A few weeks ago, Sharon’s restaurant in downtown Kingsport underwent some major changes. They’ve changed their menu, dropping barbecue completely to focus on burgers and fries. They also drastically changed the layout and decor in the restaurant. I recently tried the “new” Sharon’s, and I wanted to share my thoughts.
The first thing that jumped put at me was that both the outside and inside of the building have been stripped of ALL decor. The interior of the restaurant has been redone in all black and white. The pictures, old scooters and bicycles, and all of the other decor have been removed. The only thing in the building that has any color to it at all is that the neon sign is still hanging over the entrance to the restrooms. I don’t understand why they took a restaurant that had a lot of charm and character and transformed it into the plainest, most generic looking restaurant I’ve ever seen. The place now has no ambiance at all. It’s a downright depressing place to sit down and eat. It’s more like a hospital than a restaurant.
The second thing I noticed (I’d heard about this in advance) was the stripped-down menu. They have burgers, fries, and drinks – that’s all. All of the burgers are now doubles (two meat patties), but the patties are so much smaller than they used to be that I didn’t feel like there was much more meat on the burgers than there used to be on their single burgers. All of the standard toppings are still available at no extra charge – lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles, cheese, sauteed onions, mayo, mustard, and ketchup. One new free topping has been added to the menu – roasted red peppers. There are also four new toppings that carry an extra charge – green chili sauce, bacon, a fried egg, and caviar. Yes, for nearly twice the price of the burger itself, you can get a 2 ounce jar of caviar to put on it.
The fries have been changed, and not for the better, in my opinion. Sharon’s fries used to be identical to Pal’s, and they were great. The fries are now more like a home fry, with some of the potato peel still on them. They were good, but not as good as the old fries. I noticed (as did several other people I’ve spoken to) that the price of the fries increased while the size of the serving went WAY down. The bags of fries are tiny compared to the big baskets they used to serve.
One good thing about the new Sharon’s is that the drink machine has been turned around so that you can get your own refills, which I like. If only you could get to it after taking your seat…more on that in a moment.
Another thing that is different in the new Sharon’s is that they’ve added a huge, long table down the middle of the restaurant that seats around 30 people. That is simply a horrible idea. I don’t want to go into a restaurant and be forced to sit and eat at a table with a bunch of people I don’t know. In fact, if I ever went in there and that happened to me due to the smaller tables being full, I’d probably never go back.
There are still some smaller tables along the wall and near the entrance, but the new layout presents some major problems. First, the big table takes up so much room that when it and the small tables are all full, there is almost no room to walk to get to your table. Even worse is that there are some tables where you can get blocked in and not be able to leave your table at all without asking people sitting at other tables to get up so you can get by. This happened to me. I was sitting in the old booth by window right beside the front door, and I couldn’t get to the drink machine because of people sitting at another table. They were an elderly couple and one them had an oxygen tank, so I wasn’t comfortable asking them to get up so I could get a drink refill. It’s nice that the drink machine is now set up so that customers can get their own refills, but there’s no guarantee that you’ll actually be able to get to it.
As for the service, something didn’t add up. There were literally a dozen employees working behind the counter. However, it took me much longer to get my food than it used to when there were 3 or 4 employees working.
As for the food itself, I thought my burger was the best I’ve ever had at Sharon’s – and I thought their old burgers were great in their own right. I had a cheeseburger with mustard, sauteed onions, and roasted red peppers. It was delicious. As I mentioned before, the fries were good, but not as good as the old ones.
So, in summary, the things I like better at the new Sharon’s are the burgers and the self-service drink machine. I liked everything else (the layout, decor, service, menu, prices, etc.) better at the old Sharon’s. On a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, I’d give Sharon’s Hamburgers a rating of 6.
