Smedley’s Bar & Grill

Decent neighborhood place, friendly staff. Demographic skews a little older than some of the other bars in its vicinity that cater more to the young bros. Smedley’s also books some good bands, mostly of the blues-​jam variety, on a regular basis.
It’s a good place to go if you just want to drink a beer and not be in the middle of a bunch of loud 22-​year-​olds looking to hook up, if you know what I mean. The beer selection is decent, if maybe a dollar or so higher per beer than some of the other bars. You should be able to find something good. There is also a pool table for hire.
Since I was going to bars before anyone ever heard of a smoking ban in a bar, I am not concerned if someone is smoking indoors instead of outside on the sidewalk. In any event I either haven’t encountered this or it was 1 person and I didn’t notice or care.
This place bills itself as a «restaurant» elsewhere, but it closes the kitchen pretty early and don’t even offer a later menu of fries or poppers (they have bags of storebought potato chips). If you want to eat I’d say get there by 8:30 or you run the risk of being shut out.

Modern biker bar. They often have live music and the beer is cold. It’s frequented by modern Harley guys.

I’ve been into Smedleys on a number of occasions while out on my motorcycle, but about 4 months ago I ordered a burger for the first time. It was excellent! Very tender with just the right amount of char on the outside and juicy flavor on the inside.
Their meat is hormone and steroid free and you can tell they’re not lying.
The atmosphere is cop/​ex-​military/​biker but everyone was friendly.
The only reason I gave it 4 instead of 5 is that after telling my friends how great the burgers are, we went there ant waited 40 minutes only to get our burgers a bit overcooked. Also, they still allow people to smoke in the place.
Still one of the best burgers ever.

If you want to get ripped off then come here. Pay cash only! I was here for 45 minutes and paid for 18 beers.

It’s a cool old school place ! Live music is great ! It’s cool to step back into time, and enter a place like this ! If smoking REALLY bothers you, well, you might not enjoy Smed’s. But if your looking for something laid back where you can wear your old blue jeans and T-​Shirt, hear some good live music, then YES ! You will have fun !

Been meaning to try Smedleys for a while now, as it’s a West Park fixture. Went there Sat. About six (6). Walked in found a table, and sat down, still not sure if they have a service staff. Place was loud and full of smoke and smokers. Add this to the fact that the place is both dirty and a mess, we decided to go to across the street to P.J.s and have a good meal. A real disappointment.

I don’t understand how they get away with letting people smoke cigarettes inside there. I don’t like smoke.

The first time I ended up at Smedley’s, I was on a «hang out» (as in, not a date, but we’re going to sleep together) with a tall lanky 24 yr old. I had moved to Kamm’s corner about a year before, but being a staunch Ohio City bar fly (read: hipster snob), I hadn’t bothered to walk the three blocks to any of the bars actually by my house. They seemed too full of pastel polo shirts and women who thought they ought to have babies by 24, before they would consider going to school. This guy had a bunch of his younger friends there, and I felt my 31 years really keenly, also I was having Common Grounds flashbacks to high school, and acting on those feelings, we made out a lot by the back door.
I hadn’t been back for a while, because I didn’t want to run into that guy, but then I found myself on another «hang out» with a guy on a Sunday afternoon. This guy was actually in my age group, thank god, and we had decided to go on a tour of dive bars. We started at the Rowley Inn, which had been cheap and fun, but then got sort of uncomfortable when a lot of the more exuberant regulars showed up, so I suggested Smedley’s next because it was closer to where we lived, and the memory I had of it was just dirty enough to qualify.
This time we walked in through the front door, and it was immediately exactly what we wanted. The bar was clean and warm and the staff was nice. There was a group of either off duty firemen or policemen playing pool in the back, and a guy spinning old 60s and 70s rock in the front. It seemed like the place where any of the patrons would stand up to and kick out troublemakers. The clientele oozed old school attitude — family, country, beer. We talked about music a lot, I bounced around on my stool to the songs, we ogled the military and police badges on the wall. The music was just loud enough to force us to lean in when talking, but not so loud you couldn’t hear what the other person was trying to tell you about late 90’s indie rock. If the Rowley is the kind of dive bar where someone might be scared of the hipsters ruining it, then Smedley’s is the kind of bar which nothing can ever ruin because it is exactly the same as it’s been for 20 years and will continue to be that way no matter how many of those damn kids show up. Seeing as my date and I were just old enough to not be those kids anymore, it was perfect. Later, instead of making out in a car, we went and listened to vinyl while drinking wine in his living room. This is called growing up.
If you’ve ever wanted to have a fireman buy you a drink, this is the place to go. Or a police man. I imagine one of those two groups is going to pissed off I assumed the other group hangs out at Their Bar.