Instead of putting it off until the end of the week, I am going to cover it today. Quite some time ago my brother in law mentioned to me that he had been following a couple of Facebook groups.

Actually, now that I think back, it was me who started the conversation. I told him about a Nashville Hot Chicken Facebook group I had recently started following. It was basically just a bunch of people talking about which place in the Nashville area had the best "hot chicken". He then told me about some Facebook groups he had been following in the Columbus area and after a quick exchange, I was a member of them as well.

It's always amazing to me how many choices people have for places to eat when you live in a big city like Columbus. I come from a fairly small town/city and although we have plenty of options, it's nothing like a metro area. In the part of the city they live, they could eat at a different place every day of the year and probably still not hit them all. When you consider the whole city, it would likely take years to accomplish this feat.

As a new member of the Pizza Connoisseurs, Burger Connoisseurs, and Chicken Wing Connoisseurs Facebook groups, I started getting ideas of where I might like to visit on the occasions that we traveled down there.

In the "wing lovers" group, one name kept popping up over and over... Shakers Public House. By most all accounts, Shakers was the defacto best wing place in Columbus. Which is pretty impressive considering the fact that Buffalo Wild Wings was actually started in Columbus and they also have a local chain down there called Roosters (similar to Hooters), that does a pretty mean chicken wing.

Unfortunately, before I got a chance to visit Shakers, the original location burned down and the business was on a bit of hiatus as they tried to collect themselves.

Given the lover for Shakers, it was only a matter of time before they rebuilt. While that was happening though, they started up a couple of "ghost kitchens" out of a Moose Lodge and one other business to keep those delicious chicken wings flowing to the masses.

My brother in law kept talking about visiting, but even though he lives down there, he still hadn't tried them out. I was overjoyed when we got down there on Friday night to find out that the new Shakers Public House location was open and that is where we were heading for dinner.

I don't know what the old space looked like before it burned down, but the new space is really nice. It's bright and open, they have a lot of outdoor seating and it isn't overcrowded at all. We happened to visit during what they call power hour.

If you can see it in the photo above, Power Hour is from 5 to 6 PM every day and during that time all bottle beer, drafts, and well drinks are only $1.

Challenge accepted!

I've gotta be honest, the hour went a lot quicker than I would have thought. I actually only ended up having three beers. I had to drive us home after all. I can see how this would be a big draw for the establishment though. They were pretty busy.

Despite how busy they were, the service was still quite good. In that Facebook group, all of the reviews weren't always positive. For the most part, the negative posts usually had to do with the service or the wait time, not the food itself.

We ordered some appetizers to get us started since we knew we were going to be there drinking for a bit. These were the pickle fries and while they were good, I can't say they were the best deep fried pickles I have ever had. The way they cut them made them a bit small so the ratio of breading to pickle didn't go together as well as others I have tried.

The giant pretzel on the other hand was amazing! It almost looks like they deep fried it which just added a little something extra to it. I can't imagine how many friers they have going at one time in the kitchen. The honey mustard and beer cheese were the perfect pairing for the pretzel. If I ever come back to this place I would definitely get it again.

@mrsbozz isn't a fan of bones or tons of breading, so she opted for the grilled chicken sandwich. She said it was good, but nothing special. It's a bit hard to mess up a grilled chicken sandwich honestly unless you happen to get a piece of "woody" chicken or something like that. The fries she shared with me and I have to say they were pretty amazing. They kind of melted in your mouth. If you have ever had Penn Station Subs fries, they were like that.

Finally, you likely saw the photo in the opening of the wings. I got twelve wings separated into two different sauces. On the left was "Garlic Menace" which is a basic buffalo sauce with a ton of garlic added to it. I'm a big fan of garlic and onions, so I knew I had to try this one from my past snooping on the Facebook group.

The other sauce they called "Peekent". The best way I can describe it is a basic sweet chili sauce mixed together with a standard buffalo sauce. It actually ended up being my favorite. As far as my official opinion of the wings...

Personally, I think the cook on the wings could have been better. There's a place across town in Columbus called The Galloway Tavern that I have reviewed in the past here on Hive. They are often mentioned along with Shakers as some of the top wings in Columbus. I think the cook on Galloways wings was better than Shakers, but when it comes to the sauces, Shakers wins hands down.

My brother in law was in agreement with my critique of the food.

Don't get me wrong though, if someone says hey, let's go to Shakers, I'm going to be the first one in the car. These wings were pretty killer and I'm already dreaming of the day I can visit there again.

I feel like chicken wings/buffalo wings are a specifically American thing. Is that true? If you live outside the US do you see many chicken wings on the menu? Let's assume the place isn't an American themed restaurant.

Let me know in the comments!

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced