Wine and Dine: Prime

Lolly Evans

The Peddler’s Emporium is an antiquer’s dream. They have all kinds of furniture and accessories, most Victorian, for sale. However, if you “knock on the door in the back of the store” you will gain entrance to PRIME, a steakhouse serving prime steaks. The owners are shooting for a speakeasy atmosphere. Never having been to a speakeasy, I’m not a very good judge of the atmosphere, but the waitress looked cute in her 1920s costume.

We had a reservation for 6:00 p.m. and we arrived on time only to have to wait about 15 minutes. I don’t know what the problem was, but they definitely were not crowded. While we waited, we were told that we could purchase a cheese block to serve as an appetizer. There is a fridge with a glass front so that you can look at the cheese and pick out which one you would like to buy. I am not familiar with Yancey’s cheese but it was tasty. The same cooler is also stocked with soft drinks bottled at the old Dr. Pepper plant in Dublin. Among the choices were lemonade and vanilla soda ($2.50). We passed on the soft drinks.

We had been told ahead of time that Prime was BYOB so we brought some wine with us. When we saw the menu, we discovered that if you did not bring your own libation, they would serve complementary margaritas, draft beer or wine. There are only four things on the menu: a six ounce Filet ($29), an eight ounce New York Strip ($26), a 14 ounce Rib Eye ($34) or a $14 hamburger. The steaks come with a house salad and a baked potato as well as very good bread. Sauted mushrooms with garlic are four dollars extra. The burger comes with a baked potato too.

I had the filet and while there was not a thing wrong with it, it was not in the Yahoo! Ballpark. Dwight had the rib eye and liked it. The salad was average and the baked potato…just like home, arrived wrapped in foil.

There were four of us and we were seated in a small room at a table that could seat eight. There was only room for the one table in our room. The lighting was florescent with black lace draped to soften the light. It was still awfully bright. Some of the rooms we passed through on the way were much darker. Would we return? That is a definite maybe.