Eating “Out” During a Pandemic

During the Covid-19 pandemic, eating out is almost a foreign concept to those of us who actually care about surviving and being able to enjoy better times in mid to late 2021.  But, eating out is possible if you like fast food or you just want to get out and try something new as compared to being stuck at home for all your meals… Now we’re stuck in our car for dinner!

So we’ve experienced a couple of fast food ‘dinners’ in recent days.  One was new to us and the other was a known favorite.

Some friends had talked about how much they love the Sonic drive-in restaurant in Lenoir City Tennessee.  We don’t like eating in our car but when the situation…such as a pandemic…warrants such an activity, you just have to go for it.  The fact that the Sonic was very busy plus variety on the large menu made us hopeful!

As sides to our main dining ‘attraction’, we asked for a large order of French fries as well as a couple of medium ‘hand-mixed’ Sonic milk shakes.  The fries were OK.  I thought that the milk shake was too thick but it tasted OK.  Laurie didn’t care for her shake at all. 

The milk shakes were so thick that there was no way to eat them with the straws provided.  How thick were they?  From Sonic to our home, it’s about a 20 – 23 minute drive.  Add about 10 minutes to eat our food and the total time elapsed from the time that we got the shakes until we got back home and the shakes were sitting for about 30 minutes.  Even after getting hone the straws were still useless.  We had to resort to spoons to eat…not drink…our milk shakes.  It we’d wanted a big cup of ice cream, we would have ordered it…

Then there were our Sonic cheeseburgers.  We ordered them without lettuce or tomato, just with mayonnaise and pickles.  They were the worst excuse for a hamburger that we’ve had in many years!  If it wasn’t for the pickles, there wouldn’t have been any flavor at all… The burgers were actually hard around the outside and, as you can see from the photo, they didn’t look at all appetizing either. 

A few days later, we decided to go out for another drive-in/in car restaurant dining experience.  On the way, we encountered a fairly serious accident along TN Hwy 444 in Loudon County that had traffic stopped for quite a distance.  We didn't see the other vehicle...but this pickup truck was totaled! 

I didn’t take a photo of the outside of the restaurant or the drive-thru order board.  In this case, we chose a fast food dining experience that we knew we actually like…Freddy’s Frozen Custard and Steakburger in Oak Ridge Tennessee.  This photo shows Freddy’s large order of French fries and their unique ‘fry sauce’.  Laurie loves the sauce with her fries, me not so much.

I decided to order something different from Freddy’s menu.  This was Freddy’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich.  It was a good sandwich, much better than Wendy’s and far better than Hardee’s.  Chick-fil-a is still the chicken sandwich winner but we still have to try Popeye’s and Zaxby’s. 

We both ordered a Freddy’s Original Double Steakburger…a tried and true winner!  It may look messy and it is!  This is why Laurie in particular doesn’t like eating in a car.  There are too many opportunities to make a serious mess and, of course the car smells like whatever you ate for the next day or so.  But it was worth the risk!  The burger was great.  Freddy’s easily serves up the best fast food burgers that we’ve ever enjoyed…

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Stay Safe and Take Care, Big Daddy Dave