The Food Scout

I was impressed with Ruby Tuesday’s makeover when I ate dinner at one of its recently rehabbed units a few months ago. But I had lunch at another one for lunch this week, and I’ve decided it’s my new favorite (chain) restaurant. So much so, that I’m revising my prejudice that casual dine restaurant chains require compromise when it comes to freshness, healthiness, contemporary flavors, and other quality cues.

Ruby Tuesday’s has also restored my faith in salad bars with its “Fresh Garden Bar” concept, which breathes new life and appeal to this tired restaurant feature. Sure, salad bars were kind of a cool phenomenon back in the 1970s when we all thought ranch dressing and pale green iceberg lettuce leaves were good for us. But over the years, the appeal of salad bars began to wither along with all the macaroni salad, three-bean salad, and other Jell-O-based substances that predominated all the Johnny-come-lately salad bars. Now, RT has redefined the salad experience with a lineup that includes chilled edamame, homemade croutons, sauteed portobello mushrooms, broccoli salad, and other unusual toppings.

Ruby Tuesday’s has also proven that there can be a second life for the fern-bar concept. I grew up in the golden age of fern-bar-style restaurant chains, when TGIFriday’s, Houlihan’s, Applebee’s, Cooker and O’Charley’s were just hitting their expansion stride. These were magical places that took familiar American favorites and elevated them to a new level. But as these chains–and I–grew older and became more worldly, they had to start appealing to a lower common denominator, turning the magic turned into me-tooism.

Is anyone mourning the slow disappearance of honky tonk from these chains’ restaurant walls? And have all those old, beat-up license plates, trumpets, washboards and baskets been returned to flea markets and antique stores to find a new attic to dwell in? Or are there warehouses somewhere stacked to the top with decor that will one day be dusted off for a retro-introduction in a decade or two when we will be ready for such memorabilia on restaurant walls again?