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| - In many ways, Ron's is a throwback to an older way of doing things in Las Vegas. Plopped inside the Arizona Charlie's Decatur, it is a replacement for the previous steakhouse run by the casino, which was quite good but little trafficked and itself a throwback to the era of small casinos with only a 24 hr cafe and a nice steak place for the whales. A few years back, AC replaced that steakhouse with an Outback chain, perhaps thinking it was a little more 'to their market' and now they've reversed course.
The other notable thing about Ron's is that it is named for (and run by?) Ron Lurie, a former Mayor of Las Vegas who now serves as AC's VP. So it will come as no surprise going in that it is more or less a modern version of the Olde Vegas Steakhouse experience. Classic dishes, big slab of meat for cheap, prepared well, with minute sides.
Clientele-wise, the room is done in cement walls painted in the current dark brown scheme. It was busy with middle class patrons dressed for a nice night off-strip. (Business casual, I guess.) The table is bare marble slab style, no crumb cleaning off the linen.
I went with my parents and teenaged brother during a 2-for-1 special that my dad heard about on KJWL. My parents had the prime rib. Teenaged brother had chicken marsala and I went with the New York Strip Steak. It was twenty four dollars, classically prepared - which means medium rare was more rare than medium. My mom ordered her prime rib well done, and it was, so from one experience they do pay attention to the scale.
A dollop of garlic mashed and a selection of sautéed onions and mushrooms came with it. Soup or salad come with this special but the Soup of the Day choices are limited and the waiter looked a bit askance that I would ask for balsamic instead of a cream-based dressing. (He did, however, make it happen for me. So, no marks off.) The salad was mixed greens and red-and-gold tomatoes, basic again except for the presentation inside a bowl made out of cucumber.
Cheap but nice, basic food presented well. It won't impress anyone used to eating at one of the upscale Strip houses, like Cut or Prime, but is a nice local alternative to say, Flemings or Ruth Chris.
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