RIP TGI Friday's (Sacramento, Hayward, Bell: low income, appointed, lawyers)

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by bayarea-girl

Frankly it needed to be closed sooner and the economy has nothing to do with it closing. It was a horrible place to dine and the consumers stopped spending their money to get horrible food they could get for cheap.

Add some finely minced garlic to your salad dressing and you have my Mom's salad dressing. MMmmm.....

Cheap is the key word. People love getting a "deal". Even false value brings them in. Back east there used to be a restuarant called "Beefsteak Charlies" -- what brought them in was unlimited cooked shrimp on the salad bar.

We went ONCE. Overcooked rubber tasteless shrimp are not a deal. They are gross. No matter how many of them you can stuff down your gullet.

Reminds me of a joke my husband tells about two old women -- the ending is "This food isn't good. And such small portions!"

People love "a lot" too. Most dishes you get at restaurants are WAY too much food. Add to that the fact that most dinnerware has been upscaled, we are all eating too much.

I got married 26 years ago and my "wedding" dishes had 10 ounce cereal bowls. About 3 years ago, most of my main dishes had broken and I needed a new set of dinnerware.... most of them have cereal bowls that are 22-24 ounces. Amusingly enough, only the dinner plate has stayed around the same size.

You wake up in the AM, and you "fill" your cereal bowl. It's a habit. You don't think about it, you just do it. Get those new bowls and eat three times the amount you should.

And then, when you catch on what a serving is in that bowl, you put in the right amount and it feels like you're depriving yourself of breakfast. It's totally psychological, but it really does feel like that.

[bluebeard]

Good riddance.
The food at TGIFs sucks. Seriously. There was nothing there to set it apart from other restaurants serving similar entrees. Go to one of those.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by Tallysmom

Add some finely minced garlic to your salad dressing and you have my Mom's salad dressing. MMmmm.....

Cheap is the key word. People love getting a "deal". Even false value brings them in. Back east there used to be a restuarant called "Beefsteak Charlies" -- what brought them in was unlimited cooked shrimp on the salad bar.

We went ONCE. Overcooked rubber tasteless shrimp are not a deal. They are gross. No matter how many of them you can stuff down your gullet.

Reminds me of a joke my husband tells about two old women -- the ending is "This food isn't good. And such small portions!"

People love "a lot" too. Most dishes you get at restaurants are WAY too much food. Add to that the fact that most dinnerware has been upscaled, we are all eating too much.

I got married 26 years ago and my "wedding" dishes had 10 ounce cereal bowls. About 3 years ago, most of my main dishes had broken and I needed a new set of dinnerware.... most of them have cereal bowls that are 22-24 ounces. Amusingly enough, only the dinner plate has stayed around the same size.

You wake up in the AM, and you "fill" your cereal bowl. It's a habit. You don't think about it, you just do it. Get those new bowls and eat three times the amount you should.

And then, when you catch on what a serving is in that bowl, you put in the right amount and it feels like you're depriving yourself of breakfast. It's totally psychological, but it really does feel like that.

you got it: people swarm to buffets because they can get so much to eat; well unless you are very over sized you can only eat so much anyway or people think if the servings are huge they are getting their money worth.

The cereal bowl is the perfect example. I do not like cold cereal so on cereal mornings I will have something else but hubby loves it. Recently we got a sample of Fiber One and I poured it into his bowl: it was about 1/3 the size of his normal servings.

I am a travel agent and hear reports on various cruise lines: the report I am hearing lately has to do with portion sizes, As the prices have stayed pretty stable for many years and the cost of most things have esculated, dining portions have been cut back. I have yet to leave the table on any cruise hungry, we all know you can order extra if you want and you get a 5 course meal, isn't it better to have smaller serviings then to waste food?

One last thing, our favorite salad dressing, in fact favorite salad which we have a couple of times a week: spinish or romaine, a little parmasan cheese, a few bacon bits and the dressing is: lemon juice, with just enough olive oil to make it adhere to the leaves. You can add chopped garlic if you want a little more flavor but we like it just that way.

Nita

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by nmnita

you got it: people swarm to buffets because they can get so much to eat; well unless you are very over sized you can only eat so much anyway or people think if the servings are huge they are getting their money worth.

The cereal bowl is the perfect example. I do not like cold cereal so on cereal mornings I will have something else but hubby loves it. Recently we got a sample of Fiber One and I poured it into his bowl: it was about 1/3 the size of his normal servings.

