Restaurant Review: Company Bar & Grill

If you ask most people, they will tell you that dishes prepared from scratch beat out frozen quick service meals every time—particularly if the cook works with fresh ingredients. In the hippest dining enclaves, “slow food” restaurants earn raves.

There is a reason, however, that chains like McDonald’s, Taco Bell and other prefabs exist in just about every corner of the western world.

Beyond the obvious—value and the questionable comfort of knowing what to expect when placing an order—fast food restaurants promise to welcome you and usher you out in a matter of minutes. Indeed, some chains even design their seating to be just comfortable enough for a 15 minutes stay.

Lunchtime at Company Bar & Grill in Mitchell is an antidote for both trends—neither hurried short order joint nor home cooking paradise.

A round of burgers and fry cook sandwiches deleted an hour from our lives. The quality, while arguably better than the famed golden arches, hardly justified the time lost…although, I will admit, beer and conversation helped fill the gap.

The burgers are standard tavern fare, nothing more or less. Fries rise to the same modest level. But their interpretation of Philadelphia’s famous cheesesteak involves shards of crispy meat of doubtful pedigree jammed with other stuff in a bun. It’s not the loaded, dripping mess of thinly sliced beef so prized in the “City of Brotherly Love.”

A better option is their chicken fried steak sandwich, which the menu stresses is homemade (setting it apart from the rest of their options, perhaps?). After ordering, I could hear the tell-tale and welcome pop and squeak of something sizzling in the kitchen—and the resulting crust crackles nicely with each bite. The beef itself is a tad on the chewy side, yet cowed enough to resemble the melt-in-your-mouth tenderness of the Texas staple.

Yet the chicken fried steak earned its popularity from the wealth of pepper used in its crust and accompanying white gravy, drawing out the husky savor of lowdown beef.

This restaurant’s version skimps on the seasoning. And in place of milky white gravy studded with pan juices and pepper, they introduce a tangy sandwich spread.

It’s as if they’ve served a Big Mac without the special sauce, substituted pineapple for tomato in the BLT or even staged the Super Bowl without two weeks of pointless hype. The result dims both the steak and the dressing.

The remainder of the grill’s menu includes tavern standards: wings, sandwiches, pineapple-free bacon, lettuce and tomato. And the setting is convivial enough.

Company Bar & Grill is not a place for haste. It’s the sort of room where one greets friends and passes time away with a few beers. What comes from the kitchen is fine, under the circumstances, but an afterthought.

It’s lost between what’s trendy and what’s fast.