Big fan.
It's in what used to be a bar, and you can tell. The set-up is some booths against one wall and then loose tables in the middle of the floor. It has a very small-town feel to it and you can tell that most of the people who come in are from the area.
They do short orders M-Th with the full menu (prime rib and other specials) available on F-Sa (closed Sunday).
We (5 adults) showed up at about 530 pm on Saturday. We did have a reservation, but it wasn't entirely necessary. Reservations for spots after 630 pm on Friday and Saturday are probably a good idea (the place was pretty full when we were winding up).
There was a decent little salad bar that included a soup (mushroom on that night) and two desserts (a simple chocolate cake and a white cake with rhubarb). Our party had two prime ribs (pretty damn good), a windsor loin (amazing), shrimp (very good) and a patty melt (ok, but that's the opinion of the finicky-est member of the crew). The sides were all potato based. Three of us (including me) had the broiled potatoes. I loved them, but the other two just thought they were okay. The garlic mashed and the fries were quite good. They have beer, wine and liquor, but not a super extensive selection (perhaps foolishly, I'd hoped for a pre-dinner Dewars, which they did not have). Most of us were stuffed to the rafters when we were done, but one person had pie. In the cake v. pie wars, I'm decidedly in Camp Cake. However, if all pie were like Terry's pie, I'd have to reconsider my allegiance. It's homemade and fantastic.
Here goes:
Food: 4.5 stars. The meats were a very high quality and were cooked appropriately. The sides were quite good and the pie is amazing. Not everything they do is homemade (they use pre-breaded chicken fried steak, for example), but everything we had that night was homemade and it was great.
Price: 5 stars. A fantastic value for high quality meat. I'm not going to lie and say this place is Gary Danko or French Laundry, but what I will say is this: I've had lower quality meat for a much higher price in other steak houses. I can't speak to everything on the menu, but the prime rib and the windsor loin were very good on their own and they were fantastic for the price.
Ambiance: 4 stars. I never know how to do this part. It was not a fancy place. It's not going to blow you away with opulent mahogany wood work or crazily interesting design choices. It's a simple place that used to be a bar. By the same token, they're not pretending at any of that stuff either. They know who they are and they hit the pitches they can hit. It's clean and it's organized. I have a real soft spot for unassuming places and, frankly, I dug what they did.
Service: 3.5 stars. Everyone that served us was attentive and helpful. One of the women who served us was Kay (the wife of the owner, she helps on the weekend) and she was particularly great. I'm giving them a lower score because it was quite slow. I think we were the first people that night to do the bigger orders and they were still sort of ramping up to speed. Again, they were great and all 5 of us will be going back, but multiple tables which arrived after us (and ordered simpler items) were served before us. Everyone did everything they could to accommodate us, but it was a bit slow.
If I could, I'd give 4.5 stars. read more
