My wife and I were overcome with cabin fever and generalized parental malaise last night, and decided it would be a good idea to take the kids out for dinner. We like to walk to restaurants whenever possible—one perk of city living—but the number of places that are “kid friendly” is limited, so we decided to eschew all sense of propriety and culinary common sense and eat at the Charles Village Ruby Tuesday. The way I look at it, any restaurant that hands out packets of crayons is basically asking for screaming 1- and 3-year-olds, and if anyone finds high-decibel baby screeching and toddler nose-picking to be offensive, well, all I can ask is what the fuck are you doing eating at a Ruby Tuesday?
We ordered our staple grilled cheese/french fries combo for the 3-year-old and grilled cheese and broccoli for the baby. I can’t remember what I ordered, but it was some form of a blackened fish sandwich with a “fiesta” sauce. Susan ordered something more respectable.
The baby stuck a crayon in her mouth and bit off a hunk of green. “Don’t worry, they’re non-toxic,” Susan said. Our toddler grew tired of staring at the dreary, mismatched couple in the adjoining booth and decided that her nasal secretions would make a lovely appetizer.
“You really should stop doing that,” I said. “It’s gross. People will make fun of you.”
She glared at me and ate another booger.
The food arrived. The children’s plates were hot. I grabbed one of them from the waiter and nearly dropped it. “Ouch,” I said.
“They get like that when they come out of the dishwasher,” the waiter said.
Susan and I stared at each other.
“What is that?” I asked.
To help you understand our stunned incomprehension, here is the image of the Ruby Tuesday “grilled cheese” from the kid’s menu:
And here is the abomination that was placed before my children:
It took a bit of analysis to figure out what exactly was sitting on the plates. Clearly, no sliced bread was involved in this aberrant food product, as promised on the kid’s menu illustration. Rather, this thing was assembled from 2 “slider” buns (or, in Ruby Tuesday parlance, “Minis.”) Now, I don’t eat mammals (he said snidely), but even if I were the most rapacious carnivore on the planet I’d draw the line at tiny hamburgers that look like something from a Fisher-Price kitchen. If the world was ruled by evil midgets or cruel babies, perhaps I could understand the allure of a “slider.” (And what is the etymology? Do they simply slide down the gullet without needing to be chewed? Or does the sliding occur after the food has been digested and is being pushed out by muscle contractions?)
(And if “sliders” and “minis” weren’t just plainly infantile enough, I recently learned that Burger King’s version of baby-sized burgers are called “shots.” As in, “Hey, bartender, I’ll have a couple shots of hamburger, with cheese.”)
This is what happened when I removed the top upside-down “mini” bun top:
Voila! There’s the cheese, a 2.5-inch square barely melted in between the inverted buns and serving as the glue holding the ghastly perversion together.
After the children stopped screaming and wailing and clawing at their little eyes in horror, I flagged our waiter—the typical bored and dull-witted student shlepping sub-par grub for beer and weed money—and asked him if this was indeed a Ruby Tuesday®-approved grilled cheese.
“I know, it is pretty weird,” he said. “It doesn’t look like a normal grilled cheese.” I asked him if he’d be kind enough to ask the chef why he wanted to traumatize my children. “Sure,” he said.
Upon returning, he shrugged. “He says that’s how corporate tells him to make it. They used to make it with bread, but not anymore.” Desperately seeking a bright spot in our absurd dialogue, and hoping to hold onto his 20% tip, he said, “Some kids like it—they think it’s cool.”
I smiled and thanked him.
The baby, meanwhile, had stopped eating crayons and had conquered her fear of the melted-slice-of-cheese-gluing-together-inverted-slider-buns and was picking at the damned thing. “Noo-noo,” she said.
“She thinks it’s a noodle,” the three-year-old chimed in.
“What do you think of it?” I asked, pointing at hers.
“It’s cool,” she said.
