Ryan’s

Ryan’s of Carrollton, GA, finally closed last Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016, after a long painful decline. When I first moved to Carrollton 15 years ago, Ryan’s of Carrollton was the best in the chain, IMPO. There were lines waiting to get in for good reason. The food was good, large variety of entrees, sides, salads and wonderful array of desserts, the best of which were prepared on site.
Over the years, the ownership and management changed constantly, not good, always seemed to be for the worse. Best servers were harassed by management until they quit, or were fired.
Servers paid restaurant minimum wage were ordered to work as janitors and kitchen help without pay adjustment even though they made no tips doing those chores.
The food subtly declined in quality and variety until it was worse than a grade school cafeteria.
The final faux pas, I believe, was the Northern menu forced on us in this West Georgia location:
kale instead of turnip greens and collards, and the horror of horrors – sugar in the cornbread.
When I first became aware of the transgression, I called it to a shift manager’s attention. I told her someone had broken Southern culinary law by putting sugar in the cornbread. She checked and found that the cooks were not guilty. The cornmeal shipped to the restaurant contained sugar!!! They were being forced to adulterate the cornbread by upper management.
So, dear diners, you now have the real reason Ryan’s had to die.

The food isn’t terrible, but I’m honestly not sure who wants to go here when there are soooooooooooooooo many better options in Carrollton. The outside and inside need an overhaul, and the service is only so so. Still about the only All you can eat restaurant in town.

Can a place get zero stars!!! Let’s start at the beginning… as soon as you walk in there is an overwhelming aroma of burnt food… like the kitchen is on fire. We questioned at this point whether to leave but made the mistake of continuing on. After paying for the meal and being prodded to pre pay a tip we entered the dining room… it was awful! The tables were grimy and nasty. The best booth available had what appeared to be refried beans (despite the fact they don’t serve refried beans) smashed on the wall under the table. There were no dishes laying around but clearly no one had wiped the tables or picked up the piles of food off the floor all day! The buffet was not only small but the mac n cheese was boiling unexplicably, the chicken looked fossilized, the mashed potatoes looked like tooth paste and there was 1 dessert that looked like it was half eaten sitting on the dessert bar (otherwise there were no desserts… literally none). I did not eat. My husband ate some salad but all the fixings and dressings were warm. After a few bites of his salad we quickly left. We will not be returning to ANY Ryans.