New Vigor: A Call to Action

          From now on, I am going to pursue the Gastrological Gentleman with more determination and vigor. I need your assistance to help me continue to reach new  people and show them that they no longer have to wait like sheep for an hour of more for a good meal in the Tri-Cities. This new found determination springs from two events that occurred recently.  A couple of Saturdays ago, Amanda and I met her parents and her sister Andrea and a couple of her friends for dinner at Olive Garden. Of course, if I were the one to choose where to eat I would have never picked Olive Garden in the first place but that’s beside the point. Fact of the matter is we waited for an hour to be seated, a freaking HOUR! In dinky little Colonial Heights, this is insanity. I’m not going to lie, the meal was good, but by no means worth the hour wait we had to endure huddled together with every mouth breather and snotty nosed kid in the Tri-Cities.  The whole hour I stood there I thought about the numerous other great Italian restaurants we would have already been eating at within a 10 minute drive from there. Not only would we be seated immediately but our meals would have been just as good if not better than what we were waiting for. I felt like a slave to commercial advertisements standing in that packed waiting area, a human sheep.

Just last Sunday at 7:30pm, I tried to take Amanda out for dinner. Because I had a gift card for Red Lobster we decided to try to eat there. While the parking lot was rather empty, we were shocked and surprised that there was a 40 minute wait! The worst part was that when we pulled up we could see empty tables through the windows. Needless to say, since I was the one paying and choosing where we ate we turned right around and headed to Captain Tom’s on the Boulevard where there was no wait.

Please join me in my crusade to help save the good citizens of the Tri-Cities from long lines and generic processed food. Let’s keep our money in the Tri-Cities and bypass the chains and eat, buy and shop local. If you would like to be part of the movement, please like the Gastrological Gentleman on Facebook, post a link on your wall and try out these mom and pop restaurants. I promise that you will be pleasantly surprised and will never feel the urge to return the long lines, generic food and mediocre service found at the large chain restaurants.

                                Thank you,

                                                   The Gastrological Gentleman