Bill & Frank's BRICKHOUSE GRILL

Every once in a while you go out to eat and have a positively great experience. For us this describes Brickhouse Grill in DeLand.

There are two sides to the restaurant. On the left is a large dining room. To the right is a setback from the street that is out of the weather where smoking is permitted. Behind that and through a set of doors is a bar area.

We saw many folks in their 20's and 30's although there were a few families and middle age couples.

Menu choices are hard to describe. They advertise it as Steaks - Bar-B-Q - Salad Bar. There were a few seafood items as well.

We only had to wait 5 minutes at 7pm on a Friday to be seated. An hour later the wait was about 20 minutes. Our drinks and salads came fast. Main entrees followed about 15 minutes later.

I had the Fried Grouper, although I could have had it baked or blackened. It was a huge piece of steaming, succulent meat. I also had a baked sweet potato with butter, and garlic toast for my sides. A small roll also came with my dinner salad.

My other half ordered the Tumbleweed Salad with a side of sweet potatoes. There were two potatoes because they were small, making a huge portion, and they were cooked to perfection, with a scoop of cinnamon-sugar-butter. The Tumbleweed Salad came in a large taco-shell bowl, and the top was covered with fried chicken that had been thoughtfully cut into polite bites. The best part of the salad was inside it. The salsa and ranch dressing had a pleasant balance of tang and sweet. For some reason she was excited that the salad was already tossed, and that there were at least two cherry tomatoes in it.

There was no specific parking area for this restaurant. Not to worry - Downtown DeLand has taken care of that with lots of free parking behind most of the Main Street buildings. Restrooms were excellent.