Territan (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} territan) wrote,@ 2007-12-01 19:51:00 |
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| Current location: | home |
| Current mood: |  disappointed |
| Current music: | Secret Agent on SomaFM-Bitcrusher-Flamingos |
| Entry tags: | food, rant |
When Closure is Anything But
Everyone knows that I can get a little funny about food sometimes. Sometimes it's special, sometimes it's mashed-up junk. There was this place I liked to go to when I lived in Prospect Bay.
My first brush with Chesapeake Chicken (& Rockin' Ribs) (Warning: Flash intro) (Oh, and their design could make small childrens' eyes bleed) was riding home from Easton on Rt. 50 with the parents. There was this chicken place in a building by the side of the road, and much to my horror there was a guy in a chicken suit in front of it, dancing (nay, cavorting) around to attract attention. And so help me, it looked like he was enjoying himself.
It turned out that they did good barbecued chicken, sides, pie, etc. A lot of picnic food. And we stopped there a few times, though it was out of the way, and it was good.
There's that word "was" again...
The problem was its location. Where it was on Rt. 50 required us to get out onto Rt. 50, drive a ways, and then turn across traffic. Bear in mind that said stretch of Rt. 50 is called the "Ocean Gateway" because on any given weekend during the summer, it locks up tight. Traffic on that stretch of road during summer is both a bitch and a bear... which I suppose makes it a female bear.
That little place that was out of the way closed, and we thought it was because it wasn't doing well. We could hardly understand that. Then we found out that no, it just moved. And it moved to a much better place for us.
It was still on Rt. 50, and still technically across the road from us, but because it was on that stretch of road between the Bay Bridge and the 50/301 split, there were a number of easy, convenient overpasses we could use to get to it. Even when traffic was tough, we could sneak over, grab our food, and run back. Excellent!
Just in case you don't feel like going back to that link...
Among other things, they had rotisserie chicken and ribs, good Caesar salad, and "honeydrop biscuits," which I found were the single best non-ice-cream item to go well with Toad Sweat. Buttery, honey-sweet, and soft in a way that tube biscuits would dream about if they could. They also had a little space set aside for cookbooks, interesting crockery, hot sauces (I visited for those alone, I admit), and I found some nice oddities there. It might not have been a good and proper use of a restaurant, but it was a fun time-waster.
During the winter, they would add an item on the menu: chicken chili. And it was made with their rotisserie chicken. That and those biscuits were an easy meal or two, same way those biscuits and Toad Sweat were dessert.
But that party ended...
I pulled in tonight to see what it was doing. I'd seen little action over there and wondered if they'd taken a break over Thanksgiving; they'd done that a year or two previous and I was worried that it wouldn't reopen. This time, I went in, there were no lights, the light-string chicken and some of the signage in front was gone, the tables inside were missing, and there next to the "Zagat" sticker on the door was a hand-written "Closed" sign.
Let's just say I felt cheated. Before I found the site above, I thought there might still be one in Easton, but the site says that the only other location they have is Bethesda.
C'mon. Seriously. Bethesda?? Yes, it's becoming the restaurant hub of Washington D.C., but that's also the best reason to avoid it—the competition's too stiff, the parking situation doesn't suit the carry-out nature of the place... and I suppose yes, there's a little sour grapes over the place abandoning its previous customers.
And the final insult...
Either business there was lousy (which is impossible considering how it sat at an ideal spot for feeding beach traffic) or they got bought out and abandoned the place laughing all the way to the back. Which is far more reasonable, since there was a billboard down the road a little ways advertising a big, rich restaurant chain that would be coming to that area in Spring 2008.
That property, even situated as it is in front of a motel, could be their best bet for rapid development. But it galls me that an honest, homey restaurant which sold good food, some of which I couldn't get anywhere else, would sell out to the likes of...
Wait for it...
I mean, really.
