Charlie Brown's Steakhouse

The staff in this restaurant are the best. Great service; very polite. The kitchen staff however, needs to revise their soup menu. We frequent this establishment at least three to four times a week. The soup consists of potato cheddar, clam chowder or lobster bisque.  They have these at least 4  to 5 days a week. Why not vary your menu with  vegetable, chicken noodle, minestrone, beef barley etc. The onion soup is always available, but the rest of the time is boring and repetitive.  Enough with the fish soups and potato soups. Vary your menu.

I had such a strange situation come up during my meal here last night that I broke my informal rule about not reviewing chain restaurants. A former co-worker wanted to have dinner at this establishment solely for the salad bar, which I found perplexing seeing as how the "Steakhouse" is actually in the title of the place. My past at Charlie Brown's has been less than stellar; I had a miserable time at the now-closed location in Alpha about 10 years ago due to a series of flies swirling around my food. Admittedly, the fly issue may have just been an Alpha issue, so off we went.

This is probably obvious, but I had never noticed that the theme/decor seems to be that of a 1920s bar/restaurant, with a lot of attention paid to the wood paneling on the walls and a lot of speakeasy-ish drink titles that escape me now but included the term moonshine. Someone once told me it was affiliated with the Peanuts comic strip, but that was apparently a lie.

Even though it was about 7pm on a Friday night, we were seated immediately several feet from the much-ballyhoed salad bar. My dining companions immediately got up to heap their plates full of what looked like a lot of options, including egg and macaroni salad. When I checked in here, I was offered a free firecracker shrimp appetizer, which I immediately redeemed. I've never redeemed a Yelp check-in coupon before, but I felt like the waitress knew the review potential that came with it, and was initially VERY nice and friendly to our table. The firecracker shrimp came out in 4 minutes, nestled in this little Asian wicker basket-y thing. They were really, really good; I'm basically in love with the firecracker shrimp at Bahama Breeze, and I thought this was better. Sweet initially, with a subtle hot aftertaste. It also had a slight fried taste that didn't result in a too-crispy exterior. I could definitely see why they offer it as a free appetizer. After that, it was pretty much downhill.

My medium-rare hamburger came about 10 minutes after the appetizer, along with a side of fries. The burger itself was just okay; it was cooked exactly right, but I felt like they were relying a bit too much on a salty seasoning instead of the essence of bovine. My bigger issue was the roll, which I thought was too soft and didn't have the right taste/texture to go with the burger. I tasted about 60% roll and 40% burger, when I think the ratio should be more like 25% to 30% roll and 75% to 70% burger. This is more a taste preference issue than anything else; it was just okay. The fries were not crispy enough for me, and they didn't have much flavor to them, resulting in an over-reliance on ketchup.

Now for the strange situation. About halfway through the meal, one of the people I was with got into a loud-ish argument with a senior citizen about the volume of her laughter. The elderly woman wanted her to keep it down, and came up to her as she was getting up to go back to the salad bar with her request. I'm sure the whole area nearby heard it, including the waitress. After that, our service was MUCH more inconsistent, but I'm not sure I blame the waitress - you have a potentially combustable situation, and your presence could inadvertently stoke the fires. Conversely, I feel like if I were a waitress, I would want to spend extra time in the area to a) make sure everyone is okay and not getting into another rumble and b) to get both tables out of there quicker. I asked my friend later last night (who happened to be on her way home from her job as a waitress/bartender) for her thoughts, and she IMMEDIATELY said she would have avoided the area like the plague. So I can't really fault the service; it felt like extenuating circumstances. And not for nothing, she was still perfectly pleasant to me.

If it weren't for the excellent appetizer, I think this experience would have been decidedly negative. At about $10, I think the burger is a little pricey for the quality, though both of the people I was with could NOT stop gushing about that all-you-can-eat salad bar (which cost about $9). Considering that the best item I tasted was Asian and everyone else was in love with the salad, perhaps Charlie Brown's should change its name to something focusing more on its strengths, like Charlie Brown's Asian Fusion.

Back before I knew better Charlie Brown's was a decent date night and when our daughter was still a baby we would go here for cheap 'decent' steaks-they made an ok prime rib.  Then, about three years ago, things started going downhill for Charlie Brown's and restaurants were closed all over the place.  I was sure this location would close because it had its share of problems...the biggest seemed to be they would run out of their sirloins and prime rib all the time-and the place was never full

Well the Denville location made the cut and stayed open.  I've been here a couple times since the cutbacks, usually for a quick bite with friends, and this location actually is better than it used to be...but it's still a Charlie Browns and it isn't as good as it should be with a Longhorn and Outback down the road a few miles in Parsippany.  Don't get me wrong, the three stars is because the few times I've been here it's been average and not as bad as some others' experiences.  The drinks here are pretty good, but for food I'd stick with beef...and the salad bar is just mediocre.  If I could give half-star reviews this place would get 2 1/2.  I'd stop here in a pinch, but it certainly isn't in the rotation.