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Last Update: Nov 19th, 2016
Fat Rooster Delray Beach

Fat Rooster

200 E Atlantic Ave
Delray Beach FL, 33444
(561) 266-3642
Overall Rating
2.8
Food
Service
Ambiance
Value
Last Review
03/13/2015

Details

Hours: Sun-Tue 9am-10am, Wed-Sat 9am-2am Sat-Sun Brunch 9am-3:30pm
Attire: Casual
Parking: Street
CC: Yes
Alcohol: Full Bar
Outside Dining: Yes

Pros

Central Location on the Strip
Nice Restaurant

Cons

Very Expensive
Mediocre Food
Bogus Menu Claims

Insider Tips

Avoid the Hash Browns

Critic's Review

Another "Southern Cuisine" restaurant bites the Dust. Actually Rack is re-Branding this with his "Farmhouse" brand that he replaced his failed Table 42 concept.

Review 3/13/15

Egomaniac Gary Rack has opened another restaurant in Delray, this one called the Fat Rooster. His restaurants simply must have his name on the sign; as if he's some great restauranteur and not just a rich guy who opens fancy restaurants.

Fat Rooster Delray Beach

His restaurants are very nice, if you like stone veneer, which I do. There's a big open air bar which is a lot nicer on warm sunny days than cool rainy ones; you can tell that this restaurant wasn't designed by Karen Hanlon (who did Rack's Fish House next door) because the TVs are large and watchable. The stools don't look all that comfortable however.

Fat rooster Bar

There are just a few booths, but one was available at 11:10am; they serve breakfast until 11:30. I got there later than expected; I could rant for 2 pages about the traffic, but I'll spare you. One thing I will wonder aloud about is why do old people drive SUVs, and why do they drive 60Mph in the left lane?

The restaurant is smartly decorated, with Kellogg's Corn Flakes depicting something.

Fat Rooster Interior

I'd seen the menu in advance but still had a bunch of questions. The sausages weren't links, so I asked about the "Fat Hash"; figuring I could order some eggs with those for $11. But apparently the Fat Hashes are big casserole sized dishes, so I moved onto plan C. I asked what kind of beef the "Steak" and eggs was; it's a ribeye. I confirmed that the "cast iron seared" version was unbreaded; at $19 it was no bargain but it fit my low carb diet better than a lot of other things. They only have white toast, which is pretty lame in 2015.

Coffee came out in the standard diner cup. Pretty bad coffee as has become the norm in restaurants nowadays.

Fat Rooster Coffee

The booths are right up against the open kitchen; I had a bird's eye view (well, maybe a roach eye's view) and saw them cooking my steak on the flattop. That's the problem with these corporate menus; they're just a pack of lies to get you to overpay for regular food. My "cast-iron seared" steak was cooked on the same cooktop as the eggs; you can't sear a steak on a flattop grill without burning everything else. They did have a grill press on it, so maybe it was cast iron?

I also have my doubts about the eggs being "cage-free" or at least higher quality; usually the yolks are darker and these just looked like regular eggs when they broke them on the grill.

Fat Rooster Kitchen

Country western music fills the air; I prefer Southern Rock, but it wasn't bad. Kelly Clarkson, Townes Van Zandt, Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire", Dixie Chicks; lots of recognizable stuff.

The food only took 7 minutes.

Fat Rooster Steak and Eggs

The first thing I noticed was the burned toast; one slice and it was burned and delivered with no butter (I had to ask the runner who brought it out to bring me butter).

Fat Rooster Toast

It was a pretty good sized steak; figure you're paying about $13 for a ribeye 1/2 the thickness you might get as a dinner steak.

Fat Rooster Breakfast Ribeye

On it's own, the steak was pretty boring; no real seasoning and not seared as mentioned earlier. Surprisingly, the star of the show was the mushroom gravy, which I'd ask for on the side. This stuff is really good, with big button mushroom halves; almost like a thick, musty mushroom soup.

Fat Rooster Mushroom Gravy

The gravy saved the meal, because the steak was much better with the gravy.

Fat Rooster Ribeye w/Gravy

And it's a good thing, because the hash browns were garbage. I hate to use the word abortion in a restaurant review, but that's the best word to describe these.

Fat Rooster Hash Browns

Those of you who read regularly know that I'm no fan of the Ribeye steak; I virtually never order it. It's just a skinny overcooked prime rib that's just as much work to eat and not nearly as good. You spend too much energy trimming it.

Fat Rooster Ribeye Waste

My server Jodie figured out early on that I was a fussy diner, and she kept up with me all the way through the meal. Coffee was refilled at the right time, she knew the menu even on week 2, little bits of paper disappeared as she walked by and she even sent a busboy over to wipe some mushroom gravy that spilled on the table. Give the girl a gold star.

Conclusion

The conundrum of living in South Florida is epitomized by restaurants like this; this is a nice place to eat breakfast if you were on vacation and not worried about spending a lot of money, but this place is 20% more expensive than other places serving better food. I saw a bunch of plates come out and I didn't see anything that looked any better than you could get elsewhere; the 3 piece chicken isn't worth $18 no matter what they do to it. The coffee was only $2.50 which surprised me. But the thing that really irks me is that the menu is filled with buzz words to justify the higher prices (such as my cast iron seared steak), and I simply don't believe that I'm getting what they're advertising. Just regular food that costs more. It is a nicer place to have breakfast than your other choices in the area, however, and there is a premium on that for breakfast.

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Chris S
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overpriced.. Plain and simple

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