Thursday, December 13, 2007

Holiday Post #9: Ypsi Got an IHOP

Technically, it's Pittsfield Township, but let's not split hairs. Stacey has been talking this place up for a couple weeks & I think she's actually taken a couple other people there already... Brook & Kate if I remember correctly, but I hadn't gone until this morning when she & I went after dropping the kids off at school. I don't think I've ever actually been to an IHOP before, & I was left wondering how international they actually are. The food was good though. I got the black bean chili omelet w/ a stack of pancakes & an OJ. I have to say, I'm still partial to local diner/greasy dives for breakfast, but I was impressed & I'm glad she brought me there. The service was really good too. A little too good, in fact, for a breakfast place. Everyone was so friendly & helpful, I felt out of place... what'd they have to be so fucking cheery about? Sitting there in the back corner (sometimes I feel like I'm always getting stuck in the back corner at restaurants)we got to watch the snow falling outside (this is why this qualifies as a holiday post) & it felt like something out of a Jim Jarmusch movie... or maybe the Cohen Bros, but more like Jim Jarmusch. it was like a dark road movie. I don't know why, but I always associate IHOPs w/ road-trips. I guess it's just because I only see them when on the road. To finish the road-trip triumvirate, Ypsi now needs a Shoneys & a Waffle House. When I was in Grad School, we went on a road trip to FLA & stopped at a Shoneys in Ohio. The palcemat had a map on it which showed the location of every Shoneys in the country. It was pretty cool bedcause when we took it w/ us, we then always knew how many Shoneys away from our destination we were. Here's a link to a similar map of IHOPs, but it's a bit outdated, so don't plan any trips around it. You will see how many there are on the I-75 corridor through Tennessee, Georgia, 7 Florida. I suppose we could have stopped at an IHOP instead.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you just got plain old pancakes, I hope you at least sampled all the different syrups with them. I'm sure the cheeriness, etc. of that place will wear off after awhile and it will become as shady as every other IHOP.

Anonymous said...

Now you've just magnified my chain guilt, as I am usually partial to downtown type seedy places but I'm into all the veggie options they have. Plus I think the whole place is nonsmoking. Gotta love that.

I did correct you about Pittsfield Twp. but that's because I'm always looking out for the City of Ypsi's tax base. I'd feel less guilty if I were at least supporting a chain that was actually in Ypsi. Now I feel terrible about the whole thing and I feel the need to soothe myself with pancakes. It's a vicious circle, it is.

It was Brooke that got me hooked.

Liz Peltier Moyer said...

OK, So there was an IHOP in Royal Oak that we tried once and it was just so so(bochi bochi, as the Japanese would say). Also- Stacey should not feel bad. Everyone likes something like that. I love the Gap.

Andre said...

Translation?

Yeah, no guilt... it was good food.

biscodo said...

Don't worry, in just a year or so, the staff will have become a leathery bunch of disgruntled ex-chain-smokers. Then, along with the post-bar-closing-time student crowd binging on pancakes they will just hurl a few hours later after the bedspins kick in, it will be properly sketchy enough to fit in with the IHOPs we all know an love from our childhoods. That, and all the fake wood veneer will have had a chance to start peeling off the plywood.

And speaking of chain omelette-slinging restaurants... ever noticed the progression? A building built as a Denny's eventually goes out of business. What do they rehab it as? A Waffle House (the next step down on the econo-culinary ladder). But what happens when it's so grimy that the Waffle House goes out of business? It becomes a Pitt Grill. At least, in Texas it does. I don't know what they do with it if the Pitt Grill goes under. Superfund site, maybe?

Liz Peltier Moyer said...

Maybe they would turn it into a "once a year" Halloween extravaganza store.

Andre said...

There's a shady Denny's by Whole Foods. I was there twice. Once w/ a guy who was as shady as the Denny's and once after Child-Birth Class w/ Chuck and Shelly. The wait-person was so rude that we left ad weent to Big Boys after Chuck said, "Well, aren't you a barrel of fucking sunshine!" It was pretty sweet.

The Halloween Extravanza store is a good guess.

Unknown said...

Shoneys! I haven't been to a Shoneys since second grade. My family was driving from Indiana to Florida to go to Disney World and we stopped for lunch at Shoneys. The highlight? Easily the giant black spider on the hideous blinds.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, I don't feel so guilty anymore. I'm going to totally come clean and profess my love for Target and Costco now.

I had never been to an IHOP before, I didn't realize they had such a skanky reputation.

Andre said...

Don't feel guilty. breakfast should never inspire guilt.