Jolt Country

There are places that offer "all you can eat" specials that make sense, and there are places where "all you can eat" specials do not make sense.

Take your average pizza buffet, for example. Back when I worked at Pizza Hut, I had a manager tell me that a large supreme pizza cost $1.80 to make, and $1 of that was cheese. Your average buffet pie has closer to a buck's worth of ingredients on it. If you pay $5 for all you can eat at a pizza joint, unless you manage to put down five large pizzas, they come out ahead and you feel like you got your money's worth. Don't forget the $2 glass of soda, in which you can only put about a dime's worth of drink into. And in the back of the restaurant, the manager is praying that you eat some salad. I doubt a human being could actually eat $5 worth of lettuce in one sitting.

Now take some place like KFC or Long John Silvers (LJS), both of which offer all you can eat specials around here. All you can eat at a fried chicken place is a bad idea. It may not seem like a bad idea at first until you get a few pieces of extra crispy in you and throw a scoop of every single side item they offer on top of it. Even worse is the LJS buffet. You just don't realize how much grease is in that stuff until you bite into it. By the time your on your second or third piece it really hits you. Note that for $2 less than the price of the buffet you can get the 5 piece dinner (3 pieces of deep fried chicken and 2 pieces of deep fried fish), which comes with 2 sides and 2 hushpuppies, so if you're getting the all you can eat, you have to at least eat more than that to get your money's worth.

Our town is lucky enough to have our own Elvis impersonator. Several years ago, he opened his own restaurant. It's called the Fat Elvis Diner. It's a diner that sells burgers and chili and the inherently Oklahoman "onion burger". I thought about taking ICJ there when he was in town, but the water's not exactly clear and the ketchup bottles are a little sticky and when you refer to the place as a greasy spoon, it's not just a saying.

The Fat Elvis Diner has not been without controversy. Last year, Fat Elvis was busted for selling oxycodone in the restaurant to an undercover officer, and in 2007 his daughter was stabbed to death in a horrible murder. There's a lot of locals that won't eat at the diner anymore, which I think is a shame. It's a dirty, filthy hole in the wall place with great food.

Which brings me to their all you can eat buffet. It's $8, and they limit you to 3 items at a time. The guy next to us yesterday ordered it. He got two burgers (a quarter pounder and a half pounder) and an order of chili-cheese fries. Where do you go from there? I mean, doesn't that "3 at a time limit" seem like a challenge? Wouldn't you feel like you had to at least go two rounds?

I don't know where I'm going with this now. All I know is, an onion burger, an order of tator tots and an extra large frito chili pie used to sound like a good time. Now it sounds like an evening on the pot. Just sayin'.

Flack wrote: I thought about taking ICJ there when he was in town, but the water's not exactly clear and the ketchup bottles are a little sticky and when you refer to the place as a greasy spoon, it's not just a saying.

I lived in San Diego back during the 1970s and one thing that San Diego's Health Department required at the time was restaurant inspections. They range from "A" to "D", and I can't remember too many places having anything other than A. I actually saw a restaurant with a "B" card; I do not remember anyone being in the place, but then again, I'm trying to remember something no later than 1975 and probably earlier.

Plus you have to display your grade in full public view; most restaurants posted their card right on the front window. I remember that even elementary school kitchens had inspections; the cafeteria in our school had its "A" card hanging from the ceiling.

I took a short vacation once and drove down to South of the Border, a tourist trap and fireworks store in Dillon, South Carolina, right on the NC/SC border. I noticed that in North Carolina, restaurants there also have a letter grade card publicly displayed, same as San Diego did.

From what you're telling me, I suspect this place wouldn't even qualify for a "D" card!

I've only seen one place in California with a "C" and I went to it -- a Hamburger Hamlet joint in Burbank.

My friend Adam would not be SEEN in such a place -- he would ONLY eat in "A" restaurants.

I wanted to punch him every time he made this idiotic statement, because most of the time he ate out of his filthy fucking kitchen in his filthy fucking apartment, and every kitchen he ever ate out of would have gotten a DOUBLE F MINUS.

Adam's kind of a dick, I guess is my point here.

I am sorry for the stabbing murder, though, Flack. Thanks for bringing everyone down.

pinback wrote:I've only seen one place in California with a "C" and I went to it -- a Hamburger Hamlet joint in Burbank.

Was this in San Diego County? Burbank implies the town in Los Angeles County - Disney and KNBC Channel 4 are there - and as far as I know, only San Diego County had public restaurant grading; I do not remember any public grade system in Los Angeles County. Long Beach didn't have it and neither did Los Angeles City, Compton, La Mirada, Lakewood, Torrance, Norwalk, Santa Monica or Inglewood, all of the cities I can remember being at any public place in LA County where they prepared food.

Of course, I haven't been in LA County in at least 20 years so this may have changed.

