Photos by Josh Meltzer | The Roanoke Times

Mac and Bob's in Salem features a large covered patio with a bar.

MAC AND BOB'S

• Rating: *** (out of five)
• Where: 316 E. Main St., Salem
• Menu: American
• Prices: $6.95 to $19.99
• Hours: 11 to 2 a.m. Monday through Saturday. 11:30 to 2 a.m. Sunday.
• Soda products: Pepsi
• Alcohol: Yes, full bar
• House-made desserts: Mud pie
• Plastic? All major credit cards accepted
• Smoking? Yes, at the bar and out on the deck
• Takeout? Yes
• Delivery? No
• Reservations? No
• Patio seating? Yes
• Wireless Internet? Yes
• Live music? No
• Catering? No
• Banquet space? No
• Kid friendly? Yes, a children’s menu and high chairs available.
• Call: (540) 389-5999
• Fax: (540) 389-6292
• Net: macandbobs.com

What the stars mean

• ***** Excellent. A one-of-a-kind experience.
• **** Very good. Memorable menus accompanied by exciting environs and/or savvy service.
• *** Good. Solid places that beckon with generallyappealing cooking.
• ** Just OK. A place not worth rushing back to. But, it might have something worth recommending: A view, a single dish, friendly service, lively scene.
• * Poor. Don’t waste your money here.

The menu at Mac and Bob's in Salem includes Joey's triple decker sandwich.

Ever since Mac and Bob's opened for business in 1980, it has been a restaurant of and for the people. Its founders, Bob Rotanz and Jim "Mac" McEnerney, had recently graduated from Roanoke College and decided Salem needed a sub pub that would serve popular American food in an unpretentious setting.

Mac and Bob's grew from the original 10-seat sandwich counter to the present 350-seat restaurant incorporating a 48-foot sports bar with a dozen TVs and a new outdoor deck that's also equipped with a bar, TVs and seating for 100 at umbrella-shaded tables.

When I spoke with manager Keith Griswold about the new menu I had heard about, he said, "It's really not new, and I can understand the confusion because we still have the 'new' items blocked and called 'new,' but this menu is two years old." New desserts by chefs Joe Dishaw Jr. and Don Coonradt are coming in a few months.

I hadn't reviewed Mac and Bob's in a long time, so I just went right ahead eating and evaluating.

THE MENU

The extensive menu lists 11 appetizers, 20 entrees, 12 salads, an assortment of half-pound burgers, six different pizzas and calzones, plus 16 sandwiches and three desserts.

THE GOOD

During my several visits, I tried dishes from all over the menu. Among the entrees worth recommending, count on a well-executed, French-cut bone-in chicken breast in a lemon caper sauce and served with broccolini (the Italian bitter broccoli). The rigatoni in a spicy tomato vodka cream sauce was delicious and appealing.

Calzones are bigger and more beautiful than ever, with a golden brown crust concealing a substantial filling of mozzarella and ricotta cheeses with sliced ham. The extraordinary Boston Zone, a Mac and Bob's original calzone, stuffs homemade chicken tenders basted in hot wing sauce with mozzarella into the pizza crust turnover.

Charleston salad tasted as good as it looked -- it was a combination of thinly sliced grilled sirloin steak with sesame-encrusted yellow fin tuna topping a mix of lettuces with Gorgonzola cheese and a glaze of ginger kicked up with wasabi. Delightful Katie salad comes in large and small sizes and brings marinated grilled chicken, seasonal fruit and walnuts served on a bed of fresh spinach.

Joey's triple decker, one of the "new" dishes on the menu, was a real mouthful of grilled chicken, ham and bacon with Swiss cheese, lettuce and tomato stacked on a roll. The crab cake on a soft roll with lemon-dill aioli and the grilled corned beef Reuben both looked and tasted exactly as I wanted them to.

Among the appetizers, a bowl of chicken chili contained goodly amounts of chopped tomatoes, beans and chicken and was hearty enough to be a meal.

THE WINE LIST

The well-chosen, bargain-priced wine list features bottles of whites and reds from California, Australia, New Zealand and Italy. Wines by the glass range from $4.25 to $7.25, while bottles are $17 to $38.

THE NOT SO GOOD

A couple of items on the menu require an overhaul. The lasagna suffered from a sloppy presentation and an inadequate amount of meat -- it was almost all noodles swimming in sauce splayed out over a plate. The new surf and turf sandwich -- tuna salad topped with bacon on grilled panini -- oozed mayonnaise and some sort of liquid, making it drippy and a mess to eat.

Service is indeed good-natured, but sometimes it's so casual as to be slow and slapdash, such as others who arrived well after you getting served before you, food placed on the rim of plates instead of the center and bowls of soup filled to the brim, dripping down the sides and looking unappetizing. I remind myself that many of these servers are college students whose main pursuit is going to college, but more training is in order.

There are no excuses for the unkempt bathroom. It was a disaster on all my visits, even when I arrived at 11:30 in the morning.

As I walked through the adjacent parking lot to the restaurant, the acrid odor of garbage permeated the area. I hastened to get to the sidewalk, all the while wondering if the clientele eating on the deck smelled the same olfactory insult.

THE BOTTOM LINE

It's hard to go wrong at this homegrown restaurant, which offers reasonably well-prepared foods served in the good-natured spirit typical of Mac and Bob's.