03/03/12 (Afternoon)
9336 Union Center Blvd.
West Chester, OH. 45069
Penn Station
03/03/12 (Afternoon)
5401 Dixie Highway
Fairfield, OH. 45014
Jimmy Johns
03/04/12 (Afternoon)
@ Brigewater Falls Location
3385 Princeton Rd.
Hamilton, OH. 45011
All cravings MUST be fulfilled at all cost. This is a fundamental belief of mine. Healthy or not, I’m not particularly interested in perpetuation of a 'healthy lifestyle' but if ramen noodles sprinkled with the seasoning pack as well as parmesan cheese, sounds good... Then let it be so!
So when Saturday afternoon reared its head and we needed something quick before SOCIALS practice, Julie suggested QUIZNOS. She wanted a sandwich (sub) and in particular a new lobster something or other that she had seen advertised. Coupled with Olives recent discovery of her love of Turkey ("I like turkey Dad, I REALLY like turkey!!!") and nearly ancient memories of my own of a toasty meatball sub seemed like Quiznos was a good choice.
It had been a while since we partook of Quiznos so I found a close location using their website. Hmm... I seem to remember more locations than listed... So we drive the ever-winding Union Center Boulevard and navigate the 'Streets of West Chester' (Some internet maps call the area 'Olde West Chester' pshaw!) and find what we were looking for...
What’s this? A feebly handwritten sign on the door? The sign looks like it was hastily written with no rough draft explaining how they were currently out of a number of ingredients for their menu items including the lobster.
No lobster for the initial sandwich Julie wanted... STRIKE ONE! Abort? Julie insisted she would get something else...Onward! No sooner had we opened the door and walked inside than a god-awful smell of a burning sub permeated through the whole location. I stopped just feet inside the door and instantly the sign and absence of multiple products becomes STRIKE TWO with the burning whatever being, not only seen and interpreted as incompetence, but STRIKE THREE!
Mission aborted. Quiznos [xxx] See ya round.
Just for good measure on the way to a back-up choice of PENN STATION, we cruised by another of the many suburban strip malls where a Quiznos did exist, that no longer supported a location. Like I said, I seem to remember more locations and I suppose there were more at one time. With diminished locations now, and the closest location to us getting three strikes, lets just say its gonna be sometime before Quiznos is revisited and that’s a shame cause Julie never would get that Lobster sandwich despite the almost traversing of a cross county trek to a doppelganger suburban sprawl that feels better about themselves because its not a 'city grid'.
Bullshit! I love cities. Big city’s.
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| BIG CITY'S 4-WAY |
Hmm. The previous Thursday (03/01/12) I made a pot of Cincinnati Chili that was so damn good that I thought if I ever had a restaurant of my own I'd call it VICTORY CHILI HOUSE but now maybe a good name, which could also reverberate my love of City’s, could be BIG CITYS which would not only feature all sorts of chili-fare, but also soup-beans, fried potato’s and cornbread! Country-fare!!! A greasy-spoon (Cincy style) chain restaurant. All hail BIG CITYS... Imaginary restaurants are always the best cause they offer whatever you want and are always successful.
So onward to PENN STATION... This location in particular is actually the 'neighborhood' location 'down under the hill up a bit' (70% of everything we do starts with 'down under the hill'). To be honest, PENN STATION was point on! Good service, always friendly staff... This location looks differently than the last time I was here, which was sometime ago despite being close to the house... Olive got a kids size Turkey Sub, Julie got an 8" Pizza and I got an 8" Chicken Parmesan. We all got small fries with water for the girls and a soda (iceless Mountain Dew +1 refill) for me. We all traded portions of our subs with each other with my sub being the tastiest.
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| Chicken Parmesean w' Small Fries |
The only fuss about PENN STATION, which is one shared by many people when you say their name, is the price. Our family (of 3) cost us a bit under $24 which is the main reason why PENN STATION will remain a treat rather than a staple. It seems that no matter where we go, whatever we get, everything is the same price. There’s no true 'deals' when you dine out anymore. Even something from a dollar menu isn’t really a deal... its just a dollars worth of whatever you wanted...
PENN STATION is awarded 3/5
You never want to go to the grocery store hungry right? Well before we hit Kroger’s the next day for our routine weekly shopping adventure we had a double-check on the internet for Quiznos locations which provided no new data. I remembered a suggestion from a facebook group that I’m part of, the illustrious BAG (Blog Alliance Guild), and one of its members, Sam Vance and his suggestion to check out a JIMMY JOHNS location at Bridgewater Falls (down-under-the-hill up-the-road-a-bit). So we trekked north on the increasingly dangerous super-intersection laden wild-ride of a road known as By-pass 4. You know, they spent millions of dollars on this 'groundbreaking road' that everyone bitches about and couldn’t give it a name honoring some sorts of calamity, hero, or victim. Such a disgrace... A worker was even killed during the roads re-development!!!
JIMMY JOHNS was everything that most places wished they could be. Clean. Manned by friendly knowledgeable staff and moderately priced. Julie and Olive split an Italian Sub. Julie insisted that it was "Really REALLY good" (she really did emphasize the second good) along with a bag of fucking chips and their standard waters, which Julie pointed out as tasting exceptionally good. I will always have a special place in my heart forever more for JIMMY JOHNS upon discovery due to the fact that they offer a series of sub 'standards' that offer 'meat only' forgoing all the green booger toppings that I never get with the sandwich anyhow. These PLAIN SLIM offerings are priced to move and allowed me to get a Turkey AND Roast Beef slim for what I would have paid for one sub at PENN STATION. Finally, I don’t pay the same price for the same sub that looks like I’m getting a 'kids sandwich' because I don’t like all the garden-bullshit/filler that is unusually loaded upon such meal choices! Justice is mine at JIMMY JOHNS! I had all intents to save the Roast Beef sub for post-grocery consuming but decided to relieve it from its own existence almost immediately following the devouring of the turkey sub. My sandwiches were good. They tasted fresh and were surprisingly filling. I chose (iceless) Fruit Punch Hi-C as my first drink with a +2 refill of more Hi-C and then a [medicinal] Sprite™ as a follow-up.
This PLAIN SLIM thing hot hard. Along with Julies feelings I’m gonna have to say that JIMMY JOHNS is ABOVE the standard middle-of-the-road and give them a 4/5!!! Where-as they are not being placed into the regular rotation, JIMMY JOHNS will be considered for future consumption.
So the self-proclaimed WEEKEND OF SANDWICHES came to an end. There were disappointments and there were triumphs. There were praises and in some cases the smell of something burnt... Julie never did get that lobster sub but by Tuesday she was asking about if SUBWAY had that seafood sub as a five-dollar foot long...
Maybe one day, sometime THE WEEKEND OF SANDWICHES will return!