In recent months I have been more willing to revisit classic chain restaurants than I have in previous years. I think part of it is genuine curiosity to assess the quality of the meals, while the other is me feeling nostalgic for the days when I would dine in such establishments with my family. I will admit that a driving factor for me to come to Ruby Tuesday was their famous salad bar. As soon as I walked near the entrance I was met with the melody from "Hold Me Now" by Thompson Twins, which took me to a happy place instantly. The actual restaurant looked fine on the inside, and I think the lack of diners made it feel more spacious as well as peaceful. I could tell some of the upholstery at the booths were worn down and probably haven't been updated in years. They were understaffed at this particular time of the day, but the service here was very good for the most part except when it came time to actually cash out. The menus have a ton of pictures which many consider to be tacky, but I find it charming. I personally like seeing what my food might look like before commiting to it, so I had no problem with it. I decided to go with crab cakes with a side of tater tots because the menu was too big and I just figured "screw it". Before that I did request to have the salad bar option for an additional $5.99, which is not bad at all since you can fill your plate as much as you want. The plates for the salad bar are quite small. You have to get creative with how you stack your ingredients to get the most out of it. I was a little disappointed with the salad bar as some of the ingredients were obviously not fresh (most notably the spring mix, which had some wilted and moist leaves that I made sure to avoid). Aside from that the salad I prepared for myself was very good and the brown croutons at the very end of the bar are a must-have. As for my actual entree...that was the weakest aspect of my experience. Between the tater tots and the crab cakes, it was the former I enjoyed way more. The cakes themselves are quite small, very thin and they only give you 2 of them (roughly $20 altogether with my side). To be honest it's probably a blessing I only had the 2 cakes because they were obviously frozen patties likely made with low quality canned crab meat. That isn't to say I'm surprised, but the crust was burnt on mine and it left a weird after taste. Thankfully the exceptional tartar sauce helped me get through them, but again those tater tots were much better, and definitely saved my meal. So overall my trip to Ruby Tuesday was so and so. It's not a bad option, but there are better options available in that area especially. read more