Remember that episode of “Seinfeld” when Kramer comes up with the idea of a pizzeria where customers make their own pizzas? Locally owned WhaBah takes that to a different level with a “cook-your-own-steak” offering.

The restaurant has been there for a few years, but now has a new, chophouse-style menu that greatly expands its offerings and promises to bring in a much broader clientele. Its location on the corner of Russellville Road and Campbell Lane/Veterans Parkway makes it easily accessible, and while it sill caters to the Harley-Davidson crowd its family friendly atmosphere seems aimed at shedding its “biker bar” image.

The food here is very good. The dinner menu boasts a wide range of appetizers, from onion rings to potato skins to a standard artichoke dip. The main courses are what you’d expect from a steakhouse - steaks, pork, chicken, shrimp, salmon and burgers. Pork offerings include chops, tenderloin and barbecue-flavored shanks; steaks include sirloins, filets, ribeyes and T-bones. A kids’ menu features scaled-down versions of the main menu, and kids eat free Mondays and Thursdays. All the main courses come with “all you can eat” at the salad and potato bar.

We began with an order of potato skins. Handmade instead of bagged, the skin still had a great deal of potato left in it, and by baking the skin instead of deep frying it, WhaBah leaves a bit of tenderness. It probably would have been better had it not taken so long to arrive. More on that later.

For our main course we selected the pork chops with pasta, and the sirloin with the salad and potato bar. Customers have the option of cooking their own meats, which knocks a dollar off the price of the entree. The thick sirloin came with the juices running out of the perfectly cooked medium rare cut. It was very lightly seasoned, which I enjoyed. My dining companion, however, would have preferred some sort of dry rub or a marinade.

What tasted like a honey glaze on the pork chops was a perfect accent to the flavor of the grilled meat. The garlic butter pasta came out al-dente, and was excellent. The salad bar isn’t fancy - the greens are an accompaniment rather than a meal.

In all, everything was quite good and the cooks at WhaBah really know their business. But it is a truism in the restaurant industry that cooks make your restaurant great, while the waitstaff can break it. Nowhere is this clearer than at WhaBah.

Our food was excellent - from the steak to the chops to the appetizer. But the service was agonizingly slow. The potato skins clearly spent time under the heat lamps waiting for someone to deliver them. We waited so long for one of our main course dishes - chicken - that we finally canceled the order.

At the table next to us we heard a customer complain that her steak was tough, only to be told by the waitress to “eat a bit more of it, and see if it gets better.” While that customer eventually did get some satisfaction, the appropriate reaction from a restaurant that wants to see repeat business is an immediate apology and a replacement meal - you don’t try to get customers to eat more of a dish they’ve already said they don’t like.

The staff also doesn’t seem well-trained. Drinks went unrefilled all around us, plates sat on tables and there was no sense of coordination - waitstaff don’t intuitively help each other out by clearing plates or delivering dishes to each others’ tables. The problems with the staff will cost WhaBah repeat dining business if the staff isn’t better trained.

All in all, if you’re looking for steaks in Bowling Green, WhaBah is a good place to eat. The wide open dining space makes for a great atmosphere. More importantly, the food is as good or better than any of the chain steakhouses that litter Scottsville Road. WhaBah has the added benefit of being a locally owned restaurant. Bowling Green has a lot of restaurants, and it is important to support local businesses.

Despite the waitstaff, I’ll return for WhaBah’s food.

— Our anonymous food reviewer gives new restaurants a six-week grace period before reviewing. To comment, contact Managing Editor Mike Alexieff at 783-3235 or via e-mail to malexieff@bgdailynews.com.

WHABAH STEAKHOUSE SALOON

2361 RUSSELLVILLE ROAD