Comments on: The Grand Forks Herald reviews the new Olive Garden in town

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 06:10:00 +0000

Traverse City Michigan eh? What makes it better than the rust-belt Great Lakes city I live in now (Buffalo)? :)

By: Bruce Maki

Bruce Maki — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 06:03:00 +0000

…
Still looking for that perfect place, I guess…

The Zip Code is 49684

By: Volieda Webb

Volieda Webb — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 13:48:00 +0000

She is awesome!

By: Daniel Hunt

Daniel Hunt — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 13:12:00 +0000

I love me some olive garden and think its funny when I see the same people who talk bad about them eating there when I go.

By: Melody Kreun Olstad

Melody Kreun Olstad — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 05:35:00 +0000

Oh, and by the way…now I’ll have to wait even longer to try the Grand Forks Olive Garden. After all this publicity, the lines will be out the doors again and I’m not waiting outside in this weather! Thank goodness Applebee’s is close by;)

By: Melody Kreun Olstad

Melody Kreun Olstad — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 05:29:00 +0000

I live in Grand Forks too and while I appreciate the local restaurants (Sanders, Toasted Frog, etc.) they are far too expensive and inappropriate to bring my children. Why is it so shocking that people may want a review of a chain restaurant? Is life that different for families on the coasts? I don’t think so. This is much ado about nothing. (Except that a few snobbish people want to make a name for themselves.)

By: Becca Sanders

Becca Sanders — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 02:54:00 +0000

Wow…Kon Tiki! My neighbor’s kids appeared in the ads for that restaurant, dressed in their karate outfits.
Do you remember Uncle Sam’s shark dinner?
That’s right — Fargo had Polynesian food AND shark! So you big city slickers can just suck it. ; )

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 23:07:00 +0000

On the other hand though it seems like Californians are the most reviled people in America

Outside the US, California is viewed as a separate and far more acceptable nation. Everyone on earth (outside the US) has a cousin in California.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 22:48:00 +0000

I used to work with an American nurse who had been mostly raised in Saudi Arabia. One day, we got a float nurse who had also been raised there. They spent their break reminiscing about how excited everybody was when Jeddah got a Safeway.

By: zarray

zarray — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:37:00 +0000

When I was a kid some of the Pizza Huts were sit down and had a ‘brunch’ buffet, but now all of them seem to be only delivery*. Oh and Godfather’s pizza was like that too, but better. Then it closed up, and like 15 years later a delivery only one opened close to my parent’s house, but it was like it was an entirely different restaurant.

Also I have relatives in Las Vegas and it appears there’s quite a few down there. Sounds interesting.

* and here’s the one by my house http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m07gktZM6g1qa1e25o2_500.jpg

By: Mari Lwyd

Mari Lwyd — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 20:31:00 +0000

I don’t recall if those played as well but there were a couple of brands advertised that weren’t on the island.

And they’re taunting you with Cici’s? Jerks.

Imagine a Pizza Hut all you can eat bar as a restaurant and now you know what it’s like to eat at Cici’s.

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:43:00 +0000

Haha, of course, you’re right. Typical city slicker (that’s what you call us, right?) professing his ignorance of the middle states here :)
(I was specifically referring to small towns, which is the image of the middle states people from the coasts have ;)

By: zarray

zarray — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:37:00 +0000

I’m not sure why but it seems like people have a compulsion to make fun of other people to their face about where they’re from. Whenever I travel out of state I tell people I’m from Columbus Ohio (my sister went to college there so I know a bit about it) and not Utah because it’s either ‘are you getting a drink because it’s illegal there*’ or the one that gets on my nerves ‘how many wives do you have? hurr hurr’

On the other hand though it seems like Californians are the most reviled people in America (esp in other western states) and are treated like Nu-age carpetbaggers
*Except for Colorado I think, Utah has more micro-brewers than any of the surrounding states. And while the booze laws may be somewhat restrictive they’re not as retarded as Pennsylvania’s and there’s no dry counties.

By: zarray

zarray — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:19:00 +0000

Do you get Cici’s ads? I live in Utah and we get them even during primetime; looking at the locations map they seem to be a mostly east and south coast and totally devoid in the north west.

By: zarray

zarray — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:13:00 +0000

Going to See the Elephant?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GoingToSeeTheElephant

By: zarray

zarray — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:11:00 +0000

When Japan gets American restaurant chains weird (and wonderful) things can happen to them. See Pizza Hut:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_odORpmcYhY

I ~desperately~ want those pizza crust ball rolls.

