I was more interested in the food and not the decor. We've been here a couple of years ago and the food was pretty good but what would it be like now? We really wanted to have something that also included the salad bar as we both wanted it with our meal (as last time it was pretty good then). My wife does not usually get steak but she chose a big steak ($14.99) that came with tiny roasted fried onions and mashed potatoes and also came with the salad bar. I thought about the steak but passed on that and the new 3 burger trio (turkey, beef and crab mini burgers ) and the Bela turkey burger which was mentioned recently on the web as one of the worse and high calorie and fat laden entrees you could ever eat! I opted for a lean bison burger. I've tried bison before and wanted to see how it would fare. I also opted for an added salad bar (extra $2.99) and asked for rice pilaf instead of french fries (I usually don't eat these anymore).
The salad bar was even better then before .The 4 different types of leaf, lettuce were crisp and very fresh. It seemed to have expanded and also offered beets, potato salad, other standard topics veggie stuff ( chopped eggs, slivered carrots, green peppers, red onions and many more). The raw slivers of zucchini were different touch. There were different types of dressings of course but what I really liked were the crisp, pumpernickel croutons were awesome and provided a good contrasting flavor to the dressing and greens.
The helpful, attentive and very cheerful waitress brought the entrees after we worked on the salad bar. Our nice waitress brought our entrees in their new distinctive oval type dishes. My wife's steak was excellent, grilled and seasoned to her liking. The big bison burger was on a nice bun with greens was so good I did not even add my usual steak sauce. It was not too gamy, was moist and had a great mild grill type flavor to it. I was a little surprised that the rice pilaf came with some melted cheddar like cheese on the top of it. I expected just fluffy light pilaf rice. This pilaf was fine but did not feel that the cheese went well with the pilaf. I kept going back to salad bar trying out all the different parts of the bar. The ambrosia type salad with apple was tangy. I went back twice for outstanding potato salad which had big chucks with a chive and sour creamy type dressing (not mustard or vinegar).
The restaurant had a big party come and sit right next to us near the end. The place was nice and not noisy at all. I did not really notice the new lamps that replaced the multicolored lamps , fixtures for so long at Ruby Tuesdays. The portions were big and we asked for Styrofoam containers. The nice waitress nicely took the other half of my bison burger and my wife's steak and put them into separate containers. We gave her a nice tip as we enjoyed the whole meal. Plus we had food left overs.
The menu is very versatile and we really like the freshness of the salad bar which is now even better. The prices are good and you can get a reasonable priced steak or another entree. I would even rank this as one of the best salad bars I have ever tasted in terms of variety, crispness and freshness of the items, the taste of the items and those awesome pumpernickel croutons. While it has some 20 plus items, it has might not have as many items as other salad bars but it sets itself apart by the flavors and tastes you get by sampling the offerings on the salad bar .
While I am not big on going to chain restaurants, this place has enough variety and has changed its menu to offer different entrees that are tasty, fresh and different. I liked this place before and feel that it is even better now. I definitely would come back here again with or without a coupon, on a Tuesday or any other day for lunch or dinner.
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