A lot can happen in five years, just ask Rob Perez, the owner of local restaurant chain Saul Good Restaurant & Pub. Perez opened his first upscale, casual restaurant in 2008 behind the Fayette Mall, a second in 2010 in the Hamburg area, and in September of this year, the restaurateur opened a third location at the highly visible spot at the corner of Broadway and Short Street in Victorian Square downtown.
Good for Perez, but even better for downtown. The creative and affordable menu mixed with the comfortable but stylish atmosphere has already become a draw for locals and visitors – evidenced by a recent Monday evening visit in which the 140-seat restaurant was packed and my guest and I had a brief five-minute wait for our table.
It’s hard to enunciate what the culinary flavor is for Saul Good’s menu. There are Southern staples and specialities, there are pizzas and burgers and sandwiches, and even some tacos. And then there’s a crab rangoon flatbread. I guess variety might be the over-arching theme for the collection of food items.
To start off, we had to have the curious aforementioned flatbread ($11), which was a very intriguing and delicious take on the Asian appetizer we’ve all come to love, and won out over steak and beer nachos ($12) and Baja fish tacos ($12.79).
For our dinner, we decided to split a pizza and an entree. The choice for pizzas is a wild affair – there are standard pies, like a BBQ chicken, veggie and meat ($13 - $14), and then there are options that one wouldn’t normally associate with pizza, like the Parisian (with honey dijon sauce, Granny Smith apples and brie) and Thai (with peanut sauce, carrots and cilantro).
The entrees might not be as daring as the pizzas, with grilled salmon ($18), ribeye steak ($24), pork chops ($18) and a few other options, but the chicken and waffles ($13) jumped out at us, as it should you as well. We paired that with the Thai pizza.
The chicken and waffles had a great balance of sweet and savory, and the pizza was very light (probably because it didn’t have any cheese), though it would have been enough for the two of us.
Even though we had had a bread-heavy meal thus far, we saved room for some dessert, specifically the chocolate fondue ($15), which came with strawberries, banana slices, waffle wedges and Rice Krispie treats for dipping in a a dark chocolate. Other notable desserts included bananas foster and chocolate popcorn.
Our bill, prior to tipping came to $81, and included an appetizer, two entrees, a handful of adult beverages, and a dessert, which is a very favorable price to pay given we probably would not have gorged ourselves on so much food had we not been trying to sample so many items off the menu. Be sure to check their website for daily specials before you go.
Saul Good Restaurant & Pub
Victorian Square, 123 N. Broadway
(859) 252-4663
11:30 a.m. - 10 p.m. Mon. - Thurs.
11:30 a.m. - 11 p.m. Fri. - Sat.
11:30 a.m. - 9 p.m. Sun.
(other locations at Fayette Mall and Hamburg)