Gwinnett Daily Post

Staff Photo: Deanna Allen. The Hail Mary Sports Pub serves sports bar fare, including a homestyle pot roast sandwich, front, its most popular selection, the wings, right, and its beach bread, left.

The Hail Mary Sports Pub

1950 Grayson Highway, Suite 140, Grayson

770-963-0205

www.thehailmarysportspub.com

• Open since: 2007

• Location: The Hail Mary Sports Pub is the corner suite in a row of businesses along Grayson Highway at its intersection with Rosebud Road.

• Hours: 11:30 a.m. to midnight Monday through Wednesday and Sundays and 11:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. Thursday through Saturday

• Owners: Grayson residents and friends Blake Hawkins, Jerry Stafford, Mark Gillespie and Roger Crowley

• Atmosphere: The walls inside The Hail Mary are covered with sports flags, posters and team jerseys, and no matter what seat you take, at least one of the 17 flat-screen TVs or the jumbo 10-by-12-foot screen will be visible. There are even flat-screen TVs in each of the restrooms so you won't miss one second of a game.

The main dining area inside the eatery offers booth and regular table seating, while high-top tables surround the bar. A patio wraps around the corner of the building outside, where the restaurant presents a summer concert series.

The Hail Mary hosts free family bingo Tuesday nights with prizes for kids and team trivia Wednesdays.

• Menu: The Hail Mary Sports Pub updates its menu quarterly, adding special dishes to complement its staples. The eatery is rolling out its winter menu this month, including its new major and minor league entrees of steak, grouper, pork chops and meatloaf, a reuben sandwich and a chicken finger sub.

The pub's standards include salads, burgers, wraps, sandwiches and hot dogs The most popular menu selection at The Hail Mary is one of its staples, fresh, never frozen, jumbo crispy buffalo wings in a variety of flavors. The grouper sandwich is also a popular item. The fish comes grilled -- blackened or lemon peppered -- or fried.

Another popular item is the southern barbecue nachos, tortillas topped with the pub's sweet, pulled barbecue pork.

"People come from miles and miles around to have the nachos," Hawkins said. "They're incredible." Another favorite appetizer is the To Dill a Mockingbird, jalapeno-spiced dill pickle chips battered and fried served with a jalapeno ranch sauce.

The Hail Mary also offers up homemade chili that earned the people's choice award at this year's Grayson chili cook-off.

The eatery serves sodas, water, beer, liquor and wine.

• Things you might not know: The Hail Mary takes its name from the last-second, long-shot football pass the Dallas Cowboys' Roger Staubach made to Drew Pearson in 1975.

If you have a restaurant you would like to see featured in The Dish, call Staff Writer Deanna Allen at 770-963-9205 ext. 1321 or e-mail deanna.allen@gwinnettdailypost.com.