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Ruby’s Kitchen: Back and Better than Ever
By Fletcher Word
Sojourner’s Truth Editor
Ruby Butler opened her
restaurant, Ruby’s Kitchen, at its previous Dorr Street
location in 2004. On Friday, July 29, 2016, months after she
had shuttered the Dorr Street facility leaving scores of
loyal customers literally hungry for the restaurant’s
return, Butler re-opened her restaurant at a new location –
805 N. Reynolds.
And immediately those
customers found her and arrived in droves to help christen
the new facility. And help Butler on the next step of her
journey. It’s a journey that has brought a great deal of
pleasure to a great many customers.
In these past dozen years,
Butler has done exactly what she always felt she was meant
to do – apply the cooking skills taught to her by her mother
for the enjoyment of many others. Now, she has been reborn.
In a new place that she has taken month to renovate and
refurbish.
“I have loved to cook all
my life,” she says of her long-time avocation, now her
vocation.
“I was a homebody,” she
says of her youthful years honing her culinary skills under
her mother’s tutelage. “I learned to do it all – cleaning
chitlins, canning, cleaning greens. And I always wanted a
restaurant. I was taught so well, and taught that whatever
you do, do it right.”
It’s really been a labor
of love for Miss Ruby, as her customers call her. “I love
being here, I love this restaurant,” she says. “I love
pleasing customers and meeting new people.”
Butler is obviously
committed to providing the very best dining experience for
her customers. “I like Southern food,” she says of her
product. After all her mother was from Alabama and Southern
food was what Butler learned about from an early age.
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Sonda Hicks, Ruby Butler, Terry Johnson, Sabrina Chatman
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Butler, however, is
committed not only to her customers but also, in equal
measure, to her community. Over the years, from the moment
she opened her first establishment, Butler has made it a
point to hire those who would ordinarily have difficulty
finding employment – ex-offenders, for example.
Helping Butler over the
years has been her chief cook, daughter Sonda Hicks. Mother
and daughter have worked together from the very beginning
pleasing diners with such delicacies as smothered pork
chops, rib-eye steaks, chicken wings and Butler’s personal
favorites – the catfish filets and the whole catfish
dinners. Of course, no dinner would be complete if one
didn’t sample the peach cobbler.
“People love the peach
cobbler,” Butler notes with pride.
Actually people love just
about everything at Ruby’s, she says, as verified by the
number of loyal customers. “We cook to order. Everything is
fresh here. We don’t have pre-breaded items.”
Cooking to order may take
a little longer, says Butler of her commitment to quality,
but it’s worth it, she adds.
“When you come here, you
are going to be satisfied when you leave,” declares Miss
Ruby.
Not everything will remain
the same in the new Ruby’s Kitchen location, however. The
restaurant will soon start opening on Wednesdays and the
only dark day will be Monday from now on. Breakfast is also
on the horizon for Ruby’s Kitchen – perhaps with a shrimp
and grits signature item. And Miss Ruby is also on the verge
of introducing chicken and waffles to the menu.
Stay tuned. |
