Screenwriter Reed Fisher and his wife are touring this great land of ours with an easily-understandable goal: To photograph each and every Sizzler restaurant. Read all about it.
I can appreciate their affection for the chain and I used to be a fan of Sizzlers…and an admirer of how they'd shrewdly repositioned themselves in the marketplace. First time I went to one, it was a place to get a steak, a baked potato and not much else. But it was a darned good piece of meat for the price. I had worse steaks in places that charged three to five times as much.
Then there came a time in this land when the chug-a-lugging of beef became less fashionable…and with an uncanny sense of changing trends, the Sizzler folks reinvented themselves. Their eateries became places where you could get chicken or fish and/or graze at a rather good salad bar. They still had decent steaks but there were other things to eat and they were, again, quite acceptable, considering the price.
Since then, the Sizzler chain has filed for bankruptcy at least once (in 1996, they closed 140 of their 215 outlets) and changed management teams a number of times. Every time they bring in a new management, the quality of the meals goes down at least 25%, at least at the one near me. I've been checking in about once every two years on the gullible hope that they've reversed the downslide. So far, nope. In fact, the last try was so disappointing that I may not give it another try until late 2015. If I don't chicken out then, I'll let you know how it goes.