The Peddler is dark, lit mostly by candles and dim sconces. Black tablecloths, wood-paneled walls, and a carpeted floor that absorbs light add to the shrouded feeling inside, so much so that I didn’t notice a massive, brass-colored cattle head on the back wall above the salad bar until back at home looking at cell phone photos I’d taken.
A black awning over the front door proclaims the Raleigh restaurant’s name “The Peddler STEAK HOUSE,” with the all-caps lettering seeming to trumpet the business’s primary appeal. Yet the interior tells a different story. Step into the compact dining room and you’re facing the salad bar, erected where the stage would go if this was a music venue. The namesake “peddler”—often a twentysomething kid and sometimes sporting a backwards black hat — only visits your table to show off the evening’s selection if you request it, further obscuring the fact that this is indeed a steakhouse.