I am a travel agent and hear reports on various cruise lines: the report I am hearing lately has to do with portion sizes, As the prices have stayed pretty stable for many years and the cost of most things have esculated, dining portions have been cut back. I have yet to leave the table on any cruise hungry, we all know you can order extra if you want and you get a 5 course meal, isn't it better to have smaller serviings then to waste food?

One last thing, our favorite salad dressing, in fact favorite salad which we have a couple of times a week: spinish or romaine, a little parmasan cheese, a few bacon bits and the dressing is: lemon juice, with just enough olive oil to make it adhere to the leaves. You can add chopped garlic if you want a little more flavor but we like it just that way.

Nita

Portion control really is the thing. I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in January (caught it early and mild thank god) and I was sent off for diabetes education.

Holy cow, did THAT open my eyes. Frankly, we eat a lot. Given our major dislike (hubby) and inability to eat (me) onions and bell peppers -- we didn't do a lot of processed foods anyway.

But I was given a simple goal of 30 grams of carbs total for each meal. (Veggies and fruits are carbs, also -- it's not just grains and taters!).

It simplified my life and opened up a lot of things, too. Like -- I can actually not feel bad for eating a couple of cookies! Or bread!

And the weight is coming off. After three months, my glucose levels are in the fantastic range and my A1C level is 6.3, down from 7.5.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by Tallysmom

Portion control really is the thing. I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in January (caught it early and mild thank god) and I was sent off for diabetes education.

Holy cow, did THAT open my eyes. Frankly, we eat a lot. Given our major dislike (hubby) and inability to eat (me) onions and bell peppers -- we didn't do a lot of processed foods anyway.

But I was given a simple goal of 30 grams of carbs total for each meal. (Veggies and fruits are carbs, also -- it's not just grains and taters!).

It simplified my life and opened up a lot of things, too. Like -- I can actually not feel bad for eating a couple of cookies! Or bread!

And the weight is coming off. After three months, my glucose levels are in the fantastic range and my A1C level is 6.3, down from 7.5.

good for you, yes, it is all in serving size. I know our problem is the size of our portions, not what we eat. An example, this is unusual I will add but it does happen. This afternoon I took a couple of steaks out for dinner, one would have been more than enough, but I just wasn't sure. Thank goodness neither of us ate all of ours so I will have enough for another meal but I knew I souldn't have even taken the second one out. With it we had corn on the cob, plus we grilled onions, peppers, mushrooms and squash. We didn't need all that, we felt stuffed and this isn't helping the weight. It is back to a small plate for me starting tomorrow night.

Nita

[hsw]

99% of chain restaurants, locally-owned restaurants and grocery stores offer crappy tasting, unhealthy food, even in the allegedly "foodie", super-affluent SF or NYC regions

Anecdotally, lower and middle socio-economic gps (incl Asians) in SF region don't seem much less obese than their counterparts in flyover land or in NYC region

Many consumers choose hole-in-wall local, ethnic places for filling, cheap grub, but usu made of unhealthy, cheap ingredients, poss in a non-hygienic setting...one generally gets what one pays for...one's eventually elevated healthcare costs make this grub nominally cheap but actually quite costly

And even upscale restaurants in the ultra-wealthy PA suburbs are laughably lame (much of why many singles who work in SV live in SF is the crappy grub in PA/MP); and SF (like NYC or any other city in world) has ~5 good restaurants (at any price)

Biggest advantage PA area has over similar upscale suburbs of NYC is Draeger's; what's remarkable is how low is quality of grocery stores (esp produce, bread, condiments, etc) in upscale suburbs of NYC or Chicago or Dallas....Whole Foods (from Austin, TX) has helped a lot in improving grocery store caliber nationwide, much like Starbucks brought decent espresso to Midtown Manhattan (and rest of US) ~10-15yrs ago (before then NYC had gruesome coffee in its office corridors)

[ma barker]

Ive never been there either so I guess theres nothing to miss.

[Bluefly]

People actually mourn the decline of Generica?

RIP, TGIF. Bring on the independents and locals.

[Alexus]

I won't miss the place one bit. Good riddance. Glad to see the change.

[skyao]

There are good chains and bad chains.

TGI Friday's to me was at the bottom of the barrel of chains along with with Applebees and Bennigans.

I love some chains like In and Out, Popeyes (great hangover food, although can be a bit ghetto), and Whataburger (Texas).

Some chain restaurants bring back good memories, but TGIF was not one of them.