March 11, 2017 marked one year since ConnieLou’s surgery and one year for her being cancer free so we wanted to do something to celebrate. It happened to work out that Ashley’s and Jenna’s spring break weeks overlapped the weekend of March 11-12 which gave ConnieLou and I both an excuse to get away from home for a long weekend and the opportunity to celebrate with both of the girls at the same time, a bit of a rare feat during the school year these days.
I put out a request for restaurant recommendations a couple of weeks before and one place on the island kept coming up…Bennie’s Red Barn. I checked out the menu and one phrase in the menu caught my eye “the steaks are still cut fresh and cooked over an old-fashioned wood fire”. Now that’s something you don’t hear much these days. I sent a link on to ConnieLou and we agreed that it would likely be our celebration destination.
I also invited a few friends to join us. Unfortunately most couldn’t make it but our friends Mike and Michelle made the trek down from Savannah (OK, Mike and Michelle actually live in Rincon, Georgia but since more people know where Savannah is, we’re gonna use Savannah here). They arrived early and the folks at the restaurant went ahead and seated them before we arrived. Was quite nice arriving at a popular restaurant at 7:00 on Saturday night and not having to wait for a table.
Our server brought us a tray of rolls and took our drink orders while we checked out the menu. Without going into a lot of detail about who ordered what, I’ll say that our orders consisted mostly of steaks and baked potatoes along with a surf & turf (steak and shrimp kebobs) and an order of grilled salmon and all entrees came with a house salad.
With our orders placed we had a little time to relax and catch up before our food arrived. However our table got quiet once our plates arrived. All in all everyone seemed to be mostly pleased with their meal. A notable lack of flavor in the steaks was mentioned by some but everyone’s potato seemed to be quite good. There were also a couple of grumbles about sour cream not arriving with the potatoes (it should have) and then it not being brought until we were nearly through with our meal.
So how did Bennie’s rank on the Thumb’s Scale? They got a 10 ½ out of a possible 14 with most individual scores being a thumb and a half. All in all, not perfect but could have been a lot worse. Would I visit Bennie’s Red Barn again? Definitely.
