The Ref Sports Bar in Spokane Valley - Phone Number, Reservations, Reviews

So dang busy and the servers STILL were right on top of everything. The food was above average for a bar: bonus! And there are so many games: arcade games, darts, pool and lots more. All in all a terrific bar and grille.

The food is good and very family friendly. Just sad when it closes at 10.

Horrible experience! Our food was cold (a calzone) and when they sent the new food out, it was hot but tasted like it was cooked in an oven that hadn’t been cleaned in years. When I went to the bathroom I was appalled at how disgusting it was (see photo). How can you have a restaurant where you don’t even clean the toilets? It’s really a shame. This place has the potential to be a great sports bar, but instead it has a bad kitchen staff and obviously the management doesn’t care at all. They also have a horrible drink selection for being a sports bar. No ciders (besides angry orchard) and only two IPAs. We will not be returning. The only good thing about our experience was a kind and attentive bartender. My advice to him is to do yourself a favor and get a job at a business that cares.

Thought it was the Mango Tree. Sign outside said Mango TREE but it was still the Ref. Food was good but the service was terrible, there were maybe 11 people there and I had to keep flagging down the waitress.

Had a great time at talent showcase 😁💯

It was cool. Would go there more but next month it's apparently turning into an Indian restaurant so we shall see how that goes.

Good place to have a beer and watch games. Food is the only reason for 2 stars. Gas station quality with casual sit down pricing. Stay away from that and you are good.

Cool looking place with a ton of Tvs to watch a local game. This place does not have the NLF Sunday ticket so if you have an out of area team this is not the place for you.

It's awesome again! While it may not be the original Ref that my family would hit weekly, the new format is fantastic. So thankful that they brought pizzas back. Everything we had was wonderful.

Nice large meeting room in the back.

Great place to meet up with friends, casually hangout and have a great time.

Excellent service,and great food Fast and very knowledgeable , friendly

This was by far the worst customer service I have experienced in Spokane valley. I would not recommend coming here for any matter if you want any dose of human decency. The past four times I have been here for work gatherings, the service has been awful, and we have simply been neglected and dismissed. This last time was the final straw; after commenting on the lack of service, our table of 12 was then cussed at and flipped off by Daniel-the waitress. After this, the waitress was sent home, and management still neglected to acknowledge how unprofessional this was—stating “he didn’t know which story to believe.” This place does not deserve to be in business when there are plenty of other local pubs that would kill for the business and have amazing customer service as well!

I’ve never been so disappointed in management and staff. My friend was assaulted by the staff. Cursed at and humiliated. When asked to speak to a manager one never came. I had to approach another staff member who told us that he was in fact the manager and he didn’t have the time at the moment to answer to our complaint. Told us that he sent the waiter home and explained how our side of the story wasn’t relevant at the time. I told him that if he wasn’t going to address our concerns that we were going to leave only than did make our experience seem valid. He did in fact address that his waitress assaulted our friend and he did comp the tab. Regardless, will never go back.

I had a birthday party here recently and I absolutely Adored our server she was sweet and checked in on us all throughout the night. The service was wonderful. The food was great! I would definitely recommend having an event here.

Great place to watch a football game . Really busy when the seahawks are playing. Decent Bae food. Alcohol drinks are kinda spending

We been going to this bar for awhile now. But for the few months we had such bad luck here. Poor drinks and service .

When I finally got the right order the hot wings were good. Garlic bread were not. No Ac, They messed up my Simple order and the bathroom was very nasty. Looked like it had not been cleaned in a week. New ownership how could you be proud of such a place?

Always great service and food! Oh and yes the drinks are great too!😁

It is ok. There are Much better places to go !

Nice clean bar with great viewing on TVs. Friendly staff.

Good food, nice atmosphere, games for the kids and amazing bloody mary

Best Calzones in Spokane Valley! Ever since Petes Pizza in Greenacres shut down, there has been no place in the valley for calzones, and now we have it! Crispy thin crust, packed with deliciousness inside mmmm mmmm good! Better than River City by a long shot!! And excellent bar service .. Cheers to Heather, pleasant happy smiley nice fun friendly personable! Thank you Ref for hiring excellent cook, and waitstaff! Thank You!

