Bad news, good news.. turned into bad news

What the heck? I just found out that the outback steakhouse on Clinton just closed. Showed up with a truck one night and loaded it up. Jen said one of the waiters came into Disney and just told her they just showed up and told them they were closed. The official word from Outback was that the one restaurant still in town is ample enough to service the town. The unofficial word is that it wasn't making enough money. How could that be? Good luck getting into the place at almost any time.. especially during the weekends. AND they aren't even open all day long. How can a restaurant not tied to a mall, with lines out the door, only open for part of the day not be making enough money? It makes you want to scratch your head the same way when they closed both Uno's restaurants a couple of months ago. I can hear the rumblings of people blaming the smoking ordinance, but I seriously doubt that was the reason. There is still another Outback on the south side of town, but I seriously doubt we will ever go there. It's a nice place, but you have to drive half way to Columbia City to get to the restaurant... and you can see the stupid place from the highway!

In other what the heck restaurant news. Don Pablos closed too. Yeah I hadn't been there in years, but it was a real nice place for Mexican food.

Anyway, Sunday Jen and I decided to get away from the kids for a bit and have a "date". We dropped the kids off to grandma's, but we took Christopher with us since he was being a bit fussy and mom is still recovering from her back surgery. We end up at Olive Garden which is one of Jen's favorite places. I like the place, but have a hard time deciding what to get to eat. Most places I have one or two favorite dishes, or something I know I like. Yeah I am an old fuddy duddy like that. But this time I decided to expand my horizons a bit. I saw a plate on the "specials" menu that looked pretty good called Fontana Chicken. So I order it whereupon the waitress tells me that it's her favorite, and it's also the last day they will offer it because it was only there for a limited time. I get the meal and it is delicious. Whoo hooo I have a favorite, oh wait, no I don't. The only hope is that they might make it a "regular" item on the menu.