Colton?s Worth More Than Peanuts

4700 West Locust, Rogers

Nestled inside the seemingly ever-growing Scottsdale Center in Rogers is Colton’s Steak House & Grill, the scene of our latest lunch outing.

Just follow the trail of peanut hulls through the maze of restaurants and retail stores at Scottsdale to reach Colton’s. Just don’t eat too many peanuts before your meal arrives. But we found them very hard to put down, and the pail of goobers on our table made them too easily accessible.

For an appetizer, the diners had the Tumbleweed ($5.80). The fried onion was presented neatly, though the three guys would have never admitted to each other that presentation was a plus. And the sauce for dipping the onion was tasty. The Tumbleweed was large, much too large for two and almost too much for our three big fellas.

One diner ordered the rib basket ($7.30). It was a heaping helping of ribs for lunch and they were very tasty. The thing he liked most was that the meat itself sold the taste, rather than some “special recipe” sauce that hid the purpose of ordering the ribs in the first place. He finished the ribs simply because they were so good, although he was complaining of being full before half of them were consumed.

A second diner had the Mesquite Chicken ($6.60). He gave the chicken an “OK” rating, but was more intrigued with his side item, a baked sweet potato. “That was my favorite,” he said. “It was a great blend of cinnamon, sugar and butter. It was almost dessert-like. It gave it a down-home feeling.”

Our third diner had the Philly steak sandwich ($5.80) with fries. He was the most impressed of all our diners.

“Someone had recommended the Philly to me and they were right,” he said. “I thought it was real good. On a scale of one to 10, I’d give it at least a nine. It was a good-sized portion, too. I certainly didn’t go away hungry.”

Even the french fries were large and hearty.

We liked the atmosphere at Colton’s. It’s not a place to go have a quiet lunch by any means. The service was a tad bit slow, but we passed that off to the place being jam-packed. It wasn’t as if the help was slacking off while we were there.

You could eat at a different place all week for lunch at Scottsdale Center. Kisor’s, Chili’s, Dixie Cafe, McDonald’s and KFC are also on the premises, with Johnny Carino’s expected to open Dec. 10.

Just don’t slip on the peanut hulls at Colton’s.