The Clubhouse
Chris Horne
For weeks, we talked about getting a group of folks together and indulging ourselves at The Clubhouse. None of us had been there, but we’d all heard great things. People were talking. And the pictures… We’d seen pictures. These pictures showed us a restaurant with a neat interior and one helluva back deck that mimicked a beachside resort of some sort. The pictures wouldn’t, couldn’t lie.
As could be expected, I was lucky to find one person who would go with me. My girlfriend—still interested in the myriad of local dining options, no matter how fried—jumped in the truck as I pulled away from Macon proper, away from all I knew. Together, we boldly went into that weird place on the cusp of two cities. It’s a place without a name, without law and order, or any other interesting crime dramas with multiple spin-offs. It’s a place where no one complains when a restaurant physically attached to a liquor store and a gas station brazenly splashes the word “Steakhouse” below its name. Its name? The Clubhouse.
Can you see the other shoe dropping? Have you been waiting for it to fall? Listen, you can’t help but have some hesitations when you pull up to a situation like that. And I imagine that the folks behind The Clubhouse understood that because the inside is shockingly large and comfortable, like Applebee’s. And though it was WAY too muggy to sit outside—it’d just rained on a 96-degree day—the back deck was one bucket of cold beer away from a party.
Somewhere between our waitress and a lack of key menu items, things got shaky. It’s tough to know how harsh to be because these things aren’t exactly indicative of a normal experience, or at least I’d hope.
We’d wanted to start with the Sweet Potato Fries. They were out and it was a Wednesday between deliveries. No biggie, just a little disappointing. And they didn’t have fried pickles either. We settled on no appetizer. When Doc asked what the soup of the day was, the waitress said, “I have no idea,” and just stood there looking at us like we stupid for asking. So… forget the soup then. Eventually, Doc ordered a boiled shrimp dinner. It came out in a basket on wax paper. No sides. That isn’t thrilling. My steak came out without a knife and I waited, I counted, five minutes to get one.
There was a point where I nearly spoke to the manager to be like, “Yo, I’m trying to do a review, and you’re making this real tough on me to be nice.” But then it cleared up. Like this: My steak was good. It had been perfectly marinated, with a slight citrus flavor—from 7-Up, I imagine, which is a great tenderizer if you don’t know—and so tender it barely required chewing. I like that. I didn’t like the garlic “mashed” potatoes, which tasted like the powdered sort. And though Doc disagreed, I dug the shrimp, whose sides eventually tagged along.
The waitress was nice and somewhat accommodating, but not terribly good at this job. Maybe she was new or filling in or she was having a bad night. I don’t know. But either way, I have a hard time slamming The Clubhouse for it. Same for being out of stuff. It happens. This was just one trip. What I do imagine is consistent is how the food tasted, and I thought it was impressive.
If I lived within ten miles of The Clubhouse, I’d probably be there a lot. I really liked the atmosphere and can imagine spending plenty of time out on the back deck. And when you become a regular, just like entering a relationship, you forgive certain things (and certain things are forgiven of you). Because of the food and environment, that’d be easy to do with The Clubhouse
