Archive through November 18, 2003
TV ClubHouse: Archive: Chain restaurants:
Archive through November 18, 2003
Eliz87 | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 11:04 am     Just wondering if anyone has ever eaten at the Golden Corral. We're thinking of going there tonight. Is it good? Reasonable? What are some of your favorite chain restaurants? What specifically do you like about them? |
Theowl | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 11:17 am     Eliza, I've been to The Golden Corral, and I think the food is GREAT!! The only problem is, you shouldn't eat for about two days before, because you want to at least try everything and there is soooo much food, and you roll out of there so stuffed!! The food is hot and such a variety, and the deserts are to die for!! We've been there 3 times, and now we will only go when we have company from out of state that don't have one, and want to try it. Enjoy!!  |
Froggiegirl621 | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 11:35 am     Well, now this thread is right up my alley! I've never eaten at a Golden Corral, although my cousin raves about it! She always says their food is great and even drives an hour and a half away just to go there. My favorite chains are as follow: Chili's - love the fact that you can eat chips and salsa till it comes out your ears, all for $1.99. Their raspberry frozen margaritas are the best too! Awesome atmosphere even if you just want drinks. Applebee's - because I think you get alot of food for your money there, and I've never been disappointed with any service I've gotten there. Red Lobster - alot of people say it's too expensive for low grade seafood, but I just love it. They have the best seafood gumbo! Olive Garden - great food and it's a great place to go with alot of people because you can get as loud as you want! Ruby Tuesday's - because there's one 5 minutes from me and I'm pretty much a regular there. They treat me right! I could go one and on...geez, I'm suprised I'm not 600 lbs. the way I like to eat!!! |
Lostintheglades | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 12:54 pm     Ooooh.....Golden Coral is a great place to eat. Listen to Theowl....you want to be very hungry when you go there. The beef tips are yummy, the mushroom gravy is to die for and OMG...the potato bar....you can't pass that up either. Darn...SBG got me started on Cinnabon's earlier and now this. Another fav of mine is Rio Bravo. They've got the best Chili Relano (sp?) I've ever had anywhere. Red Lobster...Love it...but here locally we have a chain called Shells which I probably like better. I actually think Red Lobster's prices are pretty reasonable when you consider the price of seafood. |
Eliz87 | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 01:01 pm     I loved Shells. They closed down the two that were around here. Never could figure out why. |
Texannie | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 01:06 pm     I don't tend to go to chains much cause we have such a wonderful assortment of restaurants here, but I do like Macaroni Grill. Good food, decent wine list and my kids like it too! |
Meme9 | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 01:14 pm     I like Outback Steakhouse. |
Tabbyking | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 01:32 pm     i just went to the outback for my first time last month--it was 85 miles away! had a great steak, which i had to bring home! we don't have any chains in town, except for fast food. i used to love to go to sizzlers for their salad bar, but most of them within two hours of here closed down and the ones i have been to when i can find one still open seem to have discontinued the salad bar! in the bay area, i loved carlos murphys and charlie browns. in the fresno area de cicco's...definitely. the best italian food i have ever, ever had, but fairly expensive. we went 'dutch' with another couple last year when we went to see neil diamond and generous hubby (while i was in the ladies room) found out it was the other gal's birthday and said we would pay the entire bill. i think it was about 140 bucks before the tip. i won't go to the olive garden since i went with 5 people one night somewhere near menlo park and they automatically added on a 25% gratuity because there were 'more than 4' of us. uh uh, with me you don't 'automatically' get a tip, you have to earn it. and unless the service is superb, i do not tip 25%! they messed up all our orders, my food came at least 20 minutes after the others' did, my daughter never got her water, the waiter tasted my son's milk when my son said it tasted sour and then put it back in front of my son, my husband got the wrong salad dressing, and they brought the bread out at the end of the meal... i like the riblets at applebee's, sauce on the side, and the special they have right now, with the chicken breast and steak with melted blue cheese........ over-all, i guess i would have to say applebee's. |
Twiggyish | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 01:47 pm     I love Macaroni Grill, Chilis (Love the fajitas), Olive Garden and Outback (if we can get in). We have a lot of nice small restaurants in town. The chain restaurants get very busy this time of year so we avoid them. |
