You know you’re in Lake County when…

So Ron Jawarski and I got together for our second Annual Pre-Easter Afternoon Drink-a-Thon on Saturday. We had originally planned on going to Panini’s, but needing an oil change and alignment on the Princess Jeep, Jaws was put in charge of locating a secondary establishment that would have wings, beer and High Def TVs, in proximity to the service station.

He chose the recently opened (we think) Cleats Club Seat Grill in the former home of a Hooter’s and a Denny’s in beautiful Mentor, OH (Lake County USA!). Now you know you’re in Lake County when you see either a mullet hair cut or hair teased in excess of two inches. [Check that, you’re either in Lake County or Parma.] Anyhow, we were in the right place because I saw this hair, a two-fer, if you will, which I can only describe as a ‘starburst’ – perfectly straight-out stringy blonde, mullet head and oh yeah, this same person was smoking outside (SURPRISE!) when we pulled up. This person was so bad, I thought it was a guy, before realizing later in the bar that it was a chick!

While we settled in for our first round, I was surprised to be greeted by PGA, who was in the bar as well, recovering from the night before, by tying another one on. [Oh to be young, with no commitments….]

Now Cleats bills themselves as “Home of the World’s Best Wings”, so you could imagine my anticipation. That being said, I knew that if I was ‘cheating’ and having wings, that I wanted to make sure they were good wings. I lobbied for the BW3, but Jaws informed me it closed years ago. [Yes, I need to get out more!]

So we ordered the nachos, with chili, in a lead-up to the wings. I ordered a dozen of their World’s Best Wings – cooked crispy, with the Hot sauce. Our mound of nachos arrived. They were stacked high and covered with shredded lettuce, black olives, tomatoes, jalapeño peppers, nacho cheese and somewhere buried in all of this crap was the chili. We soldiered on.



When our wings arrived, I knew I was going to be disappointed. Mine were drowning in sauce, so even if they were cooked crispy, I wouldn’t be able to tell. The ‘hot’ sauce, 3rd from ‘Red Death’, sucked! It had no kick, and was basically watered down base with too much butter. I later had one of Jaw’s ‘medium’ wings, it sucked too, but at least it wasn’t dripping sauce.

Well in spite of the crappy wings and a Tribe loss, I got to see PGA, got the oil changed, and most importantly talked political hot stove while slinging beers with Jaws. Now that’s a good afternoon.

POTUS