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| - Charleston's is a standard American restaurant in a strip-mall setting. While it is free-standing, it's a chain restaurant with a clear suburban demographic target. They feature steaks and prime-rib, salads, baby-back ribs, roast chicken, burgers and the like. It is thoroughly a meat and potatoes place, with enough salads to address the request for "health conscious" offerings. The sides are predictable - mashed potatoes, French fries, veggies like sugar-glazed carrots and zucchini in butter. Their mixed drinks are standard and of indifferent quality - for example, my most recent gin & tonic there was a bit sweet. The hostesses and waitresses all dress in black, and say things like "perfect" a lot.
Their filet mignon is often quite good. Their Caesar salad is surprisingly good with real Caesar dressing made from scratch. The bar is not a welcoming place, but the main dining room is filled with warm dark booths that provide some intimacy and privacy - so the atmosphere there is quite good. The prime rib is fine but not special. The baked potatoes are good. The soup of the day (and each day has it's own standard "special soup") tends to be quite poor, probably from sitting in a hot pot too long. The baby-back ribs are fine - not special, but perfectly adequate. I do find Charleston's a bit expensive for what they are - not outrageously so, but pricier than similar quality places in other suburban settings.
There's nothing wrong with Charleston's, but there's not much great about it either. I've eaten there several times because it's a few-hundred yards from the hotel I've been staying in (the one our company asks us to use). I'll go back because it's convenient and perfectly adequate - but it will never be a first choice place to eat.
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