It’s been a year since Salamandras Kitchen opened its restaurant on Oak Drive in Monroe, Ga. and it is offering a few benefits to its customers to celebrate the occasion.
“We will be having specials on Margaritas 12oz regular LIME frozen or rock $3.00, also buy one get one free chicken fajitas for free with the purchase of two drinks,” said co-owner Leslie McDowell.
Salamanders offers Texas style cuisine, but “it is not your average Mexican/Tex mex restaurant that you will find in Monroe,” McDowell says. “We have had many people say that we are one of the best restaurant in Monroe and that it is very refreshing to see a company that not only care about the client, but about how the food is presented, and how flavorful, fresh, and delicious tasting it is.
We serve many different items on our menu, from fajitas to bacon wrapped shrimp stuffed with cheese. We take pride in our food and only use the fresh ingredients. We make all our food in house fresh each day nothing comes in pre made, the salsa are all made in house.”
It’s not just the food that draws people back to the restaurant, McDowell said. It is also the fun atmosphere and regular entertainment that is offered.
“We have trivia ever Wednesday with John Howard. He comes up with a theme night, anywhere from Disney, to movie quotes,” she said. “We offer gift cards to the first top 3 teams. In the amount of 30,20,10$ Trivia is ever Wednesday from 6:30-9 p.m. We also have live music with Ken Edwards which again like John is a local gentleman. He plays thousands of songs from all genres, takes any request, and he plays from 6:30-9:45 p.m. on a Friday night.”
McDowell said despite all this, letting the local community know about them has not always been easy and there has been some misinformation that she would like to clear up.
“We do feel that we have a hard time being in the back of the shopping center. We have been taking steps to add more lighting in the back of the center and posting signs on the street letting people know we are back there,” she said. “We are in no way associated with the restaurant on the other end of the shopping center closest to 138. We have no dealings with them, we have heard from other customers that they have been told that we are owned by them which is not true.”
McDowell said she and her husband opened their first restaurant in the Duluth area in 2002 and were there for many years before selling it. They opened another restaurant, but decided last year to move to Monroe where they operate both the restaurant and a catering business.
“We have a very large catering business that many people do not know about. We cater all types of events, from weddings, graduations, corporate to small get togethers,” McDowell said. “We work with larger companies such as Ga Power, Vantage Oncology, Cohn-Reznick CPA firm on a weekly basis. With our caterings we setup your event in professional chafing dishes and take care of everything that you will need so it makes your event stress free because we handle it all. We cater all types of menus as well – not just Mexican. We have American food, BBQ, Italian, authentic Mexican food as well. We have Margaritas machines that you can rent for your party and we cater all over the Atlanta area.”
Salamandras restaurants have been featured over the years in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as well as the Gwinnett Daily News.
“We are now in the top four restaurants to eat at in Monroe from Facebook. We have been blown away by the reviews we have received on the various social media outlets and we just want to say how thankful we are to all the people that come in week after week to eat with us,” she said. “We really appreciate.”
McDowell said going forward the plan is to continue working hard to make sure each and everyone of them leaves happy.
“We wish to remain in Monroe for many years to come. We live in Monroe and we very much believe in the shop local buy local,” McDowell said. “Most of our staff is from the local community and we love being a part of Monroe.”
Salamandras is located in Suite 14 in the Great Oaks Shopping Center in Monroe.
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