Just Average Dining Experiences…

On our recent trip to St. Louis Missouri and Omaha Nebraska, we had several opportunities to dine in casual restaurants.  I decided to recap our experiences with 2 of them in one posting to my blog site.

This Village Inn is located close to our son and daughter-in-law’s home in Elkhorn Nebraska. (An area that is part of Omaha) On this particular morning, we were staying in a nearby Hampton Inn due to the crowd that was spending the night at the family’s home.  We decided to have breakfast before heading to the house…

The Village Inn was fairly busy.  In addition to being bright and cheerful, the dining area was clean, and…as you can see this waitress was happy and cheerful.

The good news was that David III had given us a “buy one, get one” coupon so Laurie’s breakfast was free!  She had her usual over medium eggs with bacon and crispy hash brown potatoes along with a biscuit and country gravy on the side.  Unfortunately the hash browns could have been warmer and the country gravy as well, plus, it just lacked any real flavor definition.

For my breakfast I ordered the Chicken Fried Steak and eggs.  They were accompanied by crispy hash browns and a biscuit with the bland country gravy…and for some reason by a dish of extra gravy.

I also had the warmth issue with the hash brown potatoes (might have been sitting a bit too long) plus I didn’t care for the breading on the chicken fried steak.  It tasted old…or just odd to me. 

Overall…we considered our breakfast to be just average despite the free entrée.  This Village Inn is located at 2525 South 180 Street in Omaha Nebraska.  Phone: 402-333-0434.  There are over 200 Village Inn Restaurants in 20 states and Guam.  Curiously, despite the fact that the holding company for Village Inns is located in Tennessee, there aren’t any of these restaurants in the state.  Company Website: https://www.villageinn.com/.

On our return trip to our home in East Tennessee, we stayed overnight in Mt. Vernon Illinois.  We usually drive a few miles for dinner at a local restaurant but Laurie suggested that instead we should just walk across the parking lot to the adjacent Buffalo Wild Wings.

It had been many years since we’d eaten in one of these establishments…

This was the dining room where we were seated.  We’d been offered the option of this room or the bar area. (On the other side of that big screen TV)

This is the alternative dining area near the bar.  It was a bit busier at this end of the restaurant.  One thing for sure, if you want to view a sports event on TV in a sports bar, it would be hard to miss in this environment! 

Laurie had a Schlafly IPA ($5.25) and I ordered a Miller Lite. ($4.00) Then we decided to order the regular Cheddar Cheese Curds with southwestern ranch dressing.  They were apparently a ‘special’ on this evening (happy hour?) because we were charged $5.99.  The price shown on the menu is $9.79.  The cheese curds were OK…but they weren’t anything to write home about…

For our entrée, we decided we’d just do an order of wings.  We went for a large size traditional (bone-in with no breading) order. ($21.49) For our sauces, we decided to try the Hot BBQ, Asian Zing and the Buffalo Wild.

Sorry about the photo…we’d been eating wings for a bit before I remembered to take a picture.  In any case, we thought that the wings and the sauces were OK…but, as with the cheese curds, they weren’t anything special.

Since there are about 1,250 Buffalo Wild Wing locations across all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Canada, Mexico, Panama, the Middle East, India and Eastern Asia, this chain has to be pleasing a lot of folks.  It just doesn’t do it for us.  We much prefer Wild Wings Café and Big Kahuna Wings here in East Tennessee.

This Buffalo Wild Wings is located at 227 Potomac Boulevard in Mt. Vernon Illinois.  Phone: 618-246-2999.  The company’s website can be found at: https://www.buffalowildwings.com/.

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave