Restaurants. Sit downs, drive-ins, drive-through. Fancy, simple, buffet. What left the biggest impression? Or is the one you’ll always remember? A childhood favorite? A lifelong stop? Where does your heart go when you think of eating places?
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I miss this place so much.
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As a kid, my favorites were Burger Chef and McDonalds.
As an adult, my favorites have been Chi-Chi’s and Cheesecake Factory.
I’ve only tried two different things off the Cheesecake Factory menu (which is HUGE). I love their white-chicken chili. It’s about an hour away, so we don’t go very often. I’m too scared to try something else that I may not like as much and have to wait several months to get the chili again.
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Went to the Cheesecake Factory in Charlotte, NC over the Memorial Day weekend and it was pretty nice and fancy. Got our food and had some cheesecake desserts and they were pretty good too.
Got the bill and the total came to just under $120.00 ($150.00 with tip) 
Yeah it was not $150.00 good! 
I doubt we’ll be going back
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Eat is place I wanted to try. I waited for that chain of restaurants to pop up. Drunk Wolfgang Pucks, juke boxes, and Hershey bars.
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When I was a little kid we would occasionally stop in the McDonalds boat when we visited or passed through St. Louis. That was always a really cool place to eat.
One of my favorite restaurant experiences was when we were visiting my in-laws when they were working for a holiday camp in Normandy (we got a lot of cheap holidays when they had that job!). We somehow heard about the Restaurant Le Guillaume le Conquérant and decided to go there one night. It’s tucked away in an old medieval building and only has a handful of tables, but you’re there for the night and they take care of you. The food was amazing, with the courses spread out so you always felt too full to eat another bite, but then you’d get a little between-course nibble and suddenly you’d be ready to go again. Nothing about about it was fancy, just good, and while it wasn’t cheap, it was about what you’d expect to pay for a decent meal out.
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Going to Pizza Hut and getting spaghetti along with a soda in a big red plastic cup with crushed ice
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In a room like this?
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ABSOLUTELY! It was hard to find that RIGHT PICTURE.
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Restaurants? I don’t care for them.
But I like bars that serve food, and preferably without too much lighting. I find it a convenient way to snarf down a parcel of grub without a bunch of jibber-jabber.
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In the day, Long John Silver’s gave that same feeling as the old Pizza Huts. The Northeast decor, the bell you rang when you left. Even the simplicity of the interior gave you that homey vibe. At least for me. Memories.
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Is that in an old post office?
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I grew up with Noble Roman’s, a smaller chain than Pizza Hut which has largely moved to malls and convenience stores, but it was founded in my hometown of Bloomington, Indiana, and one of their stores, the first one ever, was great. There was a big window into the kitchen where you could watch them make the pizzas and they showed silent films and cartoons projected on the wall.
A few years later, they introduced something called the vegetable crostada, which was a cold pizza crust with a ranch-based sauce and a bunch of fresh veggies on top. It was amazing.
Another local restaurant, sadly closed now due to COVID killing its business, was called Opie Taylor’s. They had a caesar burger- just a burger with caesar salad as topping. And it was delicious. I wish other places did it. Seems like a no-brainer of an idea.
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So I have to ask, did it have any sort of tie-in to The Andy Griffith Show? If not, how did they avoid a lawsuit? Ya can’t convince me the owner’s name actually was Opie Taylor.
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That sounds pretty awesome.
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