Truluck's Happy Hour

Truluck's is a chain restaurant with local locations in Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale. It's regular prices are quite high, but they have a popular daily happy hour until 7pm that extends to closing on Sundays. There is a separate lounge with live piano music; the music is more upbeat than you might expect. The crowd tends to be a bit older here (think Mall crowd); it's an attractive place with a lot of black granite. There's 1 TV in the far corner that had ESPN on.

The crowd here is less friendly than in other parts of town; people just seem to roll in, have an app and then roll out without saying much. Service at the bar is pretty cold; menus were thrown in front of me as if I was supposed to know the deal for happy hour. The menus don't explain the dishes at all; so it's pretty much hit or miss. Nobody asked if I had any questions and it took them a while to offer to get me a drink. They seemed a bit overmatched by the crowd.

Some folks sitting near me ordered the Shrimp and Crab Rangoon, which looked like something you might get at TGI Fridays. The Hot n Crunchy shrimp reminded me of the shrimp at Big City Tavern; breaded, deep fried and to be avoided. I didn't want sliders; I'd had the crab sliders on my last visit and I didn't want a burger.

Venue

Truluck's

When is it?

Monday - Saturday 4:30pm-7pm, All Night Sunday

The Deal

Half off their bar menu, which includes appetizers, select wine, cocktails and martinis

What We Got

A Michelob Ultralight $3.50
Blue Crab Dip $6
Salt and Pepper Calamari $6.5

The crab dip didn't have a lot of crab in it; it was mostly leeks. It's made with crab, leeks, cheese and saltine crackers; it was pretty good but it's not loaded with crab.

The calamari is done in an asian style with scallions (I'm not sure how the included carrots or fresh parsely fit in); I liked the sweet mustard sauce but the Thai Chili sauce didn't have much taste. Beware that the dish is mostly tentacles; I suspect that they use the bodies for their Cioppino and unload the tentacles in the appetizer.

The Verdict

Only 3 of their regular menu appetizers are available on the bar menu; you can't get the lump crab cake, the gulf shrimp cocktail,oysters, or Tuna Tartare Tower for half price. The guy that they had playing the piano was pretty good; I hadn't heard Tiny Dancer in a while, but my hope that he'd segue into a booming rendition of Levon or Razor Face never materialized.

If you go off the happy hour menu I'm not sure what the deal is, since the bartenders never asked if I had questions or if I needed anything. The UltraLight I had was $3.50, so it's probably $1 or 2 off.

The food is decent for half-price; I wouldn't pay full price for anything I saw or had here. The place reminds me of a Bonefish Grill with more granite and higher prices. The trout is $16 at bonefish and $26 here.