AT HOME HE’S A TOURIST (2012 EDITION): I’LL BE YR SERVER TODAY

I eat food.

There was much of it this US trip. Too much, actually. Which is typical of my stateside trips – a friend ordered a small salad and it came on a plate the size of a large pizza.

Also, as usual, most of this took place in the kinds of restaurants where the servers are yr new BFF to the point where you want to punch them. Especially Chili’s. But they are designed for hanging out with actual friends for a couple of hours, which was what I was doing there in the first place (otherwise I’d be eating at, I dunno, Sonic or something).

I’ve already covered the IHOP in Santa Clara, so here are some bloggable highlights from the Tennessee leg of the trip:

1. Bel Air Grill

CLASSIFICATION: Bar and grill with pseudo-50s décor and a pseudo-50s menu.

BLOGGABILITY: the gratuitous pseudo-Elvis statue out front.



THE FOOD: I had an overpriced chili dog. It was pretty good.

FUN FACT: I passed by an antique store in Nashville, and there were about four identical pseudo-Elvis statues out front. I’d have bought one if it wouldn’t have put me well over my baggage weight limit.

2. Rafferty’s

CLASSIFICATION: Ostensibly a steakhouse, but if you've ever been to Ruby Tuesday's, TGI Friday's or Shooters 52, you pretty much know what's on the menu.

BLOGGABILITY: The gratuitous rack of flatscreens.



One screen was tuned to the World Poker Championship (or something involving poker, anyway). Cat, Suzie and I couldn’t stop giggling at it, especially when they showed the guy wearing the Brazilian flag as a cape and looking bored to death.

THE FOOD: I had a bacon burger drowned in BBQ sauce. Tasty!

FUN FACT: The server was a good sport who pretended to get my Thin Lizzy references.

3. Misaki

CLASSIFICATION: A Japanese steakhouse – the kind where you get yr own chef grilling meat with knife-fu, juggling utensils, throwing bowls into his hat, setting the table on fire, etc.

BLOGGABILITY: See above.

THE FOOD: I had the ribeye and teriyaki chicken with veggies and fried rice. Very tasty, but way too much of it.

FUN FACT: I’d never actually been to that kind of restaurant before, and my sister was keen to take me. Entertaining, it was.

And there you are.

Check please,

This is dF

WINGS, BREASTS AND THIGHS

Speaking of American restaurants ...

As many of you know, I have something of a love/hate relationship with Hooters.

I’ve never been in one in my life. But I’ve always been both fascinated and annoyed by it – fascinated because it really does serve as a microcosm of uniquely American culture (capitalism, patriotism, fatty food, beer, sports and shallowness in the form of impossibly hot, fun-loving waitresses), and annoyed because Hooters has always steadfastly refused to admit that the main marketing point of the whole chain is “titties” despite the fact that everyone knows.

Anyway, if you know anything about the rise of chain restaurants, success often breeds imitation. And given Hooter’s success, it’s surprising that up to now I haven’t stopped to wonder why more entrepreneurs haven’t tried to run with the sexy-waitress-with-big-tits idea (apart from the business challenges of protests, discrimination accusations and trademark infringement litigation).

Turns out there’s quite a few – so much so that there’s even a business category for them: “breastaurant” (not to be confused with restaurants that cater to moms who want to breastfeed their infants – and we have those too).

Take Twin Peaks, for example (cheers to bedsitter23  for the tip). It has nothing to do with the TV show, but it does feature a sort of Pacific Northwest lumberjack theme.

Observe.



Classy!

According to the Des Moines Register, you can forget about dropping David Lynch references to the waitress – odds are she wasn’t even born when the TV show was broadcast (ouch!). You could probably still ask them to do that trick with the cherry stem, I suppose (in case it’s part of the job interview or something).

Anyway, Twin Peaks is just one example of a not-Hooters chain. There’s also Bone Daddy's House of Smoke, Brick House Tavern + Tap, the Tilted Kilt Pub and Eatery, Burger Girl and The Honey Shack.

Meanwhile, the same concept has also been applied to hair salons and coffee shops.

It’s tempting to chalk it up to the “success breeds imitation” axiom. On the other hand, consider this little factoid from Business Insider:

Between 2009 and 2010, 5,550 restaurants -- or 1 percent -- closed down nationwide. In 2009, restaurant sales decreased three percent, the worst decline in decades.

Casual-dining restaurants closed down, but breastaurants kept opening and beer sales kept increasing.

Which implies a couple of things: (1) guys are more likely to spend money in a downturn if there’s cleavage involved, and (2) tit-themed businesses are one of the biggest employment opportunities for women who also happen to be buxom babes – especially during a recession.

Make of that what you will.

FUN FACT: While Hooters originated in Florida, most of the breastaurant chains listed above have originated in Texas.

Make of that what you will.

More than a mouthful,

This is dF

YOUTUBE SURVIVOR SERIES #127: QUARTERFLASH, INTERRUPTED

If I was doing a music series like bedsitter23 ’s Raised On Radio, one of the first entries might be Quarterflash.

You remember Quarterflash – “Harden My Heart”, Rindy Ross and her saxophone, and if nothing else the first band you'd heard of from Portland, Oregon before it became a hip indie scene.

I had their debut album, and I played it a lot, though usually I never got past the first two songs – “Harden My Heart”, and “Find Another Fool”, the latter of which was my favorite track on the album.

Here it is – with gratuitous Solid Gold Dancers and very gratuitous Andy Gibb and Marilyn McCoo interrupting the electric violin solo.

I wonder how Quarterflash felt about that.

FUN FACT: I saw Quarterflash live in 1983, you know.

They played at the University of Tennessee at Martin – which, incidentally, is probably an indicator of how small-time Quarterflash still were despite having a few big radio hits. Still, I was 18, and thought it was cool that a band I liked would come to my university to play. As I remember, they were pretty good live.

The opening act? DFX2.

You remember DFX2 … well, no, maybe you don’t. They were from San Diego, had a hit on MTV and sounded like this:

I remember them mainly because they were getting pretty much no reaction from the audience – not even boos or tomatoes. They played well, but I guess the Quarterflash/DFX2 fan overlap was close to zero. I felt bad for them – it was painful to watch, especially when they tried to get a call and response going during a cover of Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel”, in which they expected us to shout “HOT TRAMP!”

The first time, everyone was caught off guard. Every time after that, I was the only one who played along. Which possibly made it worse for them. I dunno.

Spare change you can count,

This is dF