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| - We are Phil's Filling Station regulars, but thought we would give Kimmie's a try just to see what it was like. The location has had five restaurants over 15 years prior to Kimmie's and in our opinion, only one was good and they lasted the longest.
We arrived at 8:00PM (still unpacking from our vacation), and were the last patrons to arrive. A great folk singer was playing at a perfect volume, and we enjoyed his pick of tunes; e.g., John Prine, etc. A server promptly greeted us, provided menus and took our drink orders. The wine choices were extremely short, but when asked, the server told us of additional good wines that were recently added and hadn't shown up on a printed list yet (is in the process of being printed now). The beer list was almost all American, tap beers were only American with Fat Tire being the only non-global brewer. In bottles, only Heineken, Corona and Dos Equis are offered outside of the normal American fare. The restaurant completely misjudged the FH market in both wine and beer - the server admitted as much regarding the wine choices.
We ordered Blue Crab Cakes and Potato soup for starters. We both understand that you're never going to get great seafood in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, but we're fans of Blue Crab from S. Carolina (yeah, cakes are from Maryland, we know!) so my wife gave it a try. She said they were good and temp was perfect. My soup was tasty but on the cold side of warm.
For the main course, my wife had a rib eye steak with baked potato and I had a Cuban sandwich with cucumber salad as a side. My wife raised beef, so we're very picky about it. However she claimed the steak was excellent and temp was fine. My Cuban sandwich was very tasty and hot. The cucumber salad was different from what I am used too, having parmigiana cheese and Italian dressing in addition to the onions and cucumbers. I mentioned this when ordering and the server offered to replace it if I didn't like it. Surprisingly, it was darned good!
One thing they can do for better presentation is to get rid of the plastic disposable cups for dressing and sour cream and replace them with faux ceramic cups. The current cups look downright cheap. Also, butter comes in the plastic portion controlled containers, there are alternatives that present better and they should be considered. I understand that nearly 100% of all restaurants below five star use these, but if they upgrade their other containers, why not these - at least for dinner. I don't mind them for breakfast.
Overall the service was just off on timing. Not terrible at all, just not as attentive as most people would expect. Given that we were the only patrons, it would worry me to try Kimmies if they were busy. Maybe we're spoiled by the service at Phil's where we know every single employee, including the kitchen staff and the busboys, but I strain to think that this level of service will be acceptable to the average FH citizen.
As for a claim about being a sports oriented place - not the case at all. There are smaller TVs around each wall, but not placed where you can see them if you're not seated at the bar. When we left, I looked at those above the bar as if I were sitting there, and they were too small to really see anything. There is American Grill next door with **many** larger TVs, and Phil's across the street with nine TVs conveniently placed in the bar for sports and a couple in the restaurant with news. My recommendation to Kimmies is to get rid of all of the TVs in the restaurant, and replace those over the bar with larger TVs. I recognize the cost of this, but sorry, you should have thought this through before opening.
With just a few tweaks, the place could easily be four stars. But my sense is that the owner isn't engaged enough to carry it out. They've been open six weeks which is plenty time to get past the starting hiccups. FH is a tough restaurant market, and Kimmies has maybe four weeks left to turn it around or they will be the sixth former restaurant in their location.
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