I remember going to the Ponderosa in my hometown as a child. What I remember most was all the house flies there. No wonder why they closed many years ago.
I remember going to the Ponderosa in my hometown as a child. What I remember most was all the house flies there. No wonder why they closed many years ago.
sizzlinglikesizzler wrote:There is most definitely one on University in Provo, Utah still in existence. I know because I just stayed near it on my way through town Saturday night.
Big night out in Provo? Did you hit the bars? Strip clubs?
Comments on some of the restaurants mentioned (never been to Sizzler, so no comment there):
Ponderosa - I liked it as a kid. Once I had some better restaurant meals, I never went back.
Big Boy - These are still all over the place. Burgers aren't bad, but there are better ones elsewhere.
Shoney's - I actually didn't know they were connected to the other Big Boys (Bob's and Frisch's), so thanks for the knowledge Luv2Run.
Perkins - I have eaten at several Perkins' restaurants, and I have only received what I would call "acceptable" food.
Ruby Tuesday - Yes, good salad bar, and very good sliders. They are still around but having tough times.
Denny's - I had ONE bad meal at a Denny's once. All the other ones were great. The Grand Slamwich is terrific.
Waffle House - Very cook-driven rather than process-driven. Got a good cook, then the stuff is good. Otherwise, no.
Bob Evans - Average.
Hardee's/Carl's Jr. - Probably the worst fast food place there is. Overpriced and below average burgers.
McDonald's - They hit a home run with the fresh, not frozen Quarter Pounders. Quarter Pounder with cheese Deluxe is a very good burger.
Tim Horton's - I LIKE donuts, but not so much that I want to take on the calories. I'd rather have a burger if I'm going to indulge. Also, I have pretty much sworn off deli meat. Most of it is really bad for you. Most hot dogs are better for you these days than most deli meat.
Cracker Barrell - It's ok. I have only gone there with my 81-year-old parents, and I like them, so I have good times there, but the food is just slightly better than average.
This reminds me of a great book title: “Red Lobster, Blue Ribbon, Whte Trash”
Flagpole wrote:
Comments on some of the restaurants mentioned (never been to Sizzler, so no comment there):
Ponderosa - I liked it as a kid. Once I had some better restaurant meals, I never went back.
Big Boy - These are still all over the place. Burgers aren't bad, but there are better ones elsewhere.
Shoney's - I actually didn't know they were connected to the other Big Boys (Bob's and Frisch's), so thanks for the knowledge Luv2Run.
Perkins - I have eaten at several Perkins' restaurants, and I have only received what I would call "acceptable" food.
Ruby Tuesday - Yes, good salad bar, and very good sliders. They are still around but having tough times.
Denny's - I had ONE bad meal at a Denny's once. All the other ones were great. The Grand Slamwich is terrific.
Waffle House - Very cook-driven rather than process-driven. Got a good cook, then the stuff is good. Otherwise, no.
Bob Evans - Average.
Hardee's/Carl's Jr. - Probably the worst fast food place there is. Overpriced and below average burgers.
McDonald's - They hit a home run with the fresh, not frozen Quarter Pounders. Quarter Pounder with cheese Deluxe is a very good burger.
Tim Horton's - I LIKE donuts, but not so much that I want to take on the calories. I'd rather have a burger if I'm going to indulge. Also, I have pretty much sworn off deli meat. Most of it is really bad for you. Most hot dogs are better for you these days than most deli meat.
Cracker Barrell - It's ok. I have only gone there with my 81-year-old parents, and I like them, so I have good times there, but the food is just slightly better than average.
That's like a roll call of garbage chow. You must be one fat s.o.b.
More Ball Handling than Larry Bird wrote:
This reminds me of a great book title: “Red Lobster, Blue Ribbon, Whte Trash”
On some of the outings I lined up for my trek through the cultural undergrowth, I honestly suspected that someone had phoned ahead to ensure that the staff would maximize my discomfort. Typical was the night I dragged my family over to the local Red Lobster for our first-ever visit to the garish establishment. Red Lobster, I quickly learned, was a chain geared toward people who think of themselves as just a little bit too upscale for Roy Rogers. Even while waiting in the anteroom of the bogus sea shanty I could detect a certain aura of proletarian snootiness because of the way people were looking at me and my son. While Gordon, age ten, and I had turned up in nondescript T-shirts and shorts, the Red Lobster patrons were bedecked in their best windbreakers and their very finest polyester trousers.
"Next time, show some respect," their expressions suggested. "After all, you're eating at Red Lobster. This ain't some goddamn Wendy's."
The Red Lobster menu consisted almost entirely of batter cunningly fused with marginally aquatic foodstuffs and configured into clever geometric structures. I immediately began to suspect that the kitchen at Red Lobster consisted of one gigantic vat of grease in which plastic cookie molds resembling various types of food were inserted to create a structural resemblance to the specific item ordered. This was the only way to determine whether you were eating Buffalo wings or crabcakes. Technically, my dinner--The Admiral's Feast--was a dazzling assortment of butterfly shrimp, fish filet, scallops, and some mysterious crablike entity. But in reality, everything tasted exactly like Kentucky Fried Chicken. Even the French fries.
Red Lobster was a consummate bad experience. It wasn't just the Huey Lewis & the News ambience, it wasn't just the absence of mozzarella sticks from the menu that day, it wasn't just the party of twenty-nine seated next to us complaining about the service, it wasn't just the Turtles singing "Happy Together" overhead, it wasn't just the absence of root beer from the menu that day, it wasn't just the titular head of the party of twenty-nine incessantly referring to different members of his entourage as "landlubbers," and it wasn't even the way those social-climbing townies gave my son and me the once-over as we came through the door. No, it was definitely the food. The food tasted like baked, microwaved, reheated, overcooked, deep-fried loin of grease.
