Longhorn... Shhhh!

I don't eat at chain restaurants. I could go the rest of my life without eating at another chain restaurant. I ate at a chain restaurant. 

These are just a few of the places I avoid!

It must have been the long week i had, or the work drama i was having to deal with, or simply an abundance of apathy welling up inside me, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. Melissa convinced me to eat at a chain restaurant. I still am not quite sure how she was able to do this but it started with us discussing our eating options for the evening. She wanted a steak. I wanted "something good!", which meant i needed comfort food and didn't want something ordinary or common.

Due to my fried "end of the work week" brain or low energy I couldn't put my finger on exactly what i wanted. However, Melissa kept mentioning that steak and now stated she wanted a $20 steak not a $42 steak. Well, that eliminated Parker's on Ponce and a few other Decatur favorites and that is when Melissa uttered those dirty words.... She could eat at Longhorn! No, i said.. ugh... i'm not eating there. So I started at the end of West Ponce and listed each restaurant attempting to find something we could both agree on. She threw out a few and nothing she mentioned sounded good to me, just as nothing i mentioned sounded good to her. I was in an admittedly fussy mood and Melissa was dead set on a steak, therefore we could not seem to find anything we both wanted.

Finally i said "we live in Atlanta, it is not like we are still in Jackson (MS, where we both used to live) or Oak Ridge (LA, where i grew up, pop, 150) surely we can find something we want. At this point i could tell Melissa was getting fussy, was about to abort mission and was about to get take out from Moe's or something else equally as disgusting. Therefore in a moment of what must have been sheer boredom, tiredness, or insanity I said "After all this, hell i'll just go to Longhorn".

I know she couldn't believe it, hell i couldn't either. At this point all i wanted to do was get out of the house, eat something good and hang out. Therefore the food and atmosphere would have to sacrifice.

As we pulled into the Longhorn parking lot I immediately begin joking that we would be eating with the blue hairs. After all not only were we there before 6:30, we were also at Longhorn. She laughed but obviously didn't care and quite frankly we had both been up since 5:00AM so it was time for dinner.

Needless to say we had no problem finding parking and as we walked into the restaurant I started laughing because not only were we two of the twelve people there, we are the only people under 60. When the hostess sat us in the bar i thought, well at least she knows were we belong.

Before we even sat down Melissa knew what she wanted to order and i was still in shock that i was inside a chain restaurant. I was looking around like i was in foreign country or some sort of exhibit at Disney World. Our waitress appeared and immediately started the corporate spiel and asked us if we wanted to start out with some fancy-named drink or whatever appetizer they were promoting that month. I tire of this rhetoric easily and am already annoyed. Remember, I came here fussy.

They tried to sell us this and tried to sell it to the table behind us, and the table in front of us. There is so much paperwork it takes you a several minutes just to sort through all of it.

I quickly look over the menu so i can be ready to order and decide I'll have a steak. Shocking, i know. As i look around the restaurant i wonder who the other patrons are and realize i could never hang out at the Longhorn bar after work like two separate men appear to be doing. Why would you go here when a great bar/restaurant like Shorty's is in walking distance, I wonder?

For a few minutes i feel like i am in the twilight zone but oh well, i'm here, let's eat. We both get a salad, baked potato and a steak. The food was good. Nothing remarkable but nothing bad. The salad was your standard chain restaurant tossed salad that was average but not anything wonderful or different. The baked potato was good, as it should be since about the only way you can screw that up is to undercook it. The steak tasted fine. It was cooked properly but was a little salty for my taste. They must have some sort of seasoning shaker here with premixed seasonings as that is the type of flavor that is imparted. Or perhaps the saltiness came from all the butter and leftover seasonings on the grill? Who knows but I eventually had to stop eating it because all i could taste was salt.

As we finished our meal Melissa exclaimed that she loved Longhorn and wanted to come back. She went on and on about how she got the salad, potato and steak all for around $25. I understand her point since this is how i grew up eating and tend to expect a salad, baked potato and bread with my steak. But i don't tend to frequent these type of joints much anymore. For instance, if we would have gone to the aforementioned Parker's the price of the steak ($30) would have been just that... the price of the steak. If we wanted a salad or sides it would have been at least $10 more. Parkers is good, but i began to wonder if it was that good?

Before I was converted, I decide it is not so much the food that keeps me away from chain restaurants but its the atmosphere, ambiance and people. When i enter this Longhorn I could be in Decatur, Denver or Demorest and would not know the difference. I prefer places with local fare, that have character and reflect the local area. I don't like looking around and feeling like i am in a cookie cutter place in Anywhere, USA. When i go to the Brick Store I know i am in Decatur and when i go to Johnny's Pizza i know i am in Monroe, LA.

The Brick Store Pub

Furthermore while i am sure our server lives in the area, I don't get that vibe. It's almost as if she is from out-of-town visiting Atlanta for the week. The bartender looked like Flo from Mel's Diner and the canned corporate sound bites the servers are required to recite at each table along with the fact they are all dressed identically does not impart a hometown feel. Not only does this make me feel like i am not getting personal service it also makes me feel like i am talking to a robot.

A true restaurant robot dispensing food.

I am used to servers that live around the corner, know my name or at the very least seem like real people. When i go to a restaurant i like to get the feel that i can sit back and stay awhile. I like to be treated as a person and i like to feel some connection to the menu, the people and the atmosphere.

Loved this show! This pic makes me want to watch some episodes!

It is not likely you'll go to Longhorn and become friends with the servers (like we have at Avondale Pizza) because they are too busy reciting their lines to talk to you. It is also not likely you'll stay awhile because they focus on you coming in, eating and leaving, and you'll never get to know the owner (like I have at Taqueria del Sol, AP, BSP, The Pig, and a few other places), because the owner is some corporation in a far away land.

All in all everything is just too corporate for me. Yes the food is predictable or consistent as some folks say, but so is everything else.

The steak was fine, I got to hang out with my friend and i survived the experience. But again, it is not that the food is horrible, it is the rest of the story that makes me want to visit the locally owned joints. The food is average, not bad enough to complain, good enough to go back in a pinch. But the chain restaurant vibe, the robotic identically dressed servers, the corporate menu, the exact measurements of alcohol and my fellow clientele are what make me want to run as fast as i can to the first locally owned joint i can find.

Shorty's is across the parking lot from Longhorn, and damn good!

But as we were leaving the joke turned on me. The parking lot was now full and there was even a wait for tables. Apparently there is a market for this type of food and atmosphere. I am surprised as i would think people only eat at chains when they are traveling and either don't have time to find the local fare or are scared to be adventurous. Nevertheless, Melissa loved telling me we had just eaten at the hottest place in Decatur. "Well, we're really in Toco Hills" i stated, as we headed back to the land where there is not a chain in sight. Ah, home sweet Decatur.