Not too long ago, my wife’s dentist office mailed her a $77 gift card for Ruth’s Chris Steak House. We thought it was a strange kind of thank-you for the dental work my wife has had to undergo the last few years. Nonetheless, not ones to pass up a freebie, we decided to use the gift card last week.
As it turns out, we would have been better off re-gifting the gift card to our local public radio station. Ruth’s Chris does not publish its prices online, for a reason. To start with, our martinis turned out to be $13.50 and $14.50 each. This is Asheville, North Carolina, not New York City. I don’t care how good the martinis are (and they were good), I object when a restaurant has a 6x or 7x markup on its drinks.
Our seating was nice but not the most romantic we ever had — we had a good view of the dining room, that’s all. Our service was good but not the best we ever had — our server was well-trained in the quiet, serious pretentiousness that one-percenters must expect.
Our dinners were good but not the most memorable we ever had — my medium-rare steak was rather cool and rare, and the au poivre sauce on the side ($4 extra) had so much dill and/or rosemary you would never know there were peppercorns somewhere in there.
What was memorable was our tab — among the highest we ever had. I thought dinners in Paris were expensive but Ruth’s Chris brings that “we’ve been gouged” feeling back home. After your $14 martini, you can enjoy a steak without sides for $45, a dish of spinach for $9, and a few tablespoons of a mediocre sauce for $4 that any decent restaurant would include in the cost of your dinner. Sorry.
Like most other upscale steakhouses — Mortons, Smith & Wollensky, Palm, Capital Grille, to name a few — Ruth’s Chris is just another shakedown. I don’t understand the concept, or who they intend to appeal to — business people on price-be-damned expense accounts, hoping to impress clients?
Some people enjoy this restaurant — you can find them on TripAdvisor. But I would have preferred dining at one of our favorite, more reasonably-priced, locally-owned restaurants, like Corner Kitchen or Bouchon, and will do so from now on — gift cards be damned.
I too have been unimpressed with this high-end chain restaurant. It is the kind of place we take our distributors and important customers when we are trying to impress them (or something) with a “nice dinner.” The prices are outrageous and the food is unremarkable, but I have never left hungry, and I have never had to pay the bill. Supply and demand I suppose. I’m more selective when spending my own money. And Betty doesn’t eat beef anyway.