The Main Lion

Steak, snacks in a casual setting

The Main Lion

Lancaster Avenue and Old Eagle School Road, Strafford 688-2900

Open: Lunch 11 am - 2 pm Mon. - Sat; Dinner 5 - 10 pm Mon. Thurs., until 11 pm Fri. & Sat. 4 - 10 pm Sun. Brunch 10 am - 2 pm Sun.

Price Range: Appetizers average $4, entrees $15.

Credit Cards: Major cards.

Nonsmoking section: No.

Facilities for handicapped: Yes.

Atmosphere: Cheerful clutter.

Boldly declaring itself to be a place that provides “spirited fun,” the new Main Lion bar-restaurant has something for everyone.

The place opened in March at the site of the Old Covered Wagon Inn in Strafford with three seperate food operations - a large dining room with a limited menu featuring superb steak-by-the-ounce, a late-hours cafe with informal snack food and a delicatessen and retail shop where you can buy expensive vinegars, mustards and other yuppie treats.

Almost everything - decor, menu, salad bar and friendly approach - copies What’s Your Beef, the Paoli restaurant opened several years ago by the same people who started the Main Lion.

The unusual prevails, beginning with a lobby waiting room re-created as a barbershop with real barber’s chairs and hair-cutting utensils.

The cavernous dining room edges a bar with back-lighted stained glass ceiling panel and a brilliant purple-and-green neon sign proclaiming “Raw Bar & Grille” flanked by two large television screens.

Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves cover one wall with hundreds of volumes of every description, colorful tiffany-style hanging lamps brighten the dining area, where spaciously placed hardware tables are set with padded Bauhaus chairs, paper napkins and pink carnations.

Backed by a pretty tiled wal,. an extensive salad bar imitates a supermarket’s fruit-and-vegetable display with an array of fresh oranges, Granny Smith apples, potatoes, limes, red cabbage, lemons and pineapples. Beneath is a great variety of salad fixings presented on crushed ice mercifully clean of spills.

The most memorable choices included at least three pasta salads - macaroni, sea shells and spirelli - as well as artichoke hearts marinated with black olives, pickled beet strips and five or six dressings.

The tables offer more traditional fare - baby corn, cherry tomatoes, chickpeas, whole hand-cooked eggs, carrot-flecked potato salad, apple butter, marinated green olives with pimento, three-bean salad, cottage cheese and cinnamon apples.

Huge pots held a very dark, intensely flavored onion soup and a salty beef-barley soup with mushy, overcooked carrots and peas.

The menu offers several hot appetizers, such as five plumb chicken fingers ($3.50) with a pleasant fruit dipping sauce, or a half-dozen small-but-fresh oysters Rockefeller ($4.95) heaped with spinach and chopped garlic.

Service is partly do-it-youself. You have to place your own dinner order at a grill window on your way to the salad bar; a waitress brings your appetizer and entree when you are ready.

Filet mignon ($1.65 per ounce), ordered by showing the cook how much to cut, was an outstanding chunk of fork-tender beef, beautifully grilled with a fresh mushroom cap and accompanied by lukewarm linguine in a forgettable pesto sauce. A whole rainbow trout ($12.95), nicely moist and stuffed with shredded crab meat and breading, came with rice pilaf colorfully mixed with green and red bell peppers and parsley flakes.

A tray of good-looking, bakery-made desserts included chocolate raspberry torte, Mississippi mud cake and chocolate-chip cheesecake, but you might not have room.

Service was uncommonly friendly and pleasant, reservations are not accepted. All in all, this is a pleasant, informal place for an easy night out.

by John V. R. Bull, Inquirer Staff Writer, Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/30/1987.

Found by Meg Wiederseim