Admiral's Feast, my ass.
* * *
After my stomach lining had recovered from this dismal gastronomic sortie, I decided to immerse myself further in some of the most beloved books of the past decade. A good place to start was The Celestine Prophecy. This enormously popular book deals with the discovery of an ancient manuscript that predicted a revolution in human behavior at the dawn of the next millennium. The manuscript, purportedly written in sixth-century B.C. Aramaic, had been discovered in the rain forests of Peru and contained nine insights. One of the insights involved using a person's psychic energy field to connect with the flora and fauna all around us. The book had sold several million copies, presumably to that unnerving subset of Americans who exercise to Shirley MacLaine videos, are unaware of Dionne Warwick's pre-psychic career, voted for Jerry Brown in the 1992 Democratic primaries, and worship Baal.
la gente esta muy loca wrote:
https://i.imgflip.com/5ltumt.jpg
Too funny and good one!
The guy who wrote that(Joe Queenan, I presume) sounds like a really snide, judgmental little turd rocket, and a bit too clever for his own good.
this is it wrote:
Flagpole wrote:
Comments on some of the restaurants mentioned (never been to Sizzler, so no comment there):
Ponderosa - I liked it as a kid. Once I had some better restaurant meals, I never went back.
Big Boy - These are still all over the place. Burgers aren't bad, but there are better ones elsewhere.
Shoney's - I actually didn't know they were connected to the other Big Boys (Bob's and Frisch's), so thanks for the knowledge Luv2Run.
Perkins - I have eaten at several Perkins' restaurants, and I have only received what I would call "acceptable" food.
Ruby Tuesday - Yes, good salad bar, and very good sliders. They are still around but having tough times.
Denny's - I had ONE bad meal at a Denny's once. All the other ones were great. The Grand Slamwich is terrific.
Waffle House - Very cook-driven rather than process-driven. Got a good cook, then the stuff is good. Otherwise, no.
Bob Evans - Average.
Hardee's/Carl's Jr. - Probably the worst fast food place there is. Overpriced and below average burgers.
McDonald's - They hit a home run with the fresh, not frozen Quarter Pounders. Quarter Pounder with cheese Deluxe is a very good burger.
Tim Horton's - I LIKE donuts, but not so much that I want to take on the calories. I'd rather have a burger if I'm going to indulge. Also, I have pretty much sworn off deli meat. Most of it is really bad for you. Most hot dogs are better for you these days than most deli meat.
Cracker Barrell - It's ok. I have only gone there with my 81-year-old parents, and I like them, so I have good times there, but the food is just slightly better than average.
That's like a roll call of garbage chow. You must be one fat s.o.b.
Not currently. Fit and running a lot these days. Anyway, I don't eat that stuff much, but all the times add up from trips and so on.
Flagpole wrote:
this is it wrote:
That's like a roll call of garbage chow. You must be one fat s.o.b.
Not currently. Fit and running a lot these days. Anyway, I don't eat that stuff much, but all the times add up from trips and so on.
been to exactly one of those.
Pity me?
seattle prattle wrote:
Flagpole wrote:
Not currently. Fit and running a lot these days. Anyway, I don't eat that stuff much, but all the times add up from trips and so on.
been to exactly one of those.
Pity me?
Pity you? No. Everyone should do what they want. I like diner food and fast food, so I will fit that type of stuff in once in a while. One of my former bands used to go to Waffle House after gigs, so that was fun. It's an interesting bunch of people at Waffle House at 3 a.m....mostly stoners and/or bands (at least on the weekends).
Barry Lird wrote:
Jagic Mohnson wrote:
Big Boy is still going strong in my area.
Unfortunately the Elby's Big Boy Classic in Wheeling is no longer going strong. Tough hilly 20K with winners such as Bill Rodgers. Excellent Memorial Day event. Entirely downhill final mile that was always run as a race on Friday night. Sub-4s were common.
https://weelunk.com/the-elbys-empire-part-5/
Barry- thanks for posting the history of the Elby's 20K! It brought back fond memories of running the race in the early-mid 90's. At the time, it seemed that no expense was spared to bring in a host of celebrity runners. You are correct- the mile event on Friday was hot- the downhill took 16 seconds off my flat mile PR. It felt great for the mile, but was pretty brutal at the end of the 20K.
The whole city would come out, and the top runners fit right in. I remember having my pre-race dinner at the Big Boy downtown, and watching the Kenyan contingent sipping milkshakes and eating Big Boy burgers and fries.
I never thought about the logistics of the post-race fried chicken banquet- great description in the article- thanks for posting.
There's both a Ponderosa AND a Big Boy in Ludington, Michigan. The Ponderosa looked real busy, the Big Boy may have been closed down. I am to eat at the Ponderosa tomorrow, if possible.
Just an amusing story. My dad went out on his own in a consulting business in the 1970s. His first client was Ponderosa, his second was Tootsie Roll.
He did not specialize in the food industry but this just happened.
He always told us that visiting the Tootsie Roll factory was far harder on the senses than the Ponderosa plant, even with the latter's meat-pounding tenderizer methods.
My mom would have us eat at Ponderosa and eat Tootsie Rolls. She thought it was bad karma to not use these products since they were keeping us afloat.
By the way, the business was a success, but it was grim for a bit. The third client was Hormel!