My wife and I tried to understand how a grilled cheese had transmogrified into a slider bun abortion that was “cool” with the toddler set. Maybe Ruby Tuesday decided that sliced bread was so, I don’t know. . . old-fashioned. “Bun” does sound like “fun.” And even the adult menu is created for the palate of a 3-year-old, or an adult with the palate of a three-year-old—you know, the serial-chain-restaurant patron who orders plates of microscopic hamburgers and eighteen-inch-tall stacks of onion rings as an appetizer. So I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that the classic grilled American cheese sandwich was reworked by a penny-pinching corporate marketing hack into the unholy bun assemblage sitting in front of me.
But it ain’t right. Seriously. It just . . . ain’t . . . right.
Disgusting. Thanks for exposing what passes for “food” nowadays!
Glad to see the family is healed enough to venture out once again. Could you at least save me some of those yummy crayons?
The boogers are more appetizing
Hey Michael- I’m Gavin Baker, Social Media Manager for Ruby Tuesday. I saw your post and wanted to apologize that you were disappointed. I’ve checked with the people on our side if that’s how the grilled cheese is supposed to be prepared and it was created correctly (although apparently it’s normally bursting with cheese) – so while apparently odd to the adult eye it equals cool to the kids, which is why we create it with the buns rather than sliced bread. I know that doesn’t fix it, but hopefully it takes some of the mystery out of it.
Thanks for the feedback and please let me know if I can do anything to help.
Gavin Baker
Ruby Tuesday
gbaker@rubytuesday.com
“Normally Bursting with Cheese!” would make an excellent slogan for something, I think.
“although apparently it’s normally bursting with cheese.” Bursting? What?
I’ve got an idea, stop hiring people to troll the internet looking to hand out lame excuses for a shoddy product, get some new menus, a hire some quality control people. “Although apparently” it’s easier to ask for forgiveness then fix your crappy food issues. Good luck RT’s…
@Mike Actually, high quality food is very important to us – which is why posts like this from Michael are excellent feedback for us which help us figure out what happened and what breakdowns may have happened to provide the experience he had. Unfortunately mistakes do happen from time but we do our best to learn about them and fix when we can.
Thanks for your attention to this matter, Gavin.
My suggestion would be to simply abandon the Frankenstein’s monster of an alleged grilled cheese and replace it with what is commonly understood as a “grilled cheese” sandwich, i.e. something that resembles the illustration on the kid’s menu — two slices of bread, grilled, with melted cheese on the interior. Though the current iteration of the product may seem “cool” to a percentage of children, remember that it is parents who are paying for the child’s meal and parents, too, have warm, emotional and gustatory attachments to the traditional grilled cheese sandwich and would react with similar confusion and alarm if brought the inverted bun product (bursting with cheese or not).
Which makes me wonder — does Ruby Tuesday make use of conventional sliced bread in any of its current menu items? For instance, does the Chicken BLT come on bread or a bun? My guess is that buying bread just to make grilled cheese sandwiches for children wouldn’t make much fiscal sense, especially in the current dismal economic climate. Buns are uniform, after all, while slices of bread vary and then there’s the problematic “heel” which is basically waste.
I’d hate to see a grilled cheese option disappear entirely from the menu, though, as I know for many parents it’s a “go-to” standby, particularly for toddlers like mine who love nothing better than a traditional grilled American processed cheese sandwich, especially if it’s a little crisp (but not burned). And honestly, a lot of the time she doesn’t even eat the whole thing, which means I get to have a few bites for myself. I’m sure I’m not the only grilled cheese loving daddy out there!
You’re welcome, thanks for writing about it. Thanks for the suggestions as well, I’m forwarding your excellent feedback to our culinary team who will be made aware of your post and your response.
I also found out that the kids menu illustration has been updated with the current appearance of the grilled cheese but unfortunately you guys ended up with an older copy. I do not believe we use any conventional bread for any meal, although counter intuitive it would make some fiscal sense because it can be purchased much cheaper than buns can.
I’ll definitely be sure that they are aware that grilled cheese shouldn’t disappear, but possibly adjustments to how it’s made. I’m particularly fond of grilled cheese as well – it’s such a tasty classic.
Thanks again for your insights. I appreciate the dialogue.
BTW – I checked out some of your photos, and I really like the one of the little red riding hood statue. I also never knew that Edgar ALLAN Poe was buried in Bmore. Next time I’m there I’ll have to check it out.
