Eating Out - - Grrr

When was the last time that you went out to eat? We don't make it a habit, but it's usually on the spur of the moment.

We took my brother out to eat went he came down from Minneapolis this last Wednesday night. It was 6 pm when we arrived at The Olive Garden. What a surprise we had. There wasn't a single parking place left and the over-flow crowd was waiting outside the front door. Pizza Hut, Chilies, Out Back Steak House and all of the others that are aligned just outside the frontage road of a Large mall were packed to capacity.

What is going on here! This is Wednesday night, not a Saturday after school gets out for the Holiday. Even the mall parking lot was almost full. I was speechless.

My wife suggested that we head back the way we came and look for something away from Madison. Good Luck - well we did find something, but we wound up driving several miles away from the city before we found a restaurant that wasn't completely jammed. We still had to wait twenty minutes.

After I had slugged down a beer at the bar, I was starting to feel like the night wasn't completely wasted when were finally seated. The food was good and the company was great, so how bad can things really be.

As it turned out, it wasn't as bad as I thought for an evening on the town. But the next time I have guests and volunteer to take them out to dinner, I will give the timing more thought.

Again, have a great New Year !