So the setup is cool and chill with big screens, a big oval bar and some side areas for other seating. What turned me off was during a Friday night while the NBA playoffs are going on they will not play the TV volume and instead put it to some music playlist from the rock station. I did not go specifically to a sports bar to here a Spotify playlist while watching the game. Kills the vibe and makes it feel like any other bar. They said it was that they stop playing game volume after a certain time, so essential they have staff that rather listen to music then play the game volume for their patrons. Cool I'll be back for maybe a hawks game but anything else and your better off going somewhere else that actually enjoys sports Last thing, the main hostess/bartender was very short with anything I asked for and the place was pretty empty on a Friday night with playoff games going. It should be packed. For them to not only not be good to sports fans but also close at 10 pm on a Friday?!? What's the point to having the bar then for games that start at say 7 or 8 pm those games are still going before they would technically close. Just bizarre

Amazing staff and even better food will be a regular for sure! Jamie is the best server

Terrible service. The worst I have had in the Spokane and Spokane valley. Obviously the people working there hate their job and they should all find new jobs to suite their terrible attitudes. I will never spend another cent if my money in this poorly ran establishment. There are plenty of great places to enjoy a night out and this place should not be considered.

1 star until they bring back Tekken

Decent. Lots of good food and fun atmosphere. The pizza was okay. Still gave them a 4 because the other fiid products stood out!

Not as busy as it used to be. The service and the food are still just as good!

Doordashed because my daughter and I are sick. Ordered the big Bleu burger, one of the grossest and messiest looking burgers I've ever had in my life. Tasted about the same. They were out of crispy onions so they just threw a whole bunch of grilled onions on top making it even messier and inedible. Definitely won't be returning to try more food.

Great food but our waitress was busy

A buddy and I stopped in for wings and a beer and the service was horrible. The waitress I’ll call J was a complete drag. Like she didn’t want to be there let alone wait on us. She checked in on us reluctantly once! Tossed our check at us before we were even ready. Then when I asked for a box or two to pack up our leftover wings she rolled her eyes and left. Came back 15 later and threw the boxes at us and walked away. Never going back. The wings were cooked perfect so compliments to the cook.

2.5 stars.. on arrival the bartender looked at me and my date but never said a word even after i asked how he was doing. He just turned away from us. Thier were only two customers at the bar at this time.. bartender seemed irritated that we even wanted to order a drink let alone food afterwards. First pizza we ordered was not even close to what we ordered had to be sent back. Pool tables were ok. No music but was ok knowing all tvs had basketball on them. Food was good once we got what we wanted.. hoping to try it again and see if it was just a bad day for the workers.

I was doing kind of a Recon mission since this place is just a couple blocks away. I couldn't be happier to discover the Diamond in the rough! Modern clean organized and well lainout. Excellent prices and great menu for a pub-stop or an evening out for a dinner and a game. Laid back comfortable atmosphere. Everyone seemed happy!

The gentleman that waited on us rocked. Food was amazing. I had the 4 alarm burger with sweet potato waffle fries and a dipping sauce of fire aoli

Had my 60th birthday party here, Glenn made sure everything was awesome! We just had dinner there, and again, Glenn made sure everything was good, even as busy as they were! Great food, and super service!

Very busy place and a little understaffed, but they work their butt off!!!! Have patience, relax and enjoy your experience! The first time we were her, our server, Christina, was absolutely AMAZING and deserves some special reward!! She was running, and I mean literally running, her butt off to help a very very busy bar(at least 70+ people at one time and she only had 1 new person to help her). She smiled thru all the craziness and the impatient, grumpy customers. The food was good, but you can definitely tell the cooks aren't highly experienced. 2nd experience, planned a large bday party and it was amazing! Great food and even better service!! A big thank you to Glen! He really went above and beyond!! Love this place and recommended everyone to try it!

if i could give this place 0 stars i would. just went in there and sat there for 30 min with no service except to get waters. place was not busy at all there were only two other tables and the people working there were standing behind the bar not even doing anything. horrible service

I would give the food 4 stars. It was wonderful when we got it or when we finally got the whole order. The service was absolutely terrible. An hour and half spent waiting for our server ... with only about 5 occupied tables. We asked another server eventually to refill our drinks and track the rest of the order. Wasn't overally impressed with the previous ownership but the food is the only improvement.

