Earlier tonight my wife and I went to the Red Rock Canyon Grill in Jenks for her 15th High School Reunion. We had lots of fun. (Even though I knew NO ONE there.) It was good meeting some of her old friends from long ago. Her graduating class only had 36 people in it! That has always seemed very weird to me. A total of about 11 people showed up for the reunion, which isn’t a bad percentage really. Especially considering some have moved away, and others had very good excuses for not being able to make an appearance.
Now, while it was a good time, I am sort of torn on how the restaurant was. It had some good points and some bad points really.
The bad points:
The selection of availability on the menu could have been larger. We checked out the menu online the day before. Now, admittedly my wife is a bit picky about certain foods, and also has some food allergies, but there were literally only about 2 or 3 things on the menu that she could/would eat. Of course we could have ordered the Filet Mignon that our server mentioned… If we wanted to spend like $37 for a Filet. (More details on that below.)
Selection Grade: C
The prices are a bit outrageous. As I said, we looked at the menu ahead of time, and it included prices. The most expensive thing on the menu was a Tenderloin with red skin mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables for $29.
My wife and I had decided to get the “Cluck-N-Moo”. This is listed on the menu as, “Rotisserie chicken and beef tenderloin. Served with redskin mashed potatoes and sweet glazed carrots.” It too was pricey, coming in at $28. The Tenderloin was delicious, the Rotisserie Chicken was your run of the mill Rotisserie Chicken. It turned out to be a half chicken (one breast, one leg, one thigh), and two slices of Tenderloin. I don’t know about you, but to me that doesn’t really add up to $28.
The others at the table got the “Cluck-N-Oink”, which was a Rotisserie Chicken and some St. Louis Ribs for $18. That plate came with a whole lot more food on it than ours did. My wife’s one friend got the $29 Tenderloin. As I said, the Tenderloin was great, but her plate didn’t have $29 worth of it on her plate. The other plate at our table was a Chicken Enchilada Platter. It looked pretty good, with a decent amount of food on the plate, and all for $16.
Prices Grade: F
One final bad point, we had a specific section reserved for us, but weren’t sure how many would show up. There were four 6-top tables for us. After one table had their food, and one table had placed their orders one of the managers gave away our fourth table which to that point was unused… to a group which included 4 young children (all boys). While the children turned out to be mostly well-behaved it could have gone an entirely different way. And with us having previously reserved the area it just seemed wrong to me. Especially taking into account that the person who organized it all got a call yesterday from the restaurant saying that she needed to make sure everyone was there BY 5:30 because they had another party coming in at 7:30.
Not sure what to call this Grade: D
The good points:
The service was great. Especially our main server. She was very attentive, and quite possibly the most knowledgeable server I have ever seen. Keep in mind that I managed a restaurant and had some extremely talented servers working with me. She read off a long list of “off the menu” items like the 2 fresh fish of the day, exactly how they were prepared, a very descriptive explanation of a special Ribeye, and Filets, and more.
Service Grade: A+
The Tenderloin really was amazing!
Taste Grade: A (Would be a + if the Rotisserie Chicken was anything special.)
The bathroom was very clean. As I said, I used to be a restaurant manager. Prior to that I was in charge of playing the role of a “health inspector” and getting multiple restaurants in the franchise up to health code and beyond. After all of that I learned that one good way to learn how clean a restaurant is the amount of care and time they take to keep the bathrooms clean. As such, I readily notice the state of the bathrooms more than some would.
Bathroom Grade: A+
Actually, I have one more bad point to add. This one is not a bad point for us and other diners. It is a bad point for the servers, and how management handles things. Even though we were expecting a party of up to 30, and then had about 19 total, management didn’t include any “mandatory” gratuity included in the checks. You can’t really depend on EVERYONE to include a decent tip on their own. This is again speaking from experience. Prior to becoming a manager, during the training to become a manager, and then after, when in a bind have done some time as a Server. It isn’t the easiest job in the world! when you get a big group you miss out on having many other tables because you are too busy with the party. Plus we had 3 servers (possibly a fourth) taking care of us, so they had to split the tip.
Now, while we left slightly more than a 20% tip, I don’t know what everyone else left. All in all, split three ways I am sure it wasn’t a very good tip.
Overall Grade of the Restaurant: B
I would say, go eat there. The food is good. Just be prepared to pay, probably overpay, for the good food.
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