We saw staffing issues happen before the pandemic; like the summer of 2018 when the ‘visitors’ started getting overly entitled and the service staff started walking. We experienced that while travelling, too. What was in th air then?
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My cooking is better (for my tastes at least) than 90% of the restaurants we go to. But I still enjoy going to them if for no other reason than that it is nice to not be the one cooking and cleaning for the night. I feel this especially strongly post pandemic, when I was making lunch and dinner 7 days a week for months and months.
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I get this. The more experience I get, the the harder I find it to be wowed by restaurant fare, and the easier I find it to be disappointed when something’s not at least 95% right. For me, this applies across the board. In a way, I wish it wasn’t so, because my overall enjoyment of restaurants’ food has gone down a lot. It’s to a point that if a $$$ place doesn’t hit at least a 2-run homer, I regret going.
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But … that whole doing all the work thing while I enjoy a martini is not to be scoffed at.
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Just this evening, earlier, I asked older adult male and younger adult male to go to the pub with me. It’s not good food, it’s a 3 minute walk from our house, I desperately needed to get out of the house on a 93 degree day to get a drink and eat something I didn’t cook and that I didn’t have to clean up after.
It was worth it to me even though the food is far from great. We know all the servers, it’s our community center, and I got out of the house!!!
Younger adult son prepares all his own food and appreciates the occasional visit out for cheeseburger and fish and chips, which we don’t make at home.
Older adult male has cooked about 12 dishes for himself and me since his job ended November 2020.
Sometimes I just need to get out. And we get points: next time we go, we get $10 off the entire check.
It’s one of those “third places” (not work or home) that I really need from time to time.
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It’s apparently a thing in Asia: March 14, when in a sort of reverse Valentine’s Day, women give gifts to men, and they are supposed to be white in color.
It was real. Too frickin’ real to forget. Felt like I was back in Jim Crow. Sadly, when my bud’s grandma told me that, I went in and out like a flash. Just kept trying to process it all the way to the store, and still very bothered to this day. Messed up sht. Grandma’s cooking kicked ass. Still left with a bitter taste.
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Not scoffing at all. While I most times enjoy all the prep and cooking work, the expected scullery can push me over to going out. So I get that, too. But with few exceptions, I don’t go expecting great food.
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I cook for myself more than I go out to eat (as evidenced by my WFD participation).
For me, it’s not the clnot cooking (which I love to do) or the not cleaning (which I hate to do), but the camaraderie and enjoyment of time spent with my friends I’m dining with and the staff members.
I’m mostly a loner, so making myself be social is good for me and rejuvenates my personal energy, reminding me that there is good out there, and fun to be had with friends while enjoying a good meal.
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Exactly! I’m so glad to hear that you got the night “off” and got to enjoy letting someone else do the work.
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I totally get this.
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Absolutely horrible.
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At which point it is a steak.
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I mean, it’s fine, but it’s literally just chicken strips with a standard ketchup-mayo/Thousand Island-style sauce.
It’s nothing you can’t achieve with a bag of frozen supermarket strips. I’d eat there without complaint if it was the restaurant that happened to be at a highway rest stop, but I can think of a thousand other places I’d rather go, and I’d certainly never seek out Raising Cane’s.
I genuinely don’t understand how such a mediocre nothing of a place that serves only one easily replicable item is a profitable business, but clearly, I am not their targeted consumer.
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I was joking. I don’t eat at chains, generally, and certainly wouldn’t waste even a snack meal in the city on one.
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In general, I too eschew and avoid sitdown chains. Never been to an Olive Garden or Carrabas, stopped going to Red Robin after it franchised.
But I do eat from fast food drivethroughs when under time pressure or I can’t easily locate a better option. In these cases, I’m pre-resigned to the dependably mediocre and unhealthy offerings.
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I’ve been to an OG once for lunch, and we used to grab a bite at BK or McD’s on road trips, but these days we prefer to make sammiches to have in the car, which are infinitely better on many levels.
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Right! That’s what the server said, “Here’s your steak.” In which I responded, “I ordered the prime rib, please bring me the prime rib, thank you” Further discussion with the order-taker-server (what do you call that position? waiter, waitress, real server vs. trainee server?). “That’s the way we do it”. That’s a first for me after dining there for a few decades.
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Maybe it’s a Seattle thing, maybe it’s user error, but I’m really over the whole ‘we expect you to share everything, will bring out plates at random times so nothing goes together, and nothing is a balanced entree so even though you spend $100/pp you’re still hungry and don’t feel like you’ve really eaten a meal’ type places. 
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We share this preference. But do you always keep something in your car(s) that you think is infinitely superior to McD and BK? I mean, I always keep something edible, e.g., a Slim Jim stick or a protein drink box, but I definitely don’t prefer those to most fast food. Taco Bell might be an exception.
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