New Sizzler in Fremont!

Yep, you heard it right, Sizzler is back! Our local home town restaurant selection is pretty woeful, this will step up the game considerably. Haven’t asked about corkage yet, but I’m thinking this could make a very nice offline venue.

Sigh.

When I was a kid, I loved going to the Sizzler. Not only did they have a salad bar, but you got free soft serve ice cream at the end – with sprinkles!

LOL. When I was a kid, Sizzler was a real “night out”.

I have tried to recount visits to Sizzler and Bonanza (same basic business model - whether they were separate operations or not I do not know) to the nieces and nephew. No words can fully convey the experience. And for us, poor that we were, those were big time event nights!

I almost wish I had the wealth to spare to set up my own place to replicate the originals knowing it would never make a cent in profit. It would be glorious to expose new generations to the glories of our youth. It isn’t that the quality of steaks (or food) was great, but it was a step WAY up for us and the memories are priceless.

The closest thing I can find to an old school Sizzler or Bonanza steak is at the Waffle House. But without the 8 hour old baked potato, salad bar, and having a steak cooked in the three minutes it took to walk through the serving line the experience just is not the same.

Johnny Carson used to do jokes about them, calling them “Chisler.”

I think the last one closed here in Vegas and was remodeled into a bank. They had a breakfast buffet on the weekend that was good.

Never had the pleasure

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I’ll see your Sizzler and raise you with Quincy’s. Ponderosa was another value chain.

garlic cheese bread. taco bar. chicken wings. Staples of my childhood.

Outstanding! Then you’ll know exactly how to order at our next offline neener

Growing up, Sizzler was a special occasion evening.

Yep, same for me. Not very often, either. And I realized what an elitist I’ve become. I’m sure there are plenty of people around for whom this is still a special occasion restaurant. Still, I keep hoping some better quality places will come in here, so we don’t have to go across the bay to Palo Alto, or up to SF to find fine dining.

LOL, that’s my Sizzler in the Bourdain video. Graduated 6th grade and that was where the whole class went afterwards for dinner. Kiddie version of excessibe ballin, haha.

I still take the parents there from time to time. It gets packed.
Been meaning to ask if they offer corkage. If they do… IT’S ONNNN!

Alan, I’ll offline at Sizzler.

You still can’t bring Caymus, though.



Hmm, that’s two challenges thrown down. Mighty tempting.

Speaking of, I had a 1991 Caymus Special Selection in a tasting on Sunday. It wasn’t Hell, but you could see it from there.

grew up with sizzler. mom would bring a coupon from mailers to save some money. Sigh good times.
Then we some how transitioned to “Fresh Choice”. again with coupons , but healthier (!) b/c salad (but clam chowder and pizza!)

My family didn’t go to value chain steakhouses that often, but I always found Quincy’s to be a cut above the other chains. The meat quality was better (not great, but decent), they did a better job of cooking to temp, and the overall quality of experience (service, cleanliness, etc.) always seemed to be managed better. Or it may just have been a function of the specific locations of each that we visited.

What I do remember is that Quincy’s was the only value steakhouse that didn’t leave me wishing that we’d just picked up steaks at Winn-Dixie instead. The steaks at Quincy’s weren’t as good as Winn-Dixie’s, which at least in the local outlets lived up to their motto of “The Beef People” in usually offering very high quality Choice with good marbling, but weren’t dramatically inferior.

I have to play the Grouchy Old Man card.

That is what I call LDS - Later Day Sizzler. It isn’t the original format from my childhood. For the real experience you had to dine there when they were cooking steaks in front of you as you pushed your tray along the serving line (flashbacks to old school cafeterias). Unless there was a substantial crowd (or the grill cook simply did not have the skills for the position) your steak arrived at the end of the line (along with a foil wrapped baked potato pulled from a warming oven where it had been sitting for hours) as you reached it after affording you the time to select your beverage, salad (no salad bar yet), bread, dessert, etc. a la carte. Your steak met you at the cash register on an odd, hot metal plate inset in a removable plastic holder with your requested doneness indicated by a plastic spike jabbed into the steak. These were color coded with the cook level cast in the plastic. Red for rare, black for well done. I can’t recall what color medium was, but don’t think it was pink.

Market pressures pushed for the salad bar addition years later and that was a BIG deal since parents could push bottomless pit teens to fill up on salad for the same price. And you could top your baked potato from the salad bar, too. Whoo-hoo!

It really is astounding now to think back on just how special an outing this was back when.

Malcom, you have a better memory than I do from the early 60s, lol. But yeah, what you describe is my recollection as well.

This post was supposed to be a little TIC, just because things have changed so much in restaurant dining over the years, and I’m surprised a Sizzler approach could still work. Especially here in my area, which is highly diverse, with almost a majority of Asian/Indian/Middle Eastern residents.