The deep-fried Monte Cristo, left, is worth blowing one's diet for. The French Dip, right, is not.

The Balcony 6100 Camp Bowie Blvd, Ste 125. 817-731-3719. Lunch Mon-Fri 11am-2pm, Dinner Mon-Sat 5:30-10pm. Happy hour Mon-Fri 4:30-7pm. Sun brunch 11am-2pm. Credit Cards: AE, MC,V.

When The Balcony opened in 1972, Fort Worth was a far different town than it is today. Sure, ladies who lunched then still lunch, and the tony, upscale Ridglea neighborhood is still tony and upscale. In 1972, the restaurant's continental cuisine was special, even novel. As were three-martini lunches. Thirty years later, the cuisine occupies the same niche as avocado green appliances -- no longer chic but not yet retro.

The original owners of The Balcony, Swiss natives Alphonse and Hilda Widmer, retired five years ago. They sold to the real estate company that owned the Ridglea Shopping Center, which sold it to Michel Baudouin, who then sold to Marc Copeland of Copeland Hospitality Group in January 2001. Baudouin said the cuisine was outdated when the Widmers sold. "It was traditional old Europe, continental cuisine, [which is] fairly heavy food," he explained.

Although the cuisine was updated in early 2000, not even the magic touch of Baudouin -- whose restaurants in Fort Worth include Le Chardonnay, the Grape Escape and Encore -- could save it. The core clientele of older, moneyed people didn't warm up to the French chef's steakhouse menu.

"The clientele ... had an idea of what The Balcony should be," Baudouin explained. He lost the older patrons and wasn't able to attract the young professionals. "The young people wouldn't go because it was an old-people place." Baudouin was associated with the restaurant for only one year. He spoke with Fort Worth Weekly from his new Grape Escape in Asheville, N.C., which opened in early March.

The Balcony continues to struggle for relevance and a share of the lunch market. Copeland retained most of Baudouin's dinner menu (the french fries are still called "Michel's Pomme Frites with Fines Herbs") and reinstituted lunch service six months ago. Lunch offerings include a smattering of appetizers from the dinner menu but none of the grilled and sauced meats.

Appetizers from the dinner menu are "luncheon sized" (read "small"). One delightful crab cake made from abundantly fresh and flavorful blue crab came with a lemon, mustard, and mayonnaise remoulade and a side of fancy greens. It was delightful but left us yearning for more.

The poached pear salad was another winner -- and this comes from a person who doesn't fancy pears. But poached in merlot and cabernet, the pear lost its gritty finish and tasted more like pickled watermelon rind or spiced apple rings. It came with walnut studded greens and was quite satisfying.

So was the French onion soup. It's tough to mess up onion soup -- all a restaurant has to do is slather on the cheese and wait for the compliments to roll in. Hearty, beefy stock was studded with onions and covered in Jarlsberg cheese. Yummy.

The other "French" item, the "French Dip Sandwich the Chase Way" is named after Chase Copeland, the owner's teen-age son. Manager Jacobo Lopez said the TCU student loves dip sandwiches and specifically designed this one. I think the kid should focus on any career that keeps him out of the kitchen. The only good thing about Chase's Way is the tenderness of the beef medallions. On the plus side, the sandwich I tried had no gristle. Unfortunately it also had no cheese, horseradish, or flavor. The onions were undercooked, and the beef was overcooked. The au jus tasted like a blend of canned beef consommé and beef bouillon.

The Monte Cristo, however, was as bodacious and bootylicious as the dip was bad. It's a battered and deep-fried sandwich that, in uncertain hands, can be horrible, greasy, and sloppy. The Balcony's Monte Cristo was about 3лл thick and had a batter shell that was crisp and tender like a velvety tempura. The oversized slices of white bread within the egg-batter shell cuddled a filling of sliced ham, sliced turkey, and Jarlsberg cheese. The sandwich is served with jelly. The Balcony deep-fries the quarters of the sandwich individually, just in case battering and deep-frying the two halves would somehow be seen as dietetically frugal. If there is a sandwich that is worth blowing a diet for, food fans, this is it.

We should have stopped there but decided to finish our meal with a chocolate soufflé. It was more like whipped, undercooked pudding. Yes, it was rich. Yes, it was appropriately tall and puffy. No, we didn't finish it.

I imagine that the restaurant shines at night. The dining room has fancy linens and lovely chandeliers. But during the day, it looks tawdry and worn. The salmon walls need a coat of paint, and the carpet begs to be cleaned. Both my friend and I unconsciously checked our chairs for stains before sitting down. Although the bar is fetchingly dark with lots of mahogany-colored wood, it seems to strain for youth, with advertising displays that push trendy cocktails. On the day we visited, all the patrons would have qualified for AARP membership, strictly drinkers of scotch on the rocks and white wine. There were no yuppies, no soccer moms, no hipsters.

Lopez said that the years between the Widmers' retirement and Copeland's purchase of the restaurant were crucial to the dwindling of The Balcony's lunch crowd. "No one knew if the restaurant was open for lunch or not," he said.

Criticism that continental cuisine may not be trendy enough to compete with other fancy lunch spots doesn't faze Lopez. He said that continental cuisine, with its inclusion of French and Italian preparations, is still completely relevant. "As far as our competitors, they have great food in one category; we have continental, which is everything," he said.

Looking back on The Balcony with physical distance and the wisdom of time, Baudouin acknowledges that his motivation was wrong: He just bought it because it was cheap, because the Ridglea owners -- for whom he had acted as consultant -- made him an offer he couldn't refuse. "Never buy a restaurant because it's a good deal," he said. "It is a restaurant that deserves to do much better than it did when I had it."