Update: After I wrote this I did a search and discovered that LA County did implement a grade card system in 1998, basically after the TV stations ran some exposes that showed that a number of restaurants were filthy but passed inspection. The LA County Board of Supervisors went ballistic and ordered there be an improvement in inspections.

That occurred some ten years after I moved out of California, which is why I didn't know about it. According to a paper I read, every city in Los Angeles County except Long Beach, Vernon and Pasadena had implemented the A-B-C card system. The report I reference below mentions that North Carolina and Tennessee also have A-B-C letter grade systems.

A grade is at least 90% compliance with health regulations, B is 80% and C is 67% or below, and a place apparently will be closed down if it drops below 60%.

Note that "A" grade doesn't mean "perfect." A cockroach infestation, for example, will only cost a place 3 points.

Source: "Restaurant Inspections: What no one is telling you" about Orange County's lack of a letter grade system. Publication of the Orange County Grand Jury. http://www.ocgrandjury.org/pdfs/restaur ... aurant.pdf

Californians deciding to only eat at "A" rated places is such a fucking Californian thing to do. Before this thread I didn't even know that restaurants HAD ratings like that.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Californians deciding to only eat at "A" rated places is such a fucking Californian thing to do. Before this thread I didn't even know that restaurants HAD ratings like that.

Actually, prior to 1998, you would be correct, as only San Diego had the card grading system. But it's not a "Californian" thing; the whole idea of the card system is to create a "race to the top" where restaurants watch their cleanliness in order to get and keep their "A" rating. Orange and Imperial counties do not implement the rating card system.

Further, as I noted in my original posting, North Carolina had the A-B-C card system too, and that was back before 2000 when I drove through there on my way to South of the Border.

That report from the Orange County Grand Jury I mentioned above stated that prior to Los Angeles County implementing a card system, about 55% of restaurants scored 90% or better (qualify for "A" card) on their inspections. After the card system went into effect, that number went up to 85%. About 35% of restaurants had an 80-89% (qualify for "B" card), but after cards became mandatory, that number dropped to 10%, and those below "B" dropped from about 15% to less than 6. In short, making inspection results public caused a significant improvement in restaurant cleanliness.

It also notes that routinely, restaurants in poor districts in non-carded regions tend to have worse cleanliness, but after carding, the cleanliness of restaurants in poor areas rose dramatically.

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Californians deciding to only eat at "A" rated places is such a fucking Californian thing to do. Before this thread I didn't even know that restaurants HAD ratings like that.

A friend of mine who is a manager at Quizno's told me that the giant letter "Q" they display in their restaurants correlates somehow to their last (internal) grade. The giant Q's come in green, yellow, and red, but they're not what you think; for some reason I think red is the best, followed by green, and then yellow. Or maybe yellow and green are swapped, I don't know. I do specifically remember that green was not the best.

I guess it doesn't help to know the secret code if you can't fucking remember it. Fuck.

Does anyone know if fast-food and "good" restaurants are being judged off the same scale? Because alot of the "good" restaurants in CA and GA didn't have their cards out, and their rating was at best a B-. I worked at one of those places, and they said they constantly got downgraded for having an open kitchen viewable from the salad bar and restaurant proper, which actually meant that they could get away with virtually nothing as people could see them, but as far as ratings went it was one less wall, or something.

And my god their food was delicious. They were constantly rated a 4 star restaurant with a C health standard. Another restaurant I worked at was the same - a C- rating, although the only thing going on there was the dishwasher occasionally took whole foods off the plate and ate them, which, like, nobody begrudged her, because she obviously wanted/needed the food.

RealityCheck wrote:Another restaurant I worked at was the same - a C- rating, although the only thing going on there was the dishwasher occasionally took whole foods off the plate and ate them, which, like, nobody begrudged her, because she obviously wanted/needed the food.

Dishwashers are supposed to be able to clean the plate entirely, especially in the case of one that is industrial (food service) class.

This is something you might not be aware of unless you either have watched the DIY Network or have installed a (home) dishwasher, but to prevent a backup going into the sink, there is required to be an air gap between the outlet of the dishwasher and the drain pipe. This prevents a dishwasher from backing up filthy water and food into the kitchen sink if there's a blockage. (It also prevents sewage from backing up into the dishwasher.) Instead, the water would seep out of the dishwasher, which is probably better in terms of cleanliness and not causing your sink to collect sewer backup results.

Update: Oh Christ, you're referring to a live person as dishwasher, not a machine. To quote the late Emily Latella from Saturday Night Live: Never mind!

Tdarcos wrote:Dishwashers are supposed to be able to clean the plate entirely, especially in the case of one that is industrial (food service) class.

She was very good at her job.

RealityCheck wrote:

Tdarcos wrote:Dishwashers are supposed to be able to clean the plate entirely, especially in the case of one that is industrial (food service) class.

She was very good at her job.

"I don' wanna work, I just want to eat at the food all day..."

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