Closes before they actually close. If you're gonna stop doing business @ whatever time, then FN close at that time please and thank you.

Family had a 70th birthday group of 12 people. Bigtime disaster. No service, only half of the party ever got food. Left hungry and sure I would never come back. Absolutely ridiculously bad. Thumbs down.

Awesome staff. The food was great too. Very good prices for the pitchers too. 10+

Really unique location, bartender/waitresses were excellent, more then enough coverage on any sports you want to watch pool/golf/darts.

Great Sports Bar! Super great value for quality and quantity of food! The alcohol prices are some of the cheapest I've found in all of Spokane.

It was a decent place. I had the shrimp. I think it was breaded in house.

Nice sports environment and great food.

Food was fantastic the drinks weren't homemade

Good Pizza. Big screen TV to watch sports. Good selection of beer.

Terrible service! Went in there and sat at my table for 30 minutes and never was approached. Went and stood at the bar for another 20 minutes and wasn’t acknowledged and the bartender just looked at me about 5 times without saying anything. Eventually just left, have never had such bad service in my life.

In all honesty the worst possible service and I don't even mean service perhaps because the waitress didn't even come to our table. We sat in our booth for a 1/2 an hour before the waitress even came over she took our drink order and about 10 minutes after that brought only half of our drinks. For the next 20 minutes she didn't even come back to our table no food order taken no appetizers taken it's almost like she went out of her way to ignore us and it wasn't that busy maybe 3 or 4 tables other than mine. I have never been this disappointed I just wanted a nice dinner out with my family and this place had the worst service ever

Not exactly a stellar performance by a bartender, who was sick and unmasked. We should have left but as the only two patrons felt obligated to remain. Nothing says "come back soon" to this establishment.

Lots of TV's to watch your favorite team, friendly staff and decent food. I love the fact that they have a half court basketball court out back

Our server, Tara, suggested some menu items she's tried and the pizza was delicious. Nice smile and fun conversationalist.

Great food, sports bar like, but great service.

Pretty good service, a little on the slow side. Had appetizers and drinks. Food was excellent but "happy hour" well drinks were rather weak. Priced right and would certainly go back

You should most definitely try their pizza.

Well let's see, BEER, SPORTS, and FOOD! Duh, it's the shiznit!! Just go and find out for yourself. It's muey excellente.

New ownership it says but didn't really see a difference. Pizza we ordered was meh. Inside hasn't changed a bit from previous owners. This place needs to be better Buffalo wild wings to survive in spokane limited sports bar scene. You'll get better service and food from bww. It's only a couple miles away also. Wont be back to the ref until then.

I'm giving 2 stars because the fries were good, and the boneless wings were ok. I was spending a Saturday alone with my son. I decided to order us some food thru Grubhub online. I ordered us each a BLT melt from The Ref, with fries and a lb of the boneless wings. I don't like to leave a bad review unless food is REALLY bad. But this food was REALLY bad. I'm not sure how you can screw up a BLT, but this place did just that. These sandwiches were nasty! The overwhelming flavor was sesame oil. Apparently they didn't clean their grill between orders. Absolutely no BLT flavor. And no marinara sauce, although it wouldn't have made a difference, but the menu said it comes with marinara dipping sauce. I will never order from The Ref again. Waste of money. Disgusting sandwiches. I'm sorry.

Not too busy these days. I recommend the wings... stay away from the cheesy bites. It's just bread with cheese on it.

Such great service, specials, impressive menu and drinks

New owners and they have upped their game.

Waitres was wonderful food average nothing special

Cold food, servers clowning on their cooks about food, never asked for a refill, not attentive, overall comical. Hence 2 stars since I got a good laugh at least

Great service and lots of fun games! Kid friendly too!