Landi | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 02:23 pm     tabby, i haven't seen a Carlos Murphys in YEARS! and i'm still in the Bay Area. I miss it! they used to have like 31 flavors of margaritas. I loved the rootbeer and bubblegum ones! If you know where one is let me know! |
Whoami | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 02:40 pm     Some of the one's mentioned I like are Red Lobster, Chili's, Applebee's, and Outback (not particularly in that order). One not mentioned here is Johnny Carino's. Yummy Italian food! |
Tabbyking | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 02:41 pm     i used to go to one in emeryville (just below berkeley)....i have no idea if it's still there, but it sure was a fun place!! |
Twiggyish | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 03:10 pm     We have Carrabbas here. LOVE IT. It's another restaurant you have to CALL in advance to get in without waiting too long. http://www.carrabbas.com/ |
Texannie | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 03:41 pm     I forget that Carrabbas is now a chain. It was started here, and two of the original restaurants are still owned by the Carrabbas boys. |
Mak1 | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 03:45 pm     We took my mom-in-law out to eat at a Carabbas when we visited her in Daytona Beach last year. Everything was so good!! I wish we had one around here. For chains that are nearby, my favorites are Applebee's and Olive Garden. |
Halfunit | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 04:04 pm     Mmmm... Carabbas! I love their Sirloin Marsala. |
Weinermr | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 04:15 pm     Wasn't he on Big Brother last summer? |
Fanny | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 04:29 pm     Sir Loin? I thought he plays tight end for the Denver Broncos. But I could be wrong. Better ask Square. |
Abbynormal | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 04:35 pm     Here's a rant about Olive Garden I thought ya'll might enjoy. It's a little long, but really funny. So I go to the Olive Garden in Bolingbrook, Illinois for a late dinner. It’s getting near closing but there is still plenty of people in the restaurant. We’re not even the last group in. But our waitress apparently felt we had specifically chosen her section just to keep her there longer. First she comes up and accuses us of asking the host to start the fireplace. Um, no, he did it himself. I say as much and, since its fiery warmth was apparently too much for her cold black heart to tolerate, she shuts it off while still giving us a glare. Alright, maybe she’s had a bad day, and maybe better still, she won’t be our actual waitress. Uh uh. After about five minutes she comes up, audibly sighs, and gives the little ‘welcome’ speech with all the enthusiasm of Christopher Walken getting a curdled milk enema. She takes our drink order with a gaze that would have withered an SS Officer. Me and my companion just exchange surprised looks. Wondering if I had unknowingly anally raped a figure of her deity or something accidentally, she returns with our drinks and menus which she tosses on the table without a word. After about 30 seconds for us to determine what on the menu would offend her the least, she wants our order. I ask if we could have some more time to look. Looking at me like I was a retarded kid in Burger King trying to see how many fries I could fit up my nostril, she rolls her eyes and flies off on her broom back to the kitchen. I suppose as punishment for our insolence for being unsure which identical $15 pasta plate we wanted, a good fifteen minutes went by before she graced us with her presence again. At this point, the restaurant really was staring to empty out. Perhaps as a token of appeasement, this time she came bearing gifts. At last we were bestowed with the tasty breadsticks (which, truth be told, was the deciding factor for us in going to Olive Garden). She takes our order with a nod and an “Okay” because their paper is too good to soil with words from the likes of us. My dinning partner starts to regret that she ordered a salad since we had failed to been properly equipped with utensils and she feared drawing the pentagram necessary to conjure up our waitress again. Meanwhile, I’m cursing myself for not having the foresight to have brought silver bullets. Once more our waitress makes the supreme sacrifice of dealing with us mere customers and brought my friend her salad. There was a slight fiasco when, due to her timidness with our disgruntled food service employee, my friend failed to speak up when the salad had enough cheese. Fortunately, in a rare, gesture of concern for our arterial well-being, without our prodding, when our waitress felt we had enough cheese, she stopped with a curt, “I was waiting for you to say ‘when’”. That she may have wanted more cheese was not even an option our waitress even considered. And thankfully so, since in her eyes were we barely competent enough not to shit ourselves where we sat, so what’s to indicate we’d have any clue as to what the proper dairy to vegetable ratio is for a salad. When propositioned for silverware they we might eat without rummaging through our meals like hogs, she