Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[trappedslider]

not to distract from the restaurant talk but

 

[gnarlygninja]

Here's a picture from the Wall Street Journal, of the old design:
View attachment 411761

...and here's a picture from the same source, of the new remodel:
View attachment 411760

My reaction:

That before pic is a really tame example ime. Most of them look like a flea market exploded.

 

[TiQuinn]

Unrelated vent: Dude acted like a giant pissbaby and I’m glad to get confirmation the reason he was acting so turned out to be completely invalid.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The last time I was in one, they actually disappointed me. I ordered food that should have been in their wheelhouse: country fried steak with brown gravy, fries, and a cucumber/tomato/onion salad. The meal was meh at best, and the salad was virtually flavorless.

I'm kind of a big fan of country fried steak, so that'd have had me going "Really?"

(Not that I eat it often because that's just what my diet needs, but its still probably my go-to comfort dish).

 

[Wolfram stout]

That before pic is a really tame example ime. Most of them look like a flea market exploded.

Yeah, I was wondering where the rusty farming tools hanging from the ceiling were in the first picture.

 

[Thomas Shey]

From my limited experience I would refer to the decor as stylistically (not literally) beige.

Yeah, that sounds right; I used to occasionally go to the one near us right before COVID as an excuse to eat a lot of meat (my preferred way to do that are Brazilian BBQs, but there's none particularly close).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

OK, you're saying something weird and wrong about my job but A) I'm not going to decloak to correct you and B) you would try to tell me I'm wrong anyway.

 

[dragoner]

That pic looks exactly like the crackerbarrel in my town.

 

[MNblockhead]

Im just glad the "brick-a-brac" era is gone. You know where the walls and ceiling are decorated in junk ready for the trash hauler. Some dives might have done these things and it was quaint and neighborhood-ish, but the corpo chain was depressing.

My dad's side of the family were dairy farmers and the farm had been in the family for over a century. Over 700 acres. There was an area that was junk yard (old tractor/truck/car graveyard), a barn that had been hit by a tornado and they just built a new barn in another area and left the old wood of the old barn laying there with the partially underground stable area used as a place for grazing cows to get out of inclement weather. We also had three airport hangers built by the government during WWII when the government used a section of the land as an auxillary/overflow flight school to train South American pilots. Not sure if this was by agreement or eminent domain, but they got to keep the buildings after the war.

In the 80s there were lot of companies and individuals who would come and just buy the old junk. I'm not surprised about people buying old vehicle bodies and parts and old tools and stuff, but a lot of people were buying old, weathered wood, apparently mostly for decorating restaurants and bars.

Whatever I may think of the kitsch of 80s restaurants, it helped my dad's family make some money and get rid of a lot of junk.

 

[MNblockhead]

One thing that I do miss, is the local restaurants with the signed pics of famous visitors. They seem to have all but disappeared.

Still seems to be alive and well in the midwest. At least Minneapolis and Milwaukee. In Milwaukee, Mader's has signed photos of celebrities from Alfred Hitchcock to Billie Eilish. Manny's Steakhouse in Minneapolis also comes to mind for keeping up the tradition of celebrity signed-photos covering the walls.