Good pizza! Cold beer, decent selection

The waitress Sara Jean was awesome. However the cook tonight was to much in a hurry to leave and didnt properly cook our food my gfs philly cheese steak was damn near cold along with her au jus at barely room temperature and my calzone wasnt even half done. Sara Jean made it all right and took those items off the check. Her service was excellent even before that. But the cook two thumbs down.... The date is may 18 2021

I work here in the kitchen everyone is super friendly and have great customer skills + the food is amazing

Funny/unique names on some of the menu items but ultimately, it is mostly normal bar food. I thought the boneless wings were exceptionally good, tried multiple flavors. Service can improve but we were treated good, overall.

Went to The Ref for dinner tonight. My whole family was pretty disappointed. Walked in and the waitress seating us/helping us didn’t say a word until I asked how her day was going. I’m not going to name the waitress because maybe she was just having a bad day. Regardless, with how NOT busy the place was, we only saw our waitress when she brought our appetizers and our food. She never asked how we were doing. Never asked if we needed anything. Never asked how the food was. She simply was just not around. I waited for her to come back to see how we were doing to order a drink. I eventually walked up to the bar and waited another 10 minutes for no help. Luckily, after awhile I was told to sit down and she would come get my order. She brought our food and got my drink. Didn't see her again the rest of the time. Unfortunately, not only was the wait staff not friendly and not around, but the food was not good. The only thing I would recommend out of the 4 entrees and 2 appetizers we got was the pretzel bites which is the only reason I gave even a 1 star. Sadly, we all were disappointed and super unimpressed. Which makes me super bummed because I had high hopes. :(

Cool atmosphere and a great place to watch the game!

Waited 2 hours and never saw food so we left!!!!

Food was disgusting and the service was poor. Not impressed.

Great service, yummy food, clean and spacious lots of TV's. Good place to go!

I'm giving a four star just because I like going to The Ref. Like the atmosphere, service was good. I have never tried the pizza or calzone. Just going to suggest uping the burger game. I was a little disappointed. Think fresh patties and charge more. A sports bar needs great burgers and sandwiches. Best of luck as we start to reopen. I will be back.

Went in with my family of five - over 80% of us came out alive!

Now partially open and allowing in door dining again, which is great. And their doing a great job here

Wing Wednesdays is when you want to visit. Awesome wings and good brews. Edit: The relaunch / new management is missing the bar. Ordered tonight via Uber eats and received mediocre food with some being raw. Pretzel bites were dough bites not pretzel. Sweet potato waffle fries were partially raw, chicken wings were almost raw close to the bone and their high heat wings had less spice than the asian bbq, the salted caramel apple pie calzone had raw dough in it. Went from 5 stars to 2. May try again after someone gets tuned into their deep fryer and oven. Edit #2 last order from here. Did chips and dip platter and chocolate cake, cake was tiny for the price. Chips and dip were ok, artichoke dip was mediocre at best. I'm all for supporting local however boomers and river city pizza will be getting my cheat day orders from now on.

Absolutely love love love them. Can’t speak to the environment because all my encounters in this covid era have been with takeout. And I have to say I’m impressed. Some places I only want to experience sitting down, their take out is cold or somehow mixes all together in this awful looking unfavorable concoction. But the ref has mastered this! Everything is packaged separately and labeled, no more guessing who’s is who’s or what is what. And it always makes the trip home still hot and delicious as if served to my table in the restaurant. The very first time we ordered unfortunately an ingredient was missed to be removed and the little ones aren’t to found of jalapeños! Called and was given amazing options to rectify the problem. Because the food was so good we decided to not let a little mix up remove them from the list and am so glad we gave it another shot. The green beans are awesome. It’s not that tiny shoestring bean that’s so lightly coated in breading you question its existence. These were good size, nicely breaded with an amazing flavor that was just sent over the top with the basil ranch! Def a new fav. The garlic brd bites are on point. Delicious, soft, fresh little balls of heaven coated with garlic and smothered with delicious melty cheese. Absolutely mouth watering. Had the philly melt and was taken back by it only being on normal sliced bread. Normally they are on a hoogie or French roll so wasn’t sure if it would stand up to the responsibility of holding together while being dipped but was pleasantly surprised when all assumptions went out the window and this bread could do the job. Enjoyed that even though the bread was thin it didn’t overpower and you were able to focus on the delicious meat and veggie combo dipped in a flavorful and much desired aujus. 2 thumbs up for sure. Am excited in the anticipation of trying some more of their delicious and diverse menu options. Definitely worth the 2nd chance and making there way to this fams #1 restaurant!

