I miss salad bars. They'd already gotten pretty scarce before this pandemic and they're not going to come back any time soon.
There's a lunch place across from where I work that's got one, but my lunch break is late, they are understaffed and by the time I get there, it's more science experiment than temptation.
It used to be that no small-town steak joint worthy of the name lacked a salad bar. It was a necessary component. They seemed to fade away with the first round of chain-restaurant steak places (Bonanza, Ponderosa, Mr. Steak) and their standalone competitors. The next bunch (Outback, Texas Roadhouse, etc.) don't seem to have them -- and for my money, the steaks aren't the same, either.
Some fine, far-off day there will be sit-down chow joints and salad bars again. Some day.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
5 comments:
I've had the pleasure over the years of introducing various foreigners to the concept. The memory that sticks out the most, however, was one that I visited two different times with two different Australians, one with no "indoor voice" who spent the whole journey along the bar loudly describing her care of her "pot plants" (their name for houseplants generally, rather than plants in the family Cannabaceae), and another who had been on a fruitless search for fuel for her camping stove, describing her increasing frustration through the day as no one would tell her where in the area she could buy "meths" (methylated spirits, or denatured alcohol in American).
We spent an overnight in a larger town recently for a specialist medical appointment, and the local non-chain steakhouse had a great one. I had been under the suspicion that they had gone out of favor because of some recurring health concern, but an article on the subject informs me that most did not survive a temporary increase in staple prices resulting from a drought in California:
https://www.eater.com/2017/1/5/14167772/salad-bar-steakhouse-history-all-you-can-eat
Scarce,
A hug from a good friend I've not seen for a while.
Eck!
Me too. At fast food joints, a small order of chicken nuggets, each piece cut into thirds, tossed in a small side salad and some crackers made for a filing lunch. I take blood thinners so I have to definitely watch the Vitamin K levels, which green leafies unfortunately have so I didn't have it all the time.
But yeah - miss the 'turf'. But the risk of food handling sources of covoid is pretty high - so many people involved in one meal.
Just realized the other day how much I miss QuikTrip roller dogs. That was a delicious, weekly or so treat.
I wonder how many of the buffet type places will survive this.
The food is usually mediocre at best (although the local Golden Corral has one guy that can cook steak to what I consider the proper level of done). For the me the big attraction is when I'm with a group it cuts out the argument of whether to go to a steak place, Mexican, burgers...
One of the better local TexMex places had a pretty good lunch buffet as well. The fixings bar had enough stuff to make a pretty good non-TexMex salad if you wanted.
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