Low Dining

I was coming back from Decorah today after purchasing a CD and I passed the Su-Z-Q s, a popular teen hangout in Cresco. Almost instantly, I knew what I was going to be writing about this week. I’ve written about the fine dining in Decorah, and some of the more interesting restaurants in Cresco. I have not, however, written about the low dining opportunities.

Low dining is a favorite topic of mine, owing in large part to what I humbly call “Chris’s Rule of Eating Out.” This simple rule states  that the likelihood of a restaurant ripping off a diner increases as the price of the meal gets closer to the price of an iPad. Low cost meals can be fun and may give you a more interesting atmosphere than you would get in more upscale restaurants. Still, you have to be careful. Otherwise, you may end up eating at Su-Z-Qs.

The primary food Su-Z-Q’s offers is grease. Deep-fried food rules the menu like Kim Jong-Il rules North Korea, although you will find the teenage staples of hamburgers somewhere on the menu, carving out a kind of No-Man’s-Land on the grill. There may be hotdogs on the menu too, but if I had to double check it I would actually have to go in the restaurant again, and I really don’t want to. I went there once, had the shrimp basket with a salad and a coke. I don’t want to be any more disparaging than I’ve already been, but when your waitress drops a small plastic bowl full of shredded lettuce in front of you along with a plastic cup of dressing, you know you’re not in for the greatest dining experience ever. On the other hand they did have ketchup for the fries, so the experience wasn’t all bad.  Also, at $7 for the whole meal Su-Z-Q’s may be the cheapest restaurant in town.

After I’d driven by, it occurred to me that Su-Z-Q’s is like a training restaurant, where teenagers go to practice eating out. They’re probably aware that there are better restaurants in Cresco, even a couple of fast-food franchises, but for right now Su-Z-Q’s won’t leave them penniless and the food is at least edible. It’s all preparation for when they go out on an actual date and go to a nice restaurant for some dinner, conversation and some awkward pre-sex talk before the sex and the unplanned pregnancy which will keep the happy couple in town for the rest of their natural lives. For now, though, it’s just practice.

My personal favorite area for low dining is the A&W restaurant, which for some reason shares space with a Long John Silver’s fast (sea)food restaurant. The arrangement is awkward, because A&W is all about the ‘50s nostalgia and the Long John Silver’s is all about the illusion that you’re dining on semi-fresh seafood. I’m not sure why these two chains have paired up, but I have seen other fast-food restaurants that host a Long John Silver’s in addition to another chain. They’re the symbiotes of the fast-food world—unable to survive by themselves unless they graft on to another more successful fast-food chain and offer enough value that the host fast-food chain doesn’t cut them loose. To be fair, they do offer decent deep-fried mushrooms. 

My reason for stopping has been and always will be A&W. I grew up with one in my hometown, and I can say that A&W introduced me to the simple pleasures of a foot long coney dog and onion rings, the joy of root beer and that cup of love known as a root beer float. It also introduced me to the concept of a black cow, a root beer float made with cola instead of root beer, which is a lot like going to see a cover band perform. I loved eating at the A&W, and I fondly remember eating there Sundays after church, with my Mom and Dad smiling as they watched my brothers and I chow down and wistfully dream about the time when they would be able to eat in a decent restaurant again.

I’ve been to eat there only twice this year, which is a good thing because the food at A&W’s is packed with extra calories. I’m not sure how, but everything A&W’s serves has more calories than normal. Just breathing the A&W air for ten minutes will cause the average restaurant patron to gain five pounds. Still, I think one of life’s pleasures should be having a coney dog and fries with a root beer float every once in awhile.

The A&W also has a classic car night once a month, usually on a Wednesday evening. I’m not sure why they chose a Wednesday evening, but let’s face it—Wednesday can use the help. Unless you live near a comic book store, there’s nothing to recommend to Wednesdays, so it’s nice to see someone doing their best to make a random day of the week special.

Of course, on classic car night you get to see how many people in the area do have classic cars. A lot of them are senior citizens, driving cars they may well have driven when they were teenagers except that these cars look as new as the day they were given. It’s great to see, especially since there aren’t many venues where you can take cars like that, outside of a classic car show, and I’m not entirely sure where the nearest one is. There’s also a DJ playing all the hits of the 50s, what writer Stephen King called teenage car songs, teenage love songs and teenage death songs. It’s a blast of nostalgia, and I have to admit I like it, although my nostalgia is a tad more recent.