Horseshu Sports Lounge & Maxim’s Dining

I can’t believe that I haven’t heard of this place.
They are certainly right about the best chicken wings in Edmonton. They are pretty damn good!
When you see the outside of the bar, you are expecting the whole «Dive Bar» experience. There is quite the variety of characters that visit this watering hole. It must be popular, it was sure busy!
I had been here once previously as they are one of the only bars in Edmonton to have the PPV WWE events (my guilty pleasure!)
Shocktop is on tap and a decent selection of brews and drinks.
The servers have been great on both of my visits.
We will definitely be back for more wings and WWE.

The food is delicious, but I won’t come back to this place ever again. I like playing trivia, but won’t play anywhere that cheating a-​hole PJ SHU is playing. I enjoy trivia and am very good at it, but can’t compete against someone who saw the questions an hour before at Finnegans. I can spend my disposable income somewhere else and will do so.

Ball team comes here twice a week and I always order their wings! Yummy!

I wanted a night out with my friends to catch up so I went looking for a lounge. On a saturday night, this lounge is not meant to be a place to allow any socializing that registers below the decibel level of an airplane. Apparently, saturdays are karaōke nights, so if you are looking to belt out some tunes, then by all means, this is a place to try out. We saw a lot of noise, but not a lot of our waitress that night, so ordering a beverage and nachos was a task in itself. The nachos feature a nice amount of toppings covering an intimate gathering of nachos — 3 of us finished it in no time at all and I think I only got 3 chips! A positive was that they served Kokanee Gold on tap, but that positive was quickly turned negative when I tasted how watered down it was. An unfortunate visit for me, but hopefully yours is better.

The other day, around dinnertime, there was no food in the fridge and my spouse was working late, so I hopped in the car and headed east.
I passed many of my local haunts and continued in search of something different, something new, matching my mood — restless and fickle.
I passed a KFC and smelled deep-​fried sinners’ utopia, as I simultaneously spotted a sign for half-​priced pizza and wings. I turned in, and since I never give in to the Colonel’s temptation of absolution in deep-​fried poultry skin, I surveyed its less bold but oddly welcoming next-​door neighbour — Maxim’s Dining and Horseshu Sports Lounge.
The parking lot in front of this squat, tired shanty, strung festively with dangling strings of Christmas lights, was completely full. People were heading in and heading out. It was a veritable hub — and I couldn’t believe I’d never seen or heard of it before!
I went in and the inside was like the outside — filled to the max. I stood disoriented waiting for a hostess to guide me, until I realized every server in the place was being run off her feet and it was fend-​for-​yourself or bust.
I went in search of a stool. Every seat — but one — was taken, and I dragged it up to the bar and landed next to a regular, named Greg, and a bartender named Colleen. It turned out I knew her from my Kelly’s Pub dayz.
I hastily ordered a draft Keith’s — which tasted like a dirty, half-​flat Canadian, an eight-​inch Hawaiian pizza and a plate of honey garlic wings, after being told you can’t take home your leftovers. The pizza and wings were good — not ‘the best in town’ like people were telling me, but worth the drive to Acton.
I stuck my face in a book and chilled to the vibe, trying to be inconspicuous. This is the kind of place where, at happy hour, the wall of inhibition is flattened, making friendly people friendlier and socially awkward people at home. I love talking to strangers as long as they have a fair sense of boundaries. I was carefully setting up mine — today, semi-​permeable but friendly.
Nonetheless, in about 10 minutes, five people came and talked to me, as naturally as if I was an invite at their private party. I didn’t mind, really, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to give up The Girl Who Played With Fire (the second in the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Trilogy) for half-​drunk small talk just tonight.
Colleen informed me on Tuesday nights this place was a mad house for about three hours. It seems everyone likes a ridiculously good deal on pizza and wings. I ate three slices and four drumsticks and was stuffed for $ 7.
By nine, the place was emptying out, and I packed up and paid my tab and shook hands with G., an avid cross-​word puzzler and drinker.
When the mood strikes, I will be back. This is a good, old-​fashioned neighbourhood pub — with its rustic, faded charm, its regulars, its mediocre beer and its small-​town, unpretentious feel, just down the road from chain-​store and mega-​mall valley, in a pocket of Real.