They are actually feeding people in the back during covid-19. Don't be alarmed when you are walked into the back of the restaurant. They have to provide vented seating. Wear something warm just in case. I ordered the Hawaiian calzone which was actually really good. We ordered some chips and salsa and the chips were heated and the salsa was really good. The Waitresses were very sweet and attentive. Highly recommend.

Missed my second sandwich, the sandwich I did receive was soggy. The bread was soggy. The pretzel bites were hard, and the elephant ear was hard bread with cinnamon and sugar on it that was hard as a rock. Last time ordering from there.

You have to try the deep fried cauliflower and the pizza is always cooked to prepared to perfect. So happy they are on Uber eats!

We really enjoyed our first time in. Very cold beer and great food as well as service. We will be back.

Service was great, thanks Derek!

Love it when dive sports bars compete against the elitist joints for Restaurant Week. These guys played to their strengths, and did a great job. But what stood out to me was the opportunity to sit at the bar and chat with good folks from all around the metro. The food was well prepared. My burger was obviously hand-pattied, and cooked to my order (medium). Apps were a great start, and you'll have to ask my youngest daughter how the desserts were because I couldn't make it that far after our bartender's generous pour of my usual duo. We were not here for ambiance or aesthetics. We were here to grub and socialize, and in that regard, Ref took care of business. All the staff and patrons were cool, and the whole joint was clean. We very much like this place. Always have...

$9 for 5 quarters of fried pickles. Fine atmosphere for sports because of all the TV's, but maybe if they didn't buy all those TV's my pickles wouldn't have cost so much. RIP to my wallet

They make great flavored shots and are always very nice. Very relaxing to stop in for a drink before my workout.

Always good food, wait staff friendly.

We love the Ref, they have tons of TVs to view the games on, great food, and good service. It is our number one choice for a sports bar.

Super great place to watch Super bowl! Super cool in my humble opinion

Went to a birthday party here. You can reserve the back room for parties and it's free! Friendly staff, super clean, great food.

Very slow service and poor management. UFC fight night on ppv. Their occupancy is 200 (more people were in there) they have 1 guy serving half of the place 100 people. ALSO he did not ID anyone we were with since you have to be 21 to be at the bar. To take our order 30 minutes of waiting 45 minutes for drinks Food 1.5 hours And to get our check 1 hour. I understand it was a busy night The Ref purchased PPV and charges you $10 just to enter, but careless about their service. Food was not that great, but manageable.

It was our first time, but definitely not the last. Great food, drinks & service.

What a great place I was here for a work Christmas party, and plan to come back with the whole family very soon.

Great place to watch all your favorite teams!!

Wow! The ref has really turned itself around for the better. They are under new management and it shows! The menu has been completely revamped and everything we have tried so far has been delicious. You can really tell the new management really cares about the place. All new tables bring a much needed brightness to the place. You have to check out the bar top too, it's an old basket ball court 3 point line! They also have a table top that fits 20! Definitely a 5 star place to check out They also have specials Sunday-Thursday and breakfast buffet on sat and sun.

A really good sports bar in the spokane valley. Good pub food and great staff. 2 thumbs up.

Quality food, prices a touch high compared to the competition. Service and bartender were also good. Plenty of tvs and a fun place to watch a game. Aside from a friends gathering to watch sports I would most frequently choose a different spot due too the very limited bar selection and a bit expensive menu.

Very open and spacious! Good place to hang out with your twin sister or friends! Very friendly staff!

The wings tasted good but we’re kinda cold and hardly any meat. It would be nice to see some keto items on menu. Beer is amazing and drinks were on point. This place isn’t for kids! I am a mom and this place hits the spot for date nights!