"I'M JUST LOOKING FOR A NICE INEXPENSIVE FAMILY RESTAURANT!"

“...he shall gird himself, and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.” (from Luke 12:37)

I’m only 53 but I guess I’m going to sound like a whining old geezer in this posting, but I WISH there was a nice, inexpensive family type restaurant in the Framingham/Natick are which was NOT primarily a bar or saloon, which was NOT expensive, and which was open after 9 p.m.!

Twenty-five years ago, virtually all of the “Bickford’s” family restaurants (I think in those days they were  called “Bickford’s Pancakes and Family Fare” were open 24 hours.  They served no alcohol, but you could get steak & eggs or “salisbury steak” with green beans, mashed potatoes and a salad, or any inexpensive family-style meal like that at any hour.  Come to think of it, what every happened to Howard Johnson’s with the fried clam dinners or the hot dog or hamburger dinners and finished off with a Howard Johnson’s sundae?!

In the old days almost every evangelical Protestant church had a Sunday night service, in addition to a Sunday morning service.  (For those of you  “unsaved” people out there, regular churchgoers went to BOTH.)  After church on Sunday night, depending on where you lived in the country, you’d all pile into Friendly’s or Denny’s or Shoney’s or someplace like that.  At 10 p.m. those places were “hopping” with the Sunday night church crowd.  And even when there WEREN’T Sunday night church crowds, those places were hopping with people who’d just gotten out of A.A. meetings and who couldn’t afford “high end” restaurants and didn’t want to go to a place which was PRIMARILY a bar.

Today, our church has a Sunday night service only once a month.  A couple of years ago, I had Dr. Ivor Nicklin from England as a guest speaker on a Sunday night.  He was staying with friends in Willimantic, Connecticut and driving their car.  After church (and Ivor selling tapes and CDs and talking with folks) I had Dr. Nicklin follow me to LaCantina on Rte. 135 in Framingham. We got to the door at 9 p.m. and were abruptly told, “You know we CLOSE at 9!”.  It was a little embarrassing, but I then had him follow me to Ruby Tuesday’s on Route 9.  At the door, the hostess told me, “Well, the KITCHEN CLOSES in a minute, but the bar is open for another hour”.  This meant having him follow me to Bickford’s (now “Bickford’s Grille”) on Rte. 30/Cochituate Road.  Fortunately, the kitchen was not closed, they were glad to seat us, and we ate a nice meal (he enjoyed a cup of hot tea along with it!) and left there around 10:30 or so.

Last night, Mary Ann and I went to a “recovery service “ at the Salvation Army where a friend of our was receiving his A.A. 23 year medallion.  After the service, we took him out to “Bickford’s Grille”.  We arrived at ten minutes before 9.

“You know we CLOSE at 9!” the hostess abruptly said.  No joke, she then asked if we could eat our meals real fast!  I asked what time we’d have to be out and she said “9:30”.  I said I thought we could do that.  We sat down and ordered and were served around 9:15.  We wolfed the meals down, paid, and left at 9:29.  On the way out, the three of us lamented that there don’t seem to be any more family type places in the area that stay open until at least 10 (and 11 would certainly be ideal).

Can’t we get a 24 hour Denny’s in Framingham or Natick, or is that too “low brow” for this area?!

Just venting!  

What do you think?