The Rte. 2 Restaurant Tour - Stop #2
Applebee's
Before I begin talking about Applebee's, there's a minor correction I need to make to the previous tour stop review. The name of the restaurant is NOT "Ruby Tuesday's," but rather "Ruby Tuesday." No possessive. It wasn't named after an owner or an owner's valued relative. No one named Ruby Tuesday ever started a restaurant that, through sheer popularity, bloomed into a chain with hundreds of locations. Instead, some Rolling Stones fans from the University of Tennessee were looking for an investment opportunity. That's it. So, please disregard the possessive of Ruby Tuesday--it doesn't belong to Ruby. It belongs to the stockholders (NYSE: RI).
Now, to Applebee's. The location that I went to is located in the parking lot of a shopping center with a mega-grocery and a store that sells Christmas goods year round. The restaurant is an island in the asphalt, a respite from the workaday cares of buying fresh food and maybe a Dancing Santa statue.
Compared to Ruby Tuesday, it's actually a bit more subdued. It feels like more of sports bar--most of the memorabilia on the walls is sports-related, though they couldn't resist the urge to throw a random concert poster or waterski up there next to it. By far the oddest decorations in the place were on the back wall near the wait station. Taking up the entire space, a good 10'X10' section of wall, was a shrine...to James Woods.
I wasn't in a position to get a good picture of this, and I may regret that for the rest of my life, but I swear to you that I am not kidding about this. There are at least ten photo stills from his movies, spanning 20 years. His entire working life displayed on the back wall of a chain restaurant.
James Woods grew up here, it turns out. I don't think that Applebee's was his hangout as a kid, though. In fact, I'd bet good money that when James Woods was rolling through here as a creepy, intense teenager, Rte. 2 didn't have a single national chain restaurant. Or anything else but trees, for that matter.
I guess, though, that someone noticed that there was a dearth of monuments to their town's favorite son. They decided that there needed to be a place to let the world know--James Woods lived here thirty-five years ago. And not his high school--it's always a high school. No, there's a better place. A place where the community gets together to relax after buying their year's supply of tinsel. A place where people gather over a tall beer and a basket of deep fried potato skins with chives and bacon bits on them... Applebee's.
Anyway, I got a seat in a booth near the bar to catch the last four innings of the Sox/Devil Rays game (and don't think I don't get a little thrill every time I realize there's a Major League baseball team called the Devil Rays). The menu is another picture book, and though Applebee's doesn't attach a quality to every category of food, they are sure to let you know that the steaks are Sizzlin'!
The illustrations were even more helpful than Ruby Tuesday's. They're actually annotated, identifying the different layers of a sandwich so that in case I've never seen one before, I won't have any problem remembering that the meat goes BETWEEN the slices of bread.
I ordered the "Roasted Garlic Chicken with Asiago Drizzle." The picture didn't have any arrows on it, but I did take note of the distinctive grill marks across the chicken. Every national chain restaurant must think we as customers insist on grill marks that look like they were painted on using a straight edge. They're perfect in every way, uniform in width and intensity. You would think that this miracle grill they're using cooks evenly at all points and that the chicken breasts they're serving fall onto the grill without a single gap.
It also comes with smashed potatoes. I like smashed potatoes.
Like Ruby Tuesday, the food at Applebee's came out from the kitchen in less time than it takes for me to open a bag of Doritos. While this was disturbing, I was drinking enough at this point to go with the flow.
It wasn't bad. There was little doubt that everything had been pre-prepared to such a degree that Ray Kroc himself might be gazing from hell and taking notes. Still, the asiago drizzle was tangy and it did come with smashed potatoes. I like smashed potatoes.
Anyway, David Ortiz hit a grand slam in the ninth to put the game away. I had a case of beer in my trunk that I was planning to put to immediate use when I got home. Applebee's was certainly better than Ruby Tuesday in terms of the food. Life was okay.
Next stop: Who The Hell Knows? Probably Chili's...
