4 Restaurant Chains With Pork Chops And Apples On The Menu

There's a whole generation of people who, whenever pork chops are on the table, find themselves compulsively saying "pork chops and applesauce" in their best Humphrey Bogart voice. If you grew up watching "The Brady Bunch" on TV, that's kind of ingrained. For those of you who fit that mold, you surely recall the episode when Peter, trying to create an identity for himself, began speaking like Bogart, including when discussing what was for dinner that night — which happened to be pork chops and applesauce.

Pork chops can be found alongside not just applesauce, but apples of all sorts (fried apples, apple slices, stewed apples). It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario: Were pork chops and apples already an amazing combo, which is why the Bradys were eating them? Or did a random dinner choice launch a cult-classic union that today graces kitchen tables and restaurant menus everywhere? Either way, pork chops and apples go together like bread and butter, peanut butter and jelly, and Greg and Marcia.

Here is a list of four chain restaurants where you can find this culinary duo on the menu. These pork chops and apples are so good you'll be sure to bogart the whole meal. Here's looking at you, kid.

Perry's Steakhouse is first and foremost a steak joint, but its pork chop renown is not far behind. The restaurant boasts that its fabulous chop is seven fingers high (for an idea of the true scale, it depends on whose fingers you're using to measure). It's also gluten-free, rubbed with a bunch of seasonings, then "cured, roasted, slow-smoked, caramelized, finished in the oven and topped with Perry's herb-garlic butter, and carved tableside during dinner service each evening," the website touts. Add in a side of applesauce and you have a meal that would make Peter Brady proud.

Perry's also offers a lunch special on Fridays, complete with a smaller-cut pork chop served with whipped potatoes and applesauce for just $24. Don't have a Perry's nearby? No problem. You can have the restaurant ship your dinner on dry ice to anywhere in the continental United States.

Texas Roadhouse's grilled pork chops come boneless in either a single or double order with or without peppercorn sauce, bleu cheese crumbles, or sauteed mushrooms and onions. You can also add grill shrimp or ribs as a side. While you could opt for a second side like mac & cheese (if you aren't already making restaurant-quality boxed mac & cheese at home) or a Caesar salad, you could also channel your inner Brady and go with applesauce, times two. 

Cracker Barrel serves a variation on the theme. Its pork chops are seasoned, breaded, and fried country-style, then smothered in country gravy. You can choose two or three sides along with your usual Cracker Barrel sidekicks of buttermilk biscuits or corn muffins. The clearcut choice to keep your pork chops company is the chain's popular fried cinnamon apples, which may even one-up the chops. 

There's one unfortunate little caveat, however: Cracker Barrel's Country Fried Pork Chops are only available on Tuesdays. But that just gives you a chance to try the other spots on this list on the other days of the week.

Ruth's Chris Steakhouse has a 16-ounce double pork chop that comes to the table still sizzling. In fact, the thing turns up on a plate that's been heated to 500 degrees Fahrenheit so it's got a whole lot of sizzle. The pork chops here come with sliced cinnamon apples (giant hunks of apple placed atop a massive chop), so you can enjoy the apple-and-pork fusion of flavor you're longing for. (Ruth's Chris' pork chop is only available at dinner.)