Restaurants That I Miss...Part Two

I'm back, with some more restaurants that I miss, and I'm still in Winchester, Indiana.  It's kind of understandable, since it is my hometown, and one I lived in and my family shopped in for many years.  So, without further ado, away we go...

The Chicken Shack - Winchester, Ind. - This was a local landmark in the Winchester area for many years, mainly because of the large fiberglass chicken that stood outside the restaurant.  The chicken itself was also quite famous for being stolen every year by seniors from Winchester's local high school.

The last I heard, the chicken was still missing, but since the restaurant itself has long been closed, there isn't a hurry to find it.

Who would want to store a large fiberglass chicken on their property, anyway?  And why?

I loved going to this place for the Jumbo Tenderloin sandwiches, topped with pickles, onions and mustard.  I also enjoyed the Tote Steak sandwiches, topped with pickles, onions and mayonnaise.  Either one of these, served with crinkle-cut French fries, was a satisfying meal to be savored before you got there.

The tenderloin, as many of us in the Midwest know, is basically a pork tenderloin that is beaten flat, almost comic-book thin, breaded and deep-fried.  It is, quite honestly, a Midwest delicacy.  I can reasonably say that you will never see this sandwich served in the Middle East.

It was also much bigger than the bun it was served on, and that particular bun itself seemed to be bigger than the normal hamburger buns we see here.  Of course, it may have been the normal bun, but I cared more about the meat than the bun, anyway.

The food scene in Winchester suffered a very real and major loss when this place closed.

Randolph Central Schools - Winchester, Ind. - The schools and their lunches are still here, I should point out, but what the children there eat now in no way even resembles what I got to enjoy as a student.  Many of the dishes I took for granted are no longer served, sad to say.  From what I've been told, the students today get to eat a lot of frozen foods, whereas we got to eat a lot of government commodities and generic canned foods.

Foods of the past included Old-Fashioned Hash, which was probably a simple roast beef hash, but it did NOT resemble the weird oily canned mess that is available in grocery stores today.  The spaghetti and meat sauce was nothing spectacular, but it was quite good, and its sauce was very unique to our school system.

Then there was peanut butter and lettuce sandwiches, something that was served with chili or vegetable soup.  This is something that apparently unique to our own area.  People I know who went to school fifteen to twenty miles away never had such a sandwich and thought it was totally weird.  I fixed these things up when I was in the Navy, and my shipmates thought it was also totally weird.

I always thought the sandwich was a holdover from the Great Depression, especially since many of our cooks when I was in elementary school were old enough to have lived through it.

A special mention needs to be made about the chocolate cake.  It was very delicious, so much so that I can still taste it, even now, more than thirty-five years since I graduated from high school.

One thing I do not miss, however, was the chili.  When I was in my early elementary years, the chili was quite good, but the quality diminished over the years. What started out with an equal ratio of meat and beans and plenty of "sauce" turned into a bowl of beans with very tiny pieces of meat here and there and very little sauce.  Oh, there was also macaroni, which is not something I ever want to see in chili again.

Can you say "cheap"?

To be continued.

Peace be unto you.

Restaurants That I Miss...Part One

Today is the day I start my series on the restaurants that I miss.  Given that I've got adult children, and I live in East Central Indiana, much of my selection will be limited to my general area, but there you are.

Many of the restaurants I mention in this series are not only closed, but many of them are just plain forgotten, or remembered so vaguely that they might as well be forgotten.

I haven't forgotten them, however, and miss them very much.  Without further ado, we start our series in Winchester, Indiana.

--The D&J Drive-In - A stand-alone fast-food style restaurant from my own childhood, which closed, if I remember correctly, in the 1980s.  The one item I miss is the sandwich called the Farm Hand.  I have tried for years to find out what ingredients were put on, and in what order and amounts, but to no avail.

I even asked the man who ran the restaurant that existed after the D&J closed, but he didn't even remember the sandwich, and he's only two years older than me.  Oh, well.

What I do know is that the Farm Hand had two beef patties, lettuce, tomato, onion, and a generous helping of a cole-slaw-style dressing.  It was also a sloppy sandwich, since the drive-in bought cheap hamburger buns for this and they tended to fall apart.  It didn't matter, though, because the sandwiches were that good.

The only fly in the ointment for this place was their soft drinks.  They would take a to-go cup and cram it full of shaved ice, and then add maybe four or five ounces of a soft drink to fill in whatever spaces were left.  It was a criminal rip-off, in my opinion, and it always ended up in a watery-flavored flat soft drink.  Were I to go back in time to this place, I'd bring my own bottled pop.

If my memory serves me right, this practice was once common in restaurants, but not anymore.  After all, all of the fast food places I visit now have good-tasting soft drinks where you can tell that they're carbonated.

--The Courtesy Café - This was a cafeteria-styled restaurant located just off of Winchester's courthouse square.  It is the one place that comes to mind when I think of one of my favorite main courses: Swiss steaks.  Whenever my family and I ate here, I always ordered the same thing:  Swiss steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, stewed tomatoes, and a roll.  That was topped off with a ten-ounce bottle of Pepsi-Cola that I had to pour into the glass myself.

Going here was always a special occasion for us.  We all loved it, which is funny when you considered that my sister and I grew up with McDonald's and our desire to eat there.  But, as a kid, I thought the Courtesy was that good.  I still think so.

The only minuses that comes to my mind were the long lines to get served (actually that was also a big plus - that was how good and popular the restaurant was) and the seating.

About the seating, picture, if you will, a steel (or aluminum - I'm not sure) dining room set (steel tables with cushioned steel seats.)  Now multiply that many times over for a style that evokes a crowded high school cafeteria.

I should point out, in all fairness, the food more than made up for that deficiency.  It was that good.

That's it for part one.  More later.

Peace be unto you.