by Glenn Tschimpke
Staff Writer
Give Bruce Wright five bucks and he’ll give you the Real Meal Deal.
Wright opened Bruce’s Homestyle Cookin’ last week in the Landing food court, offering complete meals for $5.
“Actually, it’s $4.67 plus tax,” said Wright.
Pecuniary nitpicking aside, Wright’s $5 Real Meal Deal gets you meat, two sides, bread, salad or soup, desert and a drink. Country-fried steak and fried chicken promise to be mainstays, while others items such as salisbury steak and barbecued pork will rotate from day to day. Side dishes are traditional vegetables such as mashed potatoes and corn.
Whether it was his master’s degree in business or common sense, Wright hopes his decision to keep meals at five bucks pays dividends.
“I think it’s a good price,” he said. “Of course we don’t have a lot of specialty items. You can’t come in here and order this and get it that way. Everything is set to come through and go pretty fast. If you’re in a hurry, it’s a good place to come.”
Wright makes it sound inflexible, but items can be purchased a la carte. In theory, the customer can assemble a custom meal. Just don’t try to mess with the Real Meal Deal.
Wright recently retired after 15 years as a police officer, most recently in northern Georgia. He says he always liked Jacksonville and moved here with his wife, Irina, to open the restaurant.
“We had talked about doing it when I retired,” he said. “We just decided to go ahead and do it. We came here in January. We were here for a conference. This space was open, we talked about it, struck a deal and I went ahead and retired.”