Oh! Charlie

Aiken added another chain eatery to its lineup the other week, O’Charley’s. Tonight Donna and I sampled the place. The menu was pretty much like all the others in the casual dining category. There wasn’t anything there that you couldn’t get identically or really similar someplace else. Whatever their signature dish is, the one every one thinks of when they think of O’Charley’s, I hope we didn’t have it, because our dinner was totally forgettable. Matter of fact, we have after one meal decided that we may not ever need to go back. The place was packed, but that is more attributable to the fact that it is new, than the food and or atmosphere.

Not that the food was bad. We split a side salad, whole rack of ribs, fries and slaw. We started off with a bowl of potato soup that no less than two co-workers said was to die for, and I wouldn’t suffer through a paper cut for any more. More cheddar cheese and bacon pieces than potatoes served luke-hot. The ribs were advertised as “Fall-Off-The-Bone”, but they needed some coaxing to let go of the bone. Fries are fries and the cole slaw was slightly better than average.

Within a mile of O’Charley’s is a Chili’s, a Ruby Tuesday, an Applebee’s and they are building a Fatz Cafe which are all the same kind of eatery. Also within the same radius is an Outback, a Red Lobster, an Atlanta Bread Company, a Ryan’s, an IHOP, about a dozen different fast food places and the usual smattering of Chinese, Mexican and Pizza places. I wish them luck, put they probably don’t need it because although Donna and I probably won’t ever darken their door again there are definitely enough others that will.