Hungry stomachs are forced to contemplate cooking their own food while our brains are busy plotting ways to make Hollywood starlets fall in love with our ungainly cousins. Quell an insurgent appetite with today's Groupon: for $15, you get $30 worth of rib-sticking cuisine at Bill Johnson's Big Apple Restaurants. Choose from one of the following five locations:

• 3757 East Van Buren Street, Phoenix
• 950 East Main Street, Mesa
• 16810 N. 19th Avenue, Phoenix
• 3101 West Indian School Road, Phoenix
• 1330 North Dysart Road, Goodyear

Named for their founder, a renegade radio host and showman, Bill Johnson's Big Apple Restaurants please palates with a menu of hearty American fare. Warm up your appetite with Grand Canyon nachos, which––just like the real Grand Canyon––are covered with beef, black beans, avocado, jalapeños, and more ($9). Mama's breaded pork chops ($13.50) and southern fried 1/2 chicken ($14) counterbalance a beefy selection of steaks. A six-ounce sirloin paired with endless popcorn shrimp ($15) tests the limits of appetites and pants, and a bacon-wrapped eight-ounce sirloin filet ($15) brings barnyard frenemies together at last. Guests can also make their own meaty matches with the Make Your Own Smoked Combo option ($17), which allows diners to make three selections from a smoked smorgasbord of pork ribs, beef ribs, pulled pork, smoked brisket, hot links, and barbecue-smoked chicken.

Like the heavily censored alternate versions of Romeo and Juliet, an assortment of desserts offers a variety of happy endings, such as deep-dish apple pie topped with ice cream or a slice of cheese. Menus for breakfast, lunch, and dessert mean Bill Johnson's Big Apple Restaurants can head off hunger morning, noon, and night, which is ideal for all manner of shift workers, time-sensitive students, and horror-movie monsters.

Reviews

Phoenix magazine recently interviewed Sherry Cameron, CEO of Bill Johnson’s Big Apple Restaurants. Other publications such as The Arizona Republic, the East Valley Tribune, and the Phoenix Business Journal featured the restaurant. Yahoo! Locals give the 19th Avenue location an average of 4.5 stars, and Yelpers give the Van Buren Street location an average of three stars. More than 540 Facebookers are fans.

• The food is great, the atmosphere is as western as you can get, and the apple pie is to die for. – Yahoo! Local reviewer on 04/21/2007
• I have been going there since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, and they have never disappointed me. – Vern G., Yelp