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Beef eaters in paradise
Families flock to Cody's Original Roadhouse to feast on hearty meals they don't have time to make for themselves.
By CHRIS SHERMAN
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 29, 2001
[Times photos: Jamie Francis]
The ambience at Cody’s Original Roadhouse is rustic; no need to gussy up for dinner in this casual scene.
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Perhaps somewhere in America someone worries about cholesterol, fat, growth hormones, European diseases or the oppression of American cows (or cowboys) and is eating less beef.
But it ain't here. No. 1 on almost every menu are steaks, filet mignon to porterhouse, red ones, pink ones, brown ones, even gray ones, big ones, small ones (once in a while), cheap, middling and prime steaks. The folks of Tampa Bay love 'em all.
We started plenty of steakhouses of our own, from Bern's, Julian's and Charley's to Shula's, Outback and Durango, and slowly acquired almost every other chain too, from big-bucks Ruth's Chris to Sam Seltzer. The Palm's coming, can Morton's or Smith & Wollensky be far behind? (We can only hope Sammy's Roumanian remains true to its New York roots.)
Then there's the roadhouse crowd, with peanut shells on the floor and all manner of antique signs and gimcrackery on walls of faded barn wood and rusted tin. They include Roadhouse Grill, Logan's Roadhouse and Cody's Original Roadhouse. Logan's, from Nashville and apparently the first, now has 70 locations and Roadhouse Grill from Pompano Beach, has 90 (including three in Kuala Lumpur and one in Brasilia, honest). Cody's is a Pinellas outfit that has only seven, most of them scattered along U.S. 19.
Meat is the thing to eat at Cody’s Original Roadhouse. The atmosphere is down-home and hearty; so are the 24-ounce prime rib and the rotisserie chicken.
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Cody's just started, and a roaring start it is. At the first location in Tarpon Springs, the parking lot can overflow before 5 p.m. Spring Hill diners go into holding patterns almost every night. At one St. Petersburg location the line includes rather impatient Muscovy ducks.
Why?
The ducks are there for the peanuts; the humans, I'm not sure. They like the peanuts, too, and the beef. But neither is novel. Maybe it's the price promotions (two kids 10 and under free on Monday and Tuesday, two-fer fajitas Wednesday, $7.95 Thursday, extended happy hour every day).
Granted it took me awhile to realize that Outback had no gimmick other than finding a gap between the Ponderosas and the Berns and filling it with consistent quality, good management and cleanliness.
Cody's aims to do the same thing, although decorating with wall-to-wall peanut shells means the chain doesn't stress tidiness. That's fine by kids and many of us adult beef eaters, who prefer the pitch of ultimate casualness and instant nostalgia for you-don't-have-to get-dressed-up to feed the family on a Tuesday night.
It can be clever: Peanuts are piled in feed bins, clean silverware stacked in a wringer washer, your place in line marked by playing cards ("Five of spades? That's us").
Yet Cody's and its competitors feel less like a true old roadhouse or juke joint full of swing and smoke and more like a Cracker Barrel with cocktails. (Note: Cracker Barrel is a corporate sibling of Logan's Roadhouse.)
Ultimately, we no longer have the energy to cook for ourselves on weekends or on weekdays, and we subcontract the chore more and more every year.
What we want apparently is inexpensive, casual and beef. Cody's menu is as beefy as the expense-account palaces. Choices here run from a big-time 24-ounce porterhouse down to half-pound burgers and hefty chopped sirloin and chicken-fried steaks. The last two are All-American delights of budget carnivores, and I'd like to see them on more menus.
Beef comes in all cuts and sizes at Cody’s Original Roadhouse. This 24-ounce prime rib with the bone in costs $16.99.
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Beef is the strong suit here. Best steaks on the menu are an aged ribeye and a New York strip (which is USDA prime, a surprise in a small chain). They come off the grill with a good, crusty char.
The kitchen needs to double-check on temperature: My prime rib, a bone-in caveman hunk, wore a cute wooden "rare" sign, but two-thirds was well-done. However, Cody's passed the more important test: a properly rare cut arrived in minutes without argument and provided enough sustenance for two more meals. (At Cody's, leftovers are a box-it-yourself affair, my least favorite.)
Chicken comes second, best sampled as half a bird off the rotisserie, herbed, charred and still fairly moist. Pork chops, which appear to be Tampa Bay area diners' second favorite meat, were two husky half-pounders but too dry for me.
In side dishes, sweet potatoes with cinnamon, grilled onions and black beans and rice (the latter tells you Cody's is local) are best. Tossed salad served family style is ordinary but its onion trick is different: onion rings the size of orange halves stacked a foot high, sweet and crisp but not good enough to win me over from onion straws. Bigger disappointment was a bland, heavy peanut butter pie with Oreo crust. We had three forks but no interest in finishing it.
I was not surprised that wine was short: "We have anything and everything, white zinfandel, merlot . . ." Well, everything except the good sample of quality inexpensive reds a budget steakhouse could have. I was stunned that beer was flat, four tall glasses without a hint of foam.
Service on my visits ranged from the welcoming, prompt and thoughtful standard that corporate trainers seek to a textbook example of a spacy server who didn't bring enough salad plates, didn't know the grades of the meat and hadn't tried the wings or much else on the menu. Cheerful and friendly, but that's not enough.
But the basics are here: an easy-going place, good-humored staff, low prices and somebody else to cook your steak. All you have to do is stand in line.
RESTAURANT REVIEW:
Cody's Original Roadhouse
- 3101 Commercial Way, Spring Hill; (352) 683-8909; 11270 Fourth St. N, St. Petersburg; (727) 577-7730; Other locations in St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Tampa, Holiday and Tarpon Springs
- Hours: 3:30 to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 3:30 to midnight, Friday, Saturday; noon to 10 p.m. Sunday (Hours may vary by locations)
- Reservations: No
- Credit cards: AE, D, MC, V
- Details: Non-smoking section provided, full bar, good wheelchair access
- Prices: $5.29 to $17.95
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