Mr. Baker,
My son gets nothing but the grilled cheese when we go to Ruby Tuesdays. I can guarantee that he will not be pleased with this bun thing. It might even be enough to keep us from dining at Ruby Tuesdays until the proper grilled cheese sandwich is brought back to your menu.
Thanks for listening,
-Nick
Gavin, thanks for the compliment on the photo. And the next time you’re in Baltimore, give me a shout. I’ll take you somewhere for a really superb, old-school grilled cheese. On me.
@nick Thanks for writing, I’m told the grilled cheese made with bun’s is just as good as the classic method of preparation – however I can’t personally make a comment until I’ve tried it. Michael did you try it? I’d hope that you’d come back and give us another shot. Feel free to contact me at gbaker@rubytuesday.com
@Michael – I’m already looking forward to some superb, old-school grilled cheese, thank you for the offer. I’ll be sure to let you know when I’m down that way again.
Gavin, no, I did not try it. It’s simply not appetizing as prepared, and I think anyone looking at the photos would agree with me. My children picked at it but did not eagerly eat it as they would a traditional grilled cheese and instead chose to fill up on fries and broccoli (both of which, I will add, were tasty and well-prepared).
To be honest, I don’t have much desire to take my kids back to a Ruby Tuesday, for a couple of reasons: first, they are vegetarians and the kid’s menu doesn’t have much in the way of veggie fare (I believe there is a pasta with marinara selection and the “grilled cheese” bun assemblage). My kids nearly always want a grilled cheese instead of pasta, and it’s the one food they reliably eat and enjoy at restaurants. I don’t know if you’re a parent, but if you are, you’ll understand how important it is to have a reliable standby for kids when dining out.
I would bet that if you took a survey of parents, the vast majority would prefer the classic, sliced-bread-based grilled cheese sandwich over the inverted-bun-with-a-small-slice-of-cheese-between-the-halves menu item. I’m sure I’m not the only parent to react with dismay at what was served to my kids — it’s the equivalent of listing something as “macaroni and cheese” and bringing a plate of spaghetti with grated parmesan on top of it — maybe technically accurate, but certainly not what the parent or the child had in mind.
I’d be more than happy to do an informal polling of friends with children to see if they agree — it would be easy to do via Facebook or Twitter — then send the results to you. Also, I’d be willing to discuss the construction and assembly of a proper “classic” grilled cheese sandwich with your culinary team, along with the merits of its mouth-feel and esthetic appeal — you can contact me at: michaelmhughes@gmail.com.
Again, thanks for your continuing interest in this. It’s good to know Ruby Tuesday has someone who takes customer comments seriously enough to engage in dialogue. My hope is that Ruby Tuesday culinary/marketing managers will reconsider the ill-advised product currently being served and reinstitute the beloved grilled cheese sandwich of old. I’m convinced it would be a “win/win” outcome for Ruby Tuesday and its customers.
Michael, thanks for the feedback on the fries and broccoli. I wasn’t personally aware of the kids menu not carrying much regarding veggie fare (I’m not a parent), but I’ve sent that feedback on the culinary team. I can only promise they will be aware of it, not that any action will be taken in the foreseeable future.
Thanks for the interest of the polling via facebook or twitter…. I’ll see what the culinary team thinks and if so we’ll get back with you. This feedback you’ve given us has been great, so I appreciate your time in writing the original post as well as the time with the thoughtful subsequent comments.
It’s exciting to hear this type of information because ultimately it will become a win/win for our guests and our company. Thanks again.
Gavin
Gavin,
The thing is, this bun thing, being a mini bun, is most likely 1/3 the size of a regular grilled cheese sandwich, and the wrong proportion of bread to cheese since the top bun is thicker than a slice of bread, and it won’t have those nice crunchy crusts that my son always leaves for me to finish. It’s just not appealing. I hope RT will reconsider.
Nick
Wow, that bun-thing is an atrocity, but I don’t think that represent’s Ruby Tuesday’s as a restaurant. It’s hardly fine dining and not geared toward vegetarians but their fresh guacamole, salad bar and triple-prime burgers are consistently outstanding. You should have known better than to order a weird seafood dish in that sort of joint.