Maybe another Chris can buy it and name it Chris’ Ruth’s Chris steakhouse.
And has a name right up there with “Jumbo Happy Clown Burger.”
Beef prices have gone through the roof. I would not be surprised if even the upscale steak houses are having profitability/quality issues. People will only pay so much for traditional food.
We went to an Outback recently, and while it was okay, the meat was on the light side and the prices were up. Bad days for cowvatarians…
Not particularly relevant, but that was a mindbogglingly bad choice of location. If that reflects on the quality of their decision making than I have no problem believing they’ve screwing up elsewhere.
A friend of mine who’s a big steak fan said that the local (San Diego again) Outbacks are declining in quality. Their steaks just aren’t as good as they used to be.
(This, I do not know, as I’m a “well-done” fan, and lots of people tell me you can’t be a real steak fan and have it well-done. What can I say? Char one!)
They were trying to make that whole center (semi-)upscale for some reason, couldn’t get rid of the Sears though.
That was the deal. And they somehow convinced Ruth’s Chris to anchor it. They booted out all of the low class joints as soon as the leases ran out and put in fancy places like Tiffany’s. As if tourists and people from Montecito are going to go all the way to fucking La Cumbre Plaza to shop. There was nothing they could do about that big nasty Sears at the end because the Sears Corporation owns that building.
It’s been ages since I went to one, but once upon a time, didn’t the dinner menu at Outback include soup or salad, entree, potato, and a side all for one price? Last time we went, everything was a la carte, which made dinner crazy expensive. And, frankly, I found the steak to be overly salted. We don’t bother going any more. There’s a Texas Roadhouse a couple of miles down the road from Outback, and we’ve found we prefer the food there. I could do without the servers stopping periodically to dance, but whatever…
I’d see if there have been some kind of chef/management changes at the local restaurant level. Those could account for both lesser service and lesser food, if the predecessor did a better job of hiring, quality control and/or sourcing.
My suspicion is that it’s probably a local thing rather than a pervasive chain-wide problem.
Pittsburgh’s has always been hit or miss; not that I’ve ever been there much. But a friend who is almost a regular says they have been in this unpredictable “wave pattern” from the beginning going from “fantastic” to “why the Hell didn’t I go to the Pittsburgh Steak Company”.
That’s a crackup. “Let’s go to LensCrafters, Von’s, GNC and Sears. And to cap it all off, we’ll eat at Ruth’s Chris!”
The other side of the parking lot is a different property so it doesn’t count. See’s Candy had to move over to that ghetto. But yeah having Panda Express right across the lot wasn’t in the plus column.
“Hope Ranch people! Hope Ranch people will save us!”
Even the old Red Robin was kind of upscale for that place.
I had a lot of good memories of La Cumbre growing up in SB. The Natural Wonders store was one of my favorite places to visit as a kid, they would make big sand castles there, and have Santa and all that. It’s pretty barren these days. Lots of people in Sears though 
Back on topic, I keep hearing about this “Cheap is good, Expensive is good, middle is bad” thing affecting restaurants like Olive Garden and whatnot. While I’m sure it’s true, if Ruth’s Chris is trying to really ensconce themselves in the upper bracket and making dumb decisions like they did in Santa Barbara, that might explain some problems they have.
Ruth’s Chris is a franchise outfit; so basically some knucklehead paid his cash and decided to open a franchise. I don’t know if the home office gets much in the way of say on where a franchisee decides to physically locate their restaurants.
That said, I don’t know if the actual surrounding places have much to do with the perceived upscaleness of a restaurant. One of the nicer and higher-end steakhouses in Dallas is Bob’s Steak and Chop House… which shares a building with a lame looking window car accessories place, and is directly across the street from a KFC. Of course, it’s in a nice part of town, with a relatively established and high dollar clientele, and it’s not far from a lot of entertainment and drinking places.
Olive Garden is just plain bad.
The name Ruth’s Chris is just so mindnumbing I cant bring myself to eat there.
Not necessarily. As with most chain restaurants (at least non-fast-food ones), the service and food quality vary quite a bit from location to location. My MIL liked Olive Garden, so we would eat at them on occasion, at various locations. Our closest one is actually pretty good, so I suspect the manager and/or head chef is on the ball. But we ate at quite a few really bad ones, too. I don’t eat at OG much anymore since my MIL passed away, so I’m mostly referencing several years ago.
I’ve experienced the same significant difference at other chains such as Longhorn and Chili’s. Some are pretty good and some are bad.
As for Ruth’s Chris, I think I’ve eaten at them twice… once many years ago and once a few months ago. The recent visit wasn’t nearly as good as I remember, but that could be due to a changed frame of reference, locational differences or a general decline in quality. One thing for sure… it was overpriced both times.
This may well be true, as many complain about Outback but our two up in San Jose were quite good. In any case, I am not willing to risk it.
I did enjoy the ever-ending soup, salad and breadsticks, tho.