A Little Travel-Inspired Love For . . .

After our recent Philadelphia trip, my thanks goes to the following:  

Fort Worth Tire & Service. I needed to get the car worked on before departing. My daughter has been a satisfied customer of Fort Worth Tire & Service for many years so I brought it to them. The first thing I noticed about FWTS was their novel order entry system for incoming customers. You tell the guy at the counter what work you want done, and he asks you to write your name and phone number down on a piece of scratch paper. That's it. I knew right then that I was at the right place. When the work was completed I was handed an itemized invoice. I never did ask for an estimate, I didn't think I needed one, and I was right. The price was fair.

The boys at Fort Worth Tire & Service know what they are doing and got me to Philly and back with no problems.

Our car, a 2002 Lexus RX, deserves a little loving recognition, too. She (it's kind of curvy so it's a she) crossed the 200,000 mile mark on this trip and never skipped a beat. Since Toyota is getting a fair bit of un-love these days I thought I'd give it the honor it is due. Every once in a very long while a product is made that just fits into the world comfortably. The Lexus RX is one of those products, in my opinion.

Keeping on the car related theme. Have you ever tried Rain-X? Rain-X is applied to a car's windshield and reduces the need for windshield wipers. My sister told me about it. It makes the rain drops kind of slide off the windshield instead grabbing on. I guess windshield glass is porous enough for a water molecule to grip because when the Rain-X liquid is applied, and buffed in, the water just slides off. Weird. Besides working beautifully driving through snow and rain the "Rain-X effect" was a continual source of amusement and conversation to my wife and me.

Finally, I now have a man-crush on my GPS. Is there a more helpful travel tool these days?

In the "what went wrong" department, I have no love going to: Shoney's Restaurants. We must have passed 50 Cracker Barrel restaurants in the 3000 mile round trip. I have been to a Cracker Barrel once and that was enough for me. So we tried Shoney's. They too, are everywhere in Tennessee and Virginia. It may be difficult to ruin a plate of eggs, bacon, and hash browns, but Shoney's succeeded in serving the worst breakfast I have had in years. I understand the need to pre-cook the bacon and hash browns but serving brick-sticks of bacon and textureless, tasteless potatoes is beyond my acceptance level. So, Shoney's sorry, you get no love this trip.

Fortunately, failure is half the fun of travel. And there you have it.

DiCostanza's

Marian starting on the "small" sub.



Not that anyone reading this blog will be traveling on Interstate 95 between Wilmington and Philadelphia -- but in case you do: my favorite cheese-steak and subway sandwich in Philly is not in Philly, but just south, in Boothwyn, PA. I am referring to DiCostanza's, just east of I-95 and the perfect place to stop for lunch.

I never make a trip Philadelphia without stopping on the way in or on the way out.  

DiCostanza's bills itself as the "Originator of the Italian Sandwich" and I have no reason to doubt them. For $7.50 you get this sandwich ( picture above) or the same-size cheese-steak. I estimate the small sandwich to have about one-half pound of ham and assorted meats, plus cheese, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and peppers.

I'll be back in Fort Worth in a few days but it is not a trip back East without one of these.

(Oh, my wife will probably want you to know that she can only eat half a sandwich)

http://www.dicostanzas.com/Contact.asp

Main Street Bakery, Grapevine.

I generally limit my comments to Fort Worth food establishments because that is ninety percent of my dining out, but I had breakfast last week at the Main Street Bakery and Bistro, in Grapevine, and what struck me, besides the fact that the breakfast was good, was the fact that it had a visible on-site owner.

Restaurants require more oversight than your average retail business because the parts that make up the business are so variable. Food is a living thing and is delivered in all kinds of conditions. Add the variables of extreme weather, employees not showing up, customer's varying tastes, continual kitchen cleaning, an unexpected rush of diners, and it is easy to see why restaurants need management. Franchise restaurants attempt to make everything as easy as possible by eliminating variables, or reducing the risk of the variables by keeping to strict recipes, having less perishable food, and the like. It can work, but the food and service suffer most of the time. Smaller, but company owned, restaurant chains, like Pappas and Charleston's, use this formulaic method well, but they also hire and train managers to oversee all elements of the restaurant.

All of this to say a locally owned, profitable restaurant, will usually give you the best combination of food, service, and a reasonable price. Fort Worth has dozens of examples of this for which we are all grateful. I know Grapevine has at least one: the Main Street Bakery and Bistro. The food is good, the service is friendly and timely, and the price is fair. And that is all most of us ask for.


http://www.themainbakery.com/index.html