The other night Frank and I took “the kids” to Bahama Breeze. When we told the waitress that she could feel free to bring out Leo’s mac and cheese before our food she said, “Hey, were you guys here last week?”
She remembered our mac and cheese request from the week before. And when the guitar player recognized Leo we knew what was happening…
We were turning into our parents.
We now had a Friday night place…a restaurant that we keep coming back to every weekend, rather than venturing out to a new one or even a different one.
For my family there were three restaurants that we frequented on Friday nights. Now, I don’t mean that we rotated these restaurants. I mean that for a period of about three to five years we patronized Wendy’s (back when they had the salad bar). Then it was Grandy’s. And finally, Golden Corral. (Or it may have been Grandy’s and then Wendy’s but it was definitely GC when I was in my teens.)
It was like a ritual. There was no discussion of where to go. We would just automatically go to the same place.
In Frank’s family it was Little Caesar’s Pizza. Every Friday they would pick up Little Caesar’s and bring it home. Never did they have it delivered. Never did they venture out to Domino’s. And never did they eat it on premise (although I’m not sure if LC’s has seating.)
I guess once you become a family of at least four, you’re so tired of making decisions that you need one thing that’s just consistent. Or maybe you just go with the one that works—the one that makes the majority happy.
But we were surprised that our Friday night staple would be Bahama Breeze. For one thing, when we first moved to Atlanta we made a point to only go to restaurants that we couldn’t go to in Texas. But after four years, we feel like we’ve tried enough Atlanta originals and we’re fine with the familiar. Plus, Frank likes the Aruba Red beer, I like the food and fun drinks and Leo likes the mac and cheese and guitar player. Oh, and Gus thinks it’s a great place for sleeping in his car seat.
Still, if you had told us four years ago that we’d repeatedly visit BB, we’d say, “No way!”
Also, it’s a little pricey for a weekly trip. If we’re gonna adopt a restaurant and become true regulars, we’re gonna need to take it down a notch or we’ll go broke.
Easy problem to solve: There’s a Golden Corral right across the street from BB. I don’t think they have Aruba Red but I hear the mac and cheese is excellent.
3 comments:
Sometimes we feasted on our Little Caesars pizza at the neighborhood pool rather that just delivered to our home! Now that we're empty nesters we try a variety of restaurants, especially if we have a Groupon. And did you know your Atlanta area restaurant, Bahama Breeze is owned by Landry's, headquartered in Houston? The first Landry's restaurant (1980) was in Katy, just a mile or 2 from our neighborhood pool. We only frequented it once in those days...too expensive for a family of 5. For your NS file:Landry's CEO Tilman Fertitta is the person who has provided his private plane for Gabrielle Giffords & her husband for their travels between Tucson and Houston.
You and your sister never ate anything anyway, so we just went where we (the adults) wanted to go.
I remember when we were really little we would go to the Red Lobster near NASA. You waited in line for a table, instead of just giving your name to the hostess. I did like the popcorn shrimp, and coloring!
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