Ruby's Restaurant is an Oklahoma tradition. Everyone I know in Oklahoma has been eating there forever. However, there are some caveats.
As I sat in this cafe eating breakfast recently, I noticed how many of the customers were limping, on oxygen or were loudly discussing how sick they were. I'm not kidding. Virtually everyone in the place had some kind of complaint about their health. That said, I found myself wondering why on earth they were filling themselves with such unhealthy food choices. About the only thing I'll eat in Ruby's is a non-fried egg or the salad bar.
The biscuits are made from unhealthy white flour. You are given a butter substitute that is full of chemicals to spread on them. If you get the gravy, that's even worse. The first three ingredients on the jam packets are: sugar, sugar and more sugar.
There are practically NO healthy alternatives for anything on the menu, which could be easily fixed with just a few adjustments. They need more heart-healthy foods, and while this restaurant is located in the heart of the slaughtered animal universe, it wouldn't hurt for them to offer some healthier meat-free options as well.
The vegetables tend to be soggy, and the soup is canned. Yes, you read that correctly. CANNED. How much trouble would it be to offer a nice, house-made soup made of fresh, healthful ingredients? If that costs too much to do, then raise the price of the friggin' soup! I'd pay extra for something healthful to eat.
Service is usually friendly and fast, so I like to tip well when I go to Ruby's. The atmosphere seems to be friendly, and the owner walks around in his fancy belt checking in with the customers to see how they're doing. I like that, and I appreciate it. However, on this occasion, a heavyset waitress with tattoo'd arms who had short, dark hair had to have been one of the rudest people I'd ever encountered in the business. She was flirting with the plethora of old men gathered there, but when she got to me, a woman dining alone, she said, "Yeah, what do you want?" That alone would have cost her a job if I had been her boss, but it got worse. When she brought my food, she literally slammed it on the table and SLID it to me. (Slid? Slung?....she SHOVED it in a rude and angry manner.) . Then, (and I have no idea what she was so huffy about) she turned and stormed off. She did not check back with me even once while I was eating. Not once. I had to get up and find my own ketchup, because the bottle already at my table was empty. She served me undercooked, GREASY hashbrowns, so I couldn't eat them, and I wanted to order some cottage cheese....but I couldn't order it because she never checked on my table again. This is not typical of Ruby's. Most of the time, all of the waitstaff is very polite. They tend to work hard and to go an excellent job. This waitress was something else!
Instead of serving greasy fried hashbrowns made with some kind of cheap mystery oil, I wonder why the cooks there do not fry them up nice and crispy with real olive oil or some other healthier alternative? Instead of adding that horrible oxidant that they use on them, why not serve organic potatoes that are fresh cut and delicious? The tomatoes in the salad bar tend to be orange and hard. They serve whole green onion stalks that you can't really cut with their cutlery. The menu at Ruby's needs a facelift. That's for sure. The customers will go there whether the food is good or bad. Why not make it really good, more healthful and something to write home about? That's what I want to know. read more