I apologize ahead of time, but this rant has been a long time coming. Why do restaurants always drop my favorite item from the menu? It’s happened time and time again. Baker’s Square dropped their Wisconsin cheese burger. Then they added a tasty fried chicken sandwich with cheese, and dropped it. Granite City Brewery had a Southern fried chicken sandwich that was actually pretty unique and had a nice kick to it. The second time I ordered it the waitress commented that they were dropping it from the menu. Bah.
But TGI Fridays is the worst offender. It started many years ago with the pizza-dilla appetizer. Yes, it was a weird combination of pizza and quesadilla, but it was really good. Then they had this chicken dinner platter that could feed an army. It was two chicken breasts topped with three kinds of cheese and mushrooms. Plus mashed potatoes. And finally there was my latest favorite, the chicken finger BLT. So basic, so tasty. But last night at TGI Fridays I flipped through the pages of the menu and realized in horror that it was gone.
My ability to branch and try something new is now completely destroyed. I can’t try something new at a restaurant because my favorite might not be on the menu next time, so I better eat it now.
Sigh. OK, end rant.
See, it’s good they are dropping items. If they didn’t, you’d be stuck eating the same thing forever.
And what’s wrong with that?
Josh & I have the problem of restaurants we like going out of business or foods we like simply not existing around here. The nearest Taco John’s is in Nevada. We used to go to the Lori’s Diner in Cupertino (the only place we could consistently agree on), then it closed unexpectedly. They opened another one 10 miles away, but it’s not the same. No one here even knows what a cheese curd is. And don’t even get me started on French dressing!
I’m right there with you on the Wisconsin Cheeseburger at Baker’s Square, even though I haven’t eaten there since about five years ago when they served me raw chicken strips (the breading was cooked, the chicken was not). Panera used to have a good Cuban sandwich that they dropped from their menu (I’ve discovered that the very-Panera-like Atlanta Bread Company in Appleton has a good Cuban, though). And there’s a Mexican restaurant by our house in Chanhassen that used to have this fantastic chorizo burrito, but it’s been gone for a couple years now.
All that to say, I feel your pain, man. Even more so because I’m a menu experimenter. It usually takes me a few visits to find something that I’ll be satisfied with ordering on repeatedly, and then it disappears from the menu.