Editorial Review

Tenderjacks in Leesburg shows once again that everything old is new again.

The new restaurant is the latest practitioner of the old-fashioned method of cooking food once it is ordered, rather than serving food that is cooked and waiting. This is the kind of fast food we all enjoyed back in the days before McDonald's sold its first million hamburgers.

The menu at Tenderjacks is short: just burgers, fries, chicken tenders and a couple of basic salads, not too far from the original McDonald's menu. But here the hamburgers are hand-formed and individually cooked on a flat grill; the french fries are hand-cut and deep fried in canola and cottonseed oils that are trans-fat-free; the salads are crisp and served on real plates; and the chicken tenders are marinated in a buttermilk batter that cooks into a light crust and seals in the chicken's juices.

Tenderjacks is the fruition of a plan by Ken West and David Levitt to "raise the level of fast, casual food." Both men come from restaurant families, and both retired several years ago from long careers in the restaurant business. But they were convinced that they could improve on the menu, physical surroundings and service offered by today's fast-food giants.

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-- Nancy Lewis