Before I begin talking about Applebee's, there's a minor correction I need to make to the previous tour stop review. The name of the restaurant is NOT "Ruby Tuesday's," but rather "Ruby Tuesday." No possessive. It wasn't named after an owner or an owner's valued relative. No one named Ruby Tuesday ever started a restaurant that, through sheer popularity, bloomed into a chain with hundreds of locations. Instead, some Rolling Stones fans from the University of Tennessee were looking for an investment opportunity. That's it. So, please disregard the possessive of Ruby Tuesday--it doesn't belong to Ruby. It belongs to the stockholders (NYSE: RI).
Now, to Applebee's. The location that I went to is located in the parking lot of a shopping center with a mega-grocery and a store that sells Christmas goods year round. The restaurant is an island in the asphalt, a respite from the workaday cares of buying fresh food and maybe a Dancing Santa statue.
Compared to Ruby Tuesday, it's actually a bit more subdued. It feels like more of sports bar--most of the memorabilia on the walls is sports-related, though they couldn't resist the urge to throw a random concert poster or waterski up there next to it. By far the oddest decorations in the place were on the back wall near the wait station. Taking up the entire space, a good 10'X10' section of wall, was a shrine...to James Woods.
I wasn't in a position to get a good picture of this, and I may regret that for the rest of my life, but I swear to you that I am not kidding about this. There are at least ten photo stills from his movies, spanning 20 years. His entire working life displayed on the back wall of a chain restaurant.
James Woods grew up here, it turns out. I don't think that Applebee's was his hangout as a kid, though. In fact, I'd bet good money that when James Woods was rolling through here as a creepy, intense teenager, Rte. 2 didn't have a single national chain restaurant. Or anything else but trees, for that matter.
I guess, though, that someone noticed that there was a dearth of monuments to their town's favorite son. They decided that there needed to be a place to let the world know--James Woods lived here thirty-five years ago. And not his high school--it's always a high school. No, there's a better place. A place where the community gets together to relax after buying their year's supply of tinsel. A place where people gather over a tall beer and a basket of deep fried potato skins with chives and bacon bits on them... Applebee's.
Anyway, I got a seat in a booth near the bar to catch the last four innings of the Sox/Devil Rays game (and don't think I don't get a little thrill every time I realize there's a Major League baseball team called the Devil Rays). The menu is another picture book, and though Applebee's doesn't attach a quality to every category of food, they are sure to let you know that the steaks are Sizzlin'!
The illustrations were even more helpful than Ruby Tuesday's. They're actually annotated, identifying the different layers of a sandwich so that in case I've never seen one before, I won't have any problem remembering that the meat goes BETWEEN the slices of bread.
I ordered the "Roasted Garlic Chicken with Asiago Drizzle." The picture didn't have any arrows on it, but I did take note of the distinctive grill marks across the chicken. Every national chain restaurant must think we as customers insist on grill marks that look like they were painted on using a straight edge. They're perfect in every way, uniform in width and intensity. You would think that this miracle grill they're using cooks evenly at all points and that the chicken breasts they're serving fall onto the grill without a single gap.
It also comes with smashed potatoes. I like smashed potatoes.
Like Ruby Tuesday, the food at Applebee's came out from the kitchen in less time than it takes for me to open a bag of Doritos. While this was disturbing, I was drinking enough at this point to go with the flow.
It wasn't bad. There was little doubt that everything had been pre-prepared to such a degree that Ray Kroc himself might be gazing from hell and taking notes. Still, the asiago drizzle was tangy and it did come with smashed potatoes. I like smashed potatoes.
Anyway, David Ortiz hit a grand slam in the ninth to put the game away. I had a case of beer in my trunk that I was planning to put to immediate use when I got home. Applebee's was certainly better than Ruby Tuesday in terms of the food. Life was okay.
Next stop: Who The Hell Knows? Probably Chili's...
posted by Matthew at 11:25 AM
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