Ruby Tuesday

This past Friday, my wife and I had an interesting experience eating at a local Ruby Tuesday. Apparently, we frequent this restaurant rather frequently. Not only did the manager stop by our table to thank us for eating there so often (as he put it, he sees us there almost every Friday night), but, when we received the check, we learned that he had given us our appetizer for free.

Now, we know that we eat there a lot. It seems like that is our default if we can’t think of where to go. I can always find something I like at Ruby Tuesday. However, until the other night, we had not realized quite how often that was.

As we were leaving the restuarant, we began talking about the role that Ruby Tuesday has played in our relationship. We met there, we celebrated our engagement there, and we even had our rehearsal dinner there.

Back when I was in college, the church I had grown up in (Southern Baptist) was outgrowing it’s facilities. Plans had been made to build a new, larger building, but, until then, there wasn’t enough room for all the Sunday School classes to meet. To handle this, the church had gotten permission from various businesses in the area to let us hold our classes in their buildings. My class ended up meeting in the Ruby Tuesday down the street. It was a pretty decent arrangement; the only issue was that we had to be out in time for them to open for business. Another class met at a Buffalo’s restaurant, but eventually they combined with our class at the Ruby Tuesday.

One Sunday morning, Kristen tried to go to the Buffalo’s class, only to discover that the Buffalo’s class was no more. Instead, she ended up at the Ruby Tuesday class. It just so happened that I had been called upon to share my testimony (for those unfamiliar with the lingo, that means sharing my story of how I came to be a Christian), and, apparently, Kristen was immediately impressed with me. She tells me that she spoke to me after the class, although I don’t remember that. My first recollection of meeting her was the following Wednesday.

At that time, the college/young singles ministry had a “Bible study” on Wednesday nights. I put Bible study in quotes because it was really more of a small-scale worship service. Generally, the service started with a praise band leading the group in song, and then the C/YS minister would give a sermon, followed by an invitation (i.e., come forward to be saved). Among the group of friends I hung out with, we had a tradition of going to Ruby Tuesday every Wednesday afterwards. It also just so happened that the Wednesday after Kristen first saw me at Sunday School was my 21st Birthday.

One of my friends met Kristen at church that night, and invited her to join us for dinner. She sat across from me at the table and worked her way into conversation with me. I have since said that she was the best birthday present I received that year.

We continued to hang out with friends at Ruby Tuesday for a while, until people began to get tired of eating there every week, and started going other places.

As time went on, many things changed. We began dating, eventually left the Baptist church, and converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. Kristen spent most of her time downtown at school, and I graduated from my college, moved out of my parents’ house and in with a friend, and got a job. Three years to the day after we met, I proposed. To do so, I took her on a date that recreated the closest thing to a “first date” we’d had. We went to Waffle House for lunch, and then to a nearby state park we had often hiked at. It was at the park that I proposed. Then, to celebrate our new engagement, we had dinner at Ruby Tuesday. I had forgotten about this, actually, but Kristen reminded me of it the other evening.

A little over 8 months later, we were about to get married. We decided to have our rehearsal dinner somewhere that had been significant to our relationship, and that meant Ruby Tuesday. Unfortunately, because our church was downtown, we couldn’t work it out to have lunch at the restaurant we had met and celebrated our engagement at, so we had to find one closer to the church, but it was still a Ruby Tuesday.

Perhaps this may be part of why we like eating there so often. Perhaps, every time we eat at Ruby Tuesday, we are reminded of these connections the restaurant has with our relationship. Perhaps I’m looking way too much into it. Whatever the reason, I’m sure we’ll continue visiting that restaurant for a long time.