Community bar, Crooked I, serves comfort-casual food

Friday, Feb. 5, 2010

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by DARWIN WEIGEL Managing partner Ryan Hill, left, and head chef Pat Born pose with a massive bacon cheeseburger and fries and "loaded" nachos at Crooked I Sports Bar and Grill. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo

Here comes my best advice in quite some time: Say yes to a lunchtime cocktail and turn off the small portion of your brain that might steer you away from fries.

Make no mistake, Crooked I Sports Bar and Grill is mostly a bar, a local gathering point with pull-tab slots and electronic bingo machines. Want it to feel like a restaurant? Show up around noon and take a high table in the barroom. I think it's more than suitable.

And here's the deal (call it the great deal): The kitchen prepares casual comfort food that will fill you up too much to even think about dessert.

In the winter, DJs provide Crooked I's weekend entertainment, and the bar is usually packed. (For the Super Bowl, on Feb. 7, Crooked I will offer drink specials and a free buffet at halftime.) In warmer months, a tiki bar opens up to bands.

Within the electronic gaming section, you will find photos of the brick building from the 1940s, when it was Chaney's Seafood. It remained Chaney's through 2005, when Chris Chubb and Rick Crump bought the spot and added, among other things, more televisions and a new bar. According to Crooked I's Web site, after Chubb and Crump learned that the town would not allow them to change the shape of the old Chaney's sign, they stared at it and decided it sort of looked like a crooked "I," thus the name. More investors have since come aboard, and the interior has received a fresh paint job.

Say yes to fries because the cooks make this American staple just right — slicing the pieces thin, frying them lightly and seasoning them with Old Bay. Some call for a cup of vinegar to dip them in, but not me. (Have I not lived in Maryland long enough?)

Crooked I's wings are quite popular, I'm told, and come in about 10 flavors ranging from sweet and sour to ultra-hot. The appetizer list goes on to include plates of bacon and cheddar fries $6.45) and baskets of beer-battered onion rings ($4.75).

There are four healthy options, all of them salads. Entrées, all $8 or less, include burgers, quesadillas, chicken sandwiches and wraps filled with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and cheese plus grilled, blackened or buffalo chicken.

The chicken slipper ($3.45) — this one I've never heard of — involves a chicken tender on a hotdog bun with toppings. A bartender/server recommended the chicken salad sandwich, burgers and nachos.

Out came a cheeseburger, as I ordered, with American cheese, onions, lettuce, tomato, a little bit of mayo and ketchup. It could all be described thusly: A drink plus a way-better-than-chain burger plus great fries equals $8. It also equals a happy reporter.

Crooked I is at 8323 Bayside Road, Chesapeake Beach. Hours are 11 a.m.-2 a.m. daily. Entrées are $4-$8. Credit cards: V, MC, D. Call 410-257-7999. Go to www.crookedibar.com