Clinkerdagger Bickerstaff & Petts' Salad

I remember eating this salad at Clinkerdagger Bickerstaff & Petts in Tacoma, WA. It was the 70's, my sister and I were young and it was my favorite restaurant because I loved the dark wood, the Edwardian English Pub atmosphere and especially the waitstaff dressed in period clothing. It was always an exciting evening for us to see the costumes; eating the food was just a bonus! This salad is super easy to make and this Christmas day my whole family got a piece of it. Nick chopped the fresh bacon for frying. Sophie tore the spinach leaves and Bryan mixed up the dressing ingredients. I had the fresh Parmesan, but forgot to add it before taking photos. Everyone really enjoyed this salad, but for me it was a little trip down memory lane.

I started researching the Clinkerdagger history after mom mentioned another restaurant we used to eat at and it jogged my memory of Clinkerdagger Bickerstaff & Petts. I soon found the salad and creme brulee recipes posted on Food.com. Mom has been making their recipe for creme brulee for years and I think she may have gotten it straight from the restaurant.

I was surprised to read about the humble beginnings of Restaurants Unlimited, Inc. The founder, Richard Komen began by selling peanuts out of the back of his pickup truck. He seemed to have a vision and a knack for realizing consumer's wants and needs, even before the consumer realized what they wanted, and after Raymond Lindstrom joined Komen, they began opening restaurants with food and atmosphere that reflected the individual area and the trends associated with it, as opposed to using one model restaurant for all of them.
When a restaurant's appeal began to flag, Komen and Lindstrom would close it, reinvent it, and reopen it under a new name.

During the mid 1980's they took note of the popularity of over-sized cinnamon rolls and opened the first Cinnabon shop in a Seattle mall. Within a year, another 22 mall shops were opened and by the end of 1990 there were 72 Cinnabons operating across the United States.

These men are the driving force behind several successful restaurants in the Seattle area, such as the Palomino, Horatio's, Zoopa, Palisade and Scott's in Edmonds, which was the original Clinkerdagger Bickerstaff & Petts. They are also responsible for many other restaurants in states like Oregon, Hawaii, California, Chicago and Minnesota. I have great respect for forward thinkers and these two men surely fit that category.

When I think back, I can remember sitting in a booth and eating this salad, but back then I was still a picky eater. I'm not sure I would have tried it if I'd known the dressing had mashed egg yolk and that the greens were spinach. At that point my only knowledge of spinach was from watching Popeye cartoons, and green stuff squeezed out of a tin can looked far from appetizing!

You can find the Clinkerdagger Bickerstaff & Petts' Salad posted by ratwoman on Food.com.