For many years we would go to Bobby Rubino's restaurant each July to celebrate Robert's birthday as it was one of his favorite restaurants and he got a free meal!  Rubino's was a small chain of restaurants in South Florida known for their bar-b-que and one of the places wasn't too far from where we lived. Along with
their closing of that store and Robert getting ill we stopped going and
it had been awhile since I was to one of their other places. There were
rumors that the people who owned Bobby Rubino's also started Big Louie's where I worked for a few years but that was never confirmed.

Arnie
and I were going to see the filmed "Stephen Sondheim's Company in
Concert with the New York Philharmonic" up in Pompano and there is a
Booby Rubino's restaurant a block away plus they had a '2-4-1' coupon so we decided to go there. I do not like eating before a show but considering this is a tourist
area it is hard to find a restaurant opened after 10-10:30 PM when the
movie would be letting out unless you wanted to go to an IHOP or Denny's. The movie started at 7 :30, we had to pick up our tickets
before hand and I had no idea what kind of turn out they would have so
we decided to leave for Pompano around 5. As it turned out the show was
sold out and our timing was great as we were through with--well, it was
my lunch at that time--and were able to get good seats.

Being
a restaurant from the 1970s it had the dark leather, dark brown
furniture and 'Tiffany' lamps from that period. The place was almost
empty it being even too early for early birds.

The
service was prompt, and though I didn't want to drink too much liquid,
in extremely small print on the coupon it had that 'must buy a beverage'
criterion in order to order that 'deal' so I ordered coffee ($2) and
Arnie had lemonade ($2). By the time we got our drinks the busboy had
brought us nondescript bread.

We
had the chicken and ribs platter ($19.99) with Arnie ordering a sweet
potato and corn on the cob for his sides and I had the sweet potato with
slaw for my sides. The chicken was very dry, the ribs just okay, the
slaw tasty and the corn looked good. They served brown sugar and butter
with the hot potato .

With the
$19.99 taken off, the check came to $25.98 plus tip. It was okay--price
and taste wise--for 'lunch' but certainly not worth it for dinner and
the food wasn't as good as it use to be.  The restaurant has to be
renovated and brought into the 21st century and the menu could use a
good shake up. If I do go back I would have the rib platter but I don't
think I will be going back even if I go to the movie theatre up that way
again.