Feeding at Texas Roadkill

Have you ever noticed those restaurants that are always packed to the gills--Hacienda Colorado, The Claim Jumper, Texas Roadhouse, et. al.--always serve up portions that no normal human being could eat in one sitting?  The food itself is just passable and, allowing for the different "cuisines" being featured, tastes the same, has the same texture, the same shiny plastic sheen on the salad dressings, the same apps, the same house special margaritas, the same sad low end wines from California.

The people, both customers and waitstaff, look the same as well.  There will be lots of overweight families out celebrating a birthday, or a graduation from junior high, or the purchase of a new pick-up.  The men will be sporting guts that strain their "Nobama" tee-shirts and chances are they'll be wearing ill-fitting baseball caps with mesh panels built in and a brim that advertises bull semen or something along that order.  The women, except for the lack of a baseball cap, are pretty much indistinguishable from the men and the little children are all clinically obese.  Everybody at the big table set for eight (the grandparents are tagging along) has a great time talking about the day and the special event.  But when the young and depressingly happy servers bring out the groaning plates of artery clogging meats and potatoes, the conversation stops and the family gets down to the serious business of feeding.  These places are not dining rooms; they're feeding troughs.

We went to a Texas Roadhouse a couple nights ago.  I would have written this yesterday, but it took me longer than normal to digest (ahem) the whole experience.  The place was packed.  There were people beginning to line up by the front door waiting to get a table just as we were getting seated.  We were led through this maze of cedar planking to a two-top booth in a back cubby hole next to two tables celebrating birthdays and both looking remarkably like my description above.  They seemed nice enough and the fact that there was just barely enough room for our happy waiter and his even happier busboys to squeeze through between our two tables didn't bother me at all until it was time to bring out the cake, or the cupcakes in this case.

From the back of joint, somewhere by the glass case displaying different cuts of withered looking beef came an incessant pounding and then a parade of all the staff led by a waiter carrying a full sized leather saddle.  I can only assume it was imported from the lone star state.  They wedged the saddle in the aisle between our tables and got everyone in the restaurant--everyone except Kathe and I--to yell a big Texas "Hee-Haw" in celebration of this chubby little kid's special day.  He had a hard time climbing up on the saddle and his leg was a little too chubby to fit between our tables, but hey, who noticed?  After the little celebration the folks in the restaurant all took a few minutes to settle back down to the serious business of stuffing chunks of, in most cases, well-done beef in their mouths.  The folks at the birthday table immediately quieted down after the saddle had been removed and dug into their chocolate sundaes, the ones they ordered to supplement the cupcakes.

The birthday celebration may have been annoying, but our food, with the exception of some pretty good fried pickles, wasn't even mediocre.  But mostly it is the service at such places that sets them apart.  The folks at Texas Roadhouse are evidently bound and determined to turn their (at least) 75 tables four times a night.  We got our cokes right away.  The pickles took a little longer and we were just starting to appreciate how thin and crispy they were when we had to push the plates aside to accommodate our salads.  I had just sprinkled my blue cheese crumbles when Kathie's prime rib and my rib eye came.  They must order their meat from the same company that supplies King Soopers.  That's exactly how indigestible it was.  I ate half of mine and took the rest home.  K did the same.  She likes masking the taste and texture of sub-prime beef in tomato soup the next day.  I would do the same, but I don't like tomato soup.  We decided to forego dessert and beat a fast retreat, determined never to return.  When we walked through the throngs of silent feeders, everyone on the wait staff smiled broadly and wished us a pleasant evening.  They smiled so much because they probably felt guilty about feeding us such swill.

Some people eat to live.  Those are the folks who get excited when they see a Cracker Barrel up ahead on the interstate.  I ate at a Cracker Barrel in Nebraska once.  The breakfast buffet was bountiful, crowded, and nightmarish.

Next time I go out to eat, I'm going to Mizuna.  If Mizuna offered blue cheese crumbles with their salads I'm pretty sure the wait staff would sprinkle them on for me.