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Last Update: Mar 29th, 2017
Champps is Closed

Champps Americana

6401 N Andrews Ave
Fort Lauderdale FL, 33309
(954) 491-9335
Overall Rating
2.4
Food
Service
Ambiance
Last Review
10/24/2014

Details

Hours: Mon-Thu 11am-11pm, FriSat 11am-12am, Sun 11am-10pm
Attire: Casual
Parking: Private Lot
CC: Yes
Alcohol: Full Bar
Outside Dining: No
Reservations: Yes

Pros

Free Parking
Decent Food

Cons

Loud Club Music
Bad Service
Large Room make Watching Sports Difficult

Critic's Review

Signs are down. Champps is gone for good.

Review 10/24/14

Champps Fort Lauderdale

I was going to go to Champps to watch the games this weekend (my team is on a bye), but decided to go for lunch instead. The last time I went here the watching experience was pretty bad, so I didn't want to ruin a Sunday.

At 2pm there was no hostess. They have a check-in desk, but there's nobody there. So you just have to wait until a server notices. Finally one came over, grabbed a menu, and then said I could sit anywhere. They don't have any booths, so I opted for bench seating.

Champps Main Screen

Champps is a big place; it's one big room. Frankly it's not conducive to watching sports in the "dining" area. The TVs are up on the wall, and even though they've upsized their TVs, they're still far away.

Champps Dining Room

The bigger Screens that they have are projectors, and the quality isn't as good. With the big, open kitchen, this place feels like a restaurant where they just slapped up some screens and declared it a sports bar.

Champps Kitchen

I ordered an iced tea which came with plenty of lemon. They have some lunch specials; a "half cobb" for $8.99, and they had a 1/2 rack of ribs at a special price of 10.99. I stuck with my original idea; a cup of French Onion Soup and a Wedge Salad.

Champps Iced Tea

While I was waiting, I was astounded by how bad the music was. "Breathing", "Thinking about You", "Take Back the Night". What kind of restauranteur plays dance club music in a restaurant at lunch time? This is what happens when you hire operations people as restaurant managers. Does it really take a rocket scientist to see that your crowd is middle aged business people? I wouldn't come here again just because of the music.

I also noticed that the bar is a bit more Sports Friendly than before, They've added TVs and it's much more like a sports bar than before.

Champps Bar Area

The soup and salad came out simultaneously. They always ask if I want it to come out together, and I say "I don't care", and it always comes out together.

Champps Onion Soup

I'd seen pictures of this in a nice crock, which is better for french onion soup. The cheese doesn't adhere to the fancy dish. Presentation aside, it was a good bowl of soup for $4.29. I don't really want the bread, and the soup was organized enough so I could just eat the soup and the cheese without the bread. I liked the soup.

Champps Onion Soup

I was surprised by the amount of stuff I got with their $3.99 wedge salad.

Champps Wedge Salad

The only negative was that the onions were chopped into little squares. The dressing was good and it was good, crisp bacon.

Champps Wedge Salad

Service was another matter. Nobody noticed my empty glass, so I pushed it to the end of the table. The place was pretty empty by now; 3 tables in the room. Servers and bussers walked by without showing any interest. Even my server walked by twice without noticing.

Champps Empty Glass

Finally, after pointing to the glass, she got the hint, and she took the glass. I took this opportunity to hit the Men's room. When I returned, there was still no iced tea. Another few minutes and she dropped it off.

Champps Iced Tea Refill

The same used lemons and notice that there is no ice in the glass. Room temperature iced tea. Here we have a server that just isn't paying attention and who is just going through the motions.

Conclusion

I think Champps has potential, but it's a poorly managed restaurant with bad service and offensive music. I walked in one day in the summer and they didn't have any of the MLB games on; I just went somewhere else. You have to wonder if the owners have ever even been in the restaurant; it doesn't take an expensive focus group to see the problems here. Despite much better food and the much better bar area, I'd have difficult recommending this to anyone over 25.

Review 12/23/10

I got a late start Sunday heading up to Boca and as kickoff time approached I realized I was going to miss half of the first quarter. I was just about at commercial; so why not stop in at Champps for the first half and see what they have going on for Sunday Football?

The first impression was that it was pretty dead. I parked right in front of the door. There where a bunch of people leaving at 1:05pm. Not big sports fans I guess.

I entered the bar area and started looking for the Giant game. It wasn't on any of the bar sets. It was only on one of the large screen sets on the back wall. The problem was that most of the tables and seats at the bar that could view the set were occupied; plus the service bar as right in that area. I had to squeeze into a seat just behind a column.

Champps view

The Dolphins game was also only on one set; the main projector over the front door. Since this is a very large room, you could be very far away from the screen, and since these are projectors they're not exactly HD quality. So many of the people in the back of the room would have had a tough time seeing the game very well.

This would be fine except that I'd guess that 80% of the people in the place were either watching the Dolphins or the Giants; yet there were only 1 set on each of those games. There were 5 tables of Giants fans stuffed into one corner of the bar. Meanwhile, there were 3 people at the bar who had personal 42" TVs showing a different game. If they had a better plan they'd have secondary TVs allocated to handle the overflow on popular games so it wasn't so uncomfortable.

There were a some things that really bugged me about the place; the bartenders had to look up several drinks and didn't seem very experienced. One of the bartenders came by me with a container of salad dressing or something and dripped a path along the floor as she passed. Seconds later, the other bartender dumped 2 beers outward so they poured over the side of the bar, waterfall style. While spilled beers are part of the experience, what struck me is that no-one thought it was necessary to clean any of this mess up. Nobody was called to clean up the spill; so for the next 20 minutes I got to watch people walk back and forth through the mess.

Champps mess

When I see such things I can just imagine whats going on in the kitchen, and it makes me want to eat elsewhere.

Review 11/7/2010

Champps is sort of a secret in Fort Lauderdale, its a bit off the beaten path and near an industrial area where companies like Citrix have their offices. There's a big shopping center with Hooters and Champps as standalone buildings in the parking lot.

Champps bar

Inside, Champps is a big place with high ceilings and walls that are lined with 50" TVs. There's one big projector TV over the front door that can be seen from most seats in the house. There's a large sunken bar area and tables and chairs in a raised area that occupy about 2/3 of the large space.

Champps inside

As a Sunday football venue Champps falls short in my view. Most of the TVs are too far away for those of us who no longer have 20-20 vision but don't quite need glasses. They seem to think that showing the main games on 1 projector TV is enough for the entire room; it's not enough. There should be 1 set for the bar and one for the dining room in each game at a minimum.

The menu is your pretty standard American fare that's all over the place. They have wings, burgers, steaks, pastas and salads. They even have Kung Pao Chicken. When I watch sports I usually do appetizers. During happy hour, 4pm-7pm, the Appetizers are half price. Their prices aren't crazy, $9.45 for wings, and they give you a good sized portion.

Champps Wings

The wings are a bit wet for my liking, but they're pretty good. I liked the blue cheese as well; its mild with chives and no big chunks. On Mondays the Burgers are half price all night. Kids eat free Tuesday 3pm-Close. The one peeve is the loud 70s music playing, most of which is Disco stuff I haven't heard in 20 years. To whoever makes that decision: people who watch sports don't want to hear that kind of music.

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