vanished into the kitchen again without a word. Reappearing a moment later with the needed utensils and white paper napkins. See, we lowly peons didn’t rate the green cloth napkins that everyone else who partakes at Olive Garden gets to enjoy. To be honest, I didn’t even know they had paper napkins. As she departed from our table of the damned, she also took with her the tasty breadsticks we had not finished. Once again she showed that small glimmer of concern for our nutritional well-being, bless her heart. When the meal itself arrived, she did go out of her way to mumble something about “plate” and “hot” before passing a scalding platter into my hands. To the disgrace of my people, I nearly dropped the dish as the top three layers of my palms blistered away. Giving a mechanical, “will there be anything else,” she immediately turned to depart where I obviously surprised her by indicating there actually was further humiliation she could rain down upon us. See, in her rush to supply us with silverware, she had overlooked that fact that I now had in my possession three forks, and nary a knife. She called out to another waitress to serve us as the fetch quest I lay before her was beneath her dignity. Without another exchange, she vanished back into whatever neither region had spawned her. After some time to sit and think about what we’ve done, she did pop up to cheerfully ask if everything was alright. Honestly, she smiled and asked in a kind manner. Immediately I wondered who was this person before us and where had they buried our waitress, because if they hadn’t put a wooden stake into her, she’d be back. After expressing our gratitude, she didn’t reappear until we had finished gorging ourselves on the bounty she’d risked life and limb to bring us from the perilous kitchen. After deterring us from considering desert as we were cutting into her angst time, I passed over my credit card in the proper pouch of the little meal book. Being a former waitress herself, my friend commented on how often people she had served would just lay the card in and it would slide out as you picked up the book. Our waitress brightened up and enthusiastically agreed before leaving to process my card. I honestly tired, but I could not work up any surprise that our only bonding moment occurred over bitching about customers. After returning with the ticket, she took off to gossip with the other restaurant personnel who were cleaning up the now nearly empty restaurant. (As I recall, there were only two other tables still occupied as we left.) The bill was under $30. Rounding up, I left a 10% tip of three dollars. My companion had wanted to leave five, but I worried lest that encourage our waitress. As we left, I heard behind me, “That’s bogus!” Imagine it could easily have been something else, such as an emerging hell beast from her stomach. Oh no, as we were exiting the restaurant, she yelled quite loudly enough for us to hear all the way in the front her displeasure over “Three dollars?!” We drove off, both disappointed that a nice evening we had planned for a few weeks now had turned out so poorly. So, to the young girl who felt the need to make us feel like when we were there we’d betrayed the family, I will say this: while I’ve never waited on tables before, I have worked in sales. In fact, I worked for a good, close friend of my family. Even still, if I had ever treated a customer like that, my boss would have fired me on the spot and I wouldn’t have blamed him a bit. Don’t try to make me feel bad that I didn’t leave as many pretty presidential portraits as you had hoped. You’re lucky I only shaved off five percent as any more would have made me feel cheap with myself, regardless of your performance, or in this case, lack thereof. Besides which, it was a small dinner for two. With a bill of under $30, you only ‘lost out’ on $1.50. Are six quarters really going to mean the difference between paying the rent or being forced to work at a seedy night club where they’d pay you to put more clothes on? Did that parting shot make you feel like you’d gained a final victory on these vile customers that invade every day just to take up your free time? Your service was deplorable. Had I thought of it, I would have complained to your manager/necromancer. Whichever applies in your case. P.S., you. |
Squaredsc | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 04:42 pm     sorry no sir loin on the roster. |
Fanny | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 04:47 pm     Square/Fanny you know you've called Shannon that for years. |
Grannyg | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 04:55 pm     i agree with weinermr. |
Twiggyish | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 05:03 pm     sheesh Abby, that's terrible! Had to laugh at your Christopher Walken getting a curdled milk enema analogy..LOL |
Halfunit | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 05:08 pm     Christmas List Abbynormal - Gift Certificate to Olive Garden |
Abbynormal | Tuesday, November 18, 2003 - 05:09 pm     Hi Twiggy! I didn't write that, I could never be that dissatisfied with service without saying something to the manager. I just thought it was pretty funny. |
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