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June 30, 2020mgbode – For today’s roundtable, let’s talk take-out. This can be fast-food, formerly sit-down food that you now take-out, Uber Eats or whatever delivery app you like. And hey, let’s not form-fit this discussion to anything in particular either. What take-out do you order / like? What food just doesn’t work as a take-out option? Are you taking advantage of being able to order alcohol as part of your take-out now? What other things do you wish were available?
andrew – So, when this whole lockdown first started, I tried using Door Dash and others for a bit. It was such an awful experience. They would frequently forget parts of my orders at the restaurants, they would be incredibly late, my food would be horribly cold. It was a miserable experience.
I later realized it was stupid using those services. I was never getting out of the house, so I should actually look forward to picking up food using curbside as a means to leave my house. So I started doing exclusively curbside, and it’s been great. I hope restaurants keep it as an option instead of in-store pickup.
I’ve picked up food from so many restaurants, but I have two go-to places that I do the most. One is BJs Brewhouse. Their food is decent enough, but I mainly like their beers, which is why I’ve been going there so much. The other is a Mexican place near me that I absolutely love. They have a killer santa fe bbq fajita burrito, I get chips and queso, and of course, margaritas to-go.
mgbode – We didn’t go into restaurants very often before (kids + crowded restaurants is not fun to me even before the last few months), so places making pick-up as a curbside option more accessible and more streamlined has been great.
Torchy’s Tacos is a nationwide chain now (we went back when they were only in a food trailer), but they don’t have a location in Ohio, yet. The other thing that has been there but we didn’t use before are the fast food apps. And hey, it’s junk food but it’s relatively cheap, fast (like the name), and they give away free stuff on the apps.
andrew – True story, I have only had fast food twice since the lockdown started. Once because I was driving somewhere and so it was the most convenient option, and the second time was last week when I was on vacation we were tired of cooking one day so we just ordered a bunch of McDonalds burgers. Prior to the lockdown I was probably getting it several times a week.
wfnycraig – So, I won’t name names, but when we tried to support restaurants that we used to go to all the time for sit-down, we realized that some of these places just didn’t know how to do take out. Some of them, through no fault of their own, couldn’t get their foods to translate to this new style.
If I can’t pick it up and control the variables somewhat, we don’t do it. The only thing we’ll have delivered anymore is pizza, because that’s a delivery system that’s been well-worn and proven.
Our go-to restaurants have become places that were always great at takeout. Aladdin’s is great. FlipSide burgers travel really well. Fries not so much, but I don’t really eat fries anymore anyway. Condado tacos are great for pickup. We were really happy when Bibibop reopened as well. I don’t eat fish, which I know makes me weird, but we have a favorite sushi place that has an extensive veggie sushi menu, including a sweet potato tempura roll.
We currently have no plans to go back to a sit-down restaurant at this point. I feel badly about it, but it just doesn’t seem worth the risk.
Josh – Honestly, outside of Longhorn Steakhouse, a place which I waited almost two hours for my food that they said would be ready in 45 minutes, I haven’t had a bad take-out experience yet. Whether it’s a restaurant, pizza, Chipotle, or Chick-fil-A, they’ve all been great.
My go-to is definitely Ohio Pie in Brunswick and Chipotle though. Love them both.
mgbode – Quick reminder that Swenson’s and Sonic were social distance fast food restaurants before it was cool.