70's dining

A few years ago my step mother gave me gift certificate to Steak and Ale for Christmas. I have to admit I didn't give this gift certificate much thought until my friend Alex came into town and he thought it would be amusing to use it. As we pulled into the parking lot a sense of nostalgic happiness flooded over me. Just about every Friday night my family would head out to a restaurant, usually a steakhouse. We mostly ended up at Bonanza but occasionally it would be a Sizzler or a Steak and Ale. As I walked into the door of Steak and Ale with Alex I felt comfortable and relaxed. I looked over at him and saw a big grin come over his face. I asked what he was thinking and he said " it feels like coming home, there is something so familiar about this place". The restaurant was set up as a series of small separate rooms containing four to six tables each. It made for a cozy environment and the thick carpet and low ceiling as well as the heavily textured stucco walls made for a quiet dining experience. The service was attentive and the food was a step above the regular chain fair. There was nothing healthy or light on the menu but we were eating as our fathers had eaten in their prime; Red meat, alcohol, butter, salt and fat dominated the meal. We spent much of the meal talking about our childhood in the seventies and our fathers influence on the men we had become. I subsequently took other friends to the same Steak and Ale and each time they all responded with a sense of happy nostalgia. Everyone also appreciated the quiet atmosphere and professional service.I keep an eye out for sixties and seventies restaurants now and when I find one I check out how they have held up. Usually they have become a little shabby and rundown and almost always I am the youngest patron in the joint. I like that these places don't embrace the loud, excited, "fun" vibe that most modern chains insist on promoting. I understand that a restaurant wants to turn the table quickly and that a hyper, upbeat, loud environment leads to you eating more of their product but it isn't what I look for when I go out to dine. I think our parents were onto something when they dined out and I plan to continue to search out these forgotten icons of unhealthy food choices. Take a look at another example of our dining past:

http://www.sambosphotos.com/


Image courtesy of Sean Davis, Flickr,creative commons license