By: Andria Tieman

Andria Tieman — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:06:00 +0000

Ok, officially the cutest old lady ever: http://www.wdaz.com/event/article/id/12658/

By: Britteny Anderson

Britteny Anderson — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 18:03:00 +0000

I live in Grand Forks and I have to say there are a few really good (not chain) restaurants here. However, you may see pheasant and bison on the menu! We are on the Plains after all. The Olive Garden is nothing special, and most people here know that. I feel it’s almost a sort of tradition around here that when something new opens, you have to check it out. Even if you know it’s going to be mediocre… at best ! haha

By: Maggie Koerth-Baker

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:58:00 +0000

Like when I left the greater Kansas City metro and realized that not everyone has easy access to decent (let alone fabulous) BBQ. And that most of the free world is sadly devoid of burnt ends.

By: Maggie Koerth-Baker

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:56:00 +0000

Hey Chris, I think I get what you’re saying here, but, um, we do have cities and urban areas out here. In fact, most of the population of the Midwest lives in cities and urban areas.

By: milovoo

milovoo — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:07:00 +0000

I grew up in Fargo and chose to have my Fancy Birthdays at the local Kon Tiki. I therefore assumed that Polynesian food was readily available in the rest of the world, but now living in NYC it would appear that really isn’t the case.

There are surprises everywhere it would seem.

By: Andrew Pam

Andrew Pam — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:53:00 +0000

There are lots of geninue Italian restaurants in Australia due to the influx of post-war immigrants, but no Olive Garden. The only Olive Garden I’ve been to was in Japan and it was quite nice, but I have no idea how similar it was to outlets in the US.

By: BoydWaters

BoydWaters — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 08:29:00 +0000

Happy to see BoingBoingers give the reviewer the respect she deserves. From her photo, she looks to me like someone who’s been asked to put up with a lot of crap over the years. She can see it coming a mile away.

(my year in Minneapolis was the closest I’ve come to civilization in these United States.)

By: Jonathan Roberts

Jonathan Roberts — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 07:53:00 +0000

I haven’t been in Europe for a while, so I wasn’t aware how bad the economy was getting. I certainly didn’t imagine it had got to the point where Italy is being offered for sale as a a $25 gift card.

By: LulamaeBroadway

LulamaeBroadway — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 05:50:00 +0000

What a b&^!h!

This made my night. And thanks for decoding, I wouldn’t have bothered to read the whole thing or would have taken at face value.

Her review was delightfully catty. I love the slam about being seated by the kitchen.

By: maryn

maryn — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:22:00 +0000

Thanks Maggie for posting this and for making sure there’s a place where it’s discussed respectfully and even affectionately. The snide this column has been getting has been really annoying me, having once lived in an upper-Illinois town where we wept with joy when we got a Popeye’s. (And the Minnesota-Nice, or ND equivalent, is making me homesick.)

By: bklynchris

bklynchris — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 01:29:00 +0000

I didn’t take it that way at all. In fact, I posted my profound respect for the social skills of the reviewer. I know it sounds really dorky, but it reminded me of the importance of the adage, “if you can’t say something nice don’t say it all”.

Yeah, a few folk got snarky in their comments, and all I can say is they just…don’t …get…it. Which kind of puts them on display.

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 01:10:00 +0000

Maggie, I came back to this after reading your Twitter comments to say that I’m glad you posted it. I totally get it even though I’m not from this type of town, and I think the BB audience is valuable as a relatively positive counter-point to the nastiness on other sites.

But can I just say, the reason why people from NY and CA (I’ve lived in both) consider these kinds of places “flyover country” is exactly because on the coasts you don’t have to settle for a mediocre chain restaurant – or drive five hours to find something interesting – if you don’t want to. And what advantages there may be to living in that type of town are lost on us.

Of course… Applebee’s easily is the most popular restaurant in Buffalo’s suburbs (other national chains only recently started moving in), and I’ve eaten there many times with my family – I’m not a big-city guy. I can barely tolerate living here, though, because it’s close enough to Toronto and NYC that I grew up knowing how much more interesting big-city living is – which I think most people from “flyover” towns don’t get.

But… after living in Orange County, CA (and extensive travel in LA, SF, and NYC) I also share your viewpoint that crowded coast cities are ultimately better as a place to visit instead of a place to live (and many parts of southern California are way worse than flyover cities anyway).

Still looking for that perfect place, I guess :)

By: Teller

Teller — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:43:00 +0000

“I don’t have time to read all this crap…”

I was wrong earlier. She would like the comment threads.

By: swlabr

swlabr — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 00:24:00 +0000

Everything I know about North Dakota I learned from Chuck Klosterman’s fascinating novel ‘Downtown Owl’. I wasn’t really a fan of Klosterman, but it is actually a rather insightful book. The whole atmosphere of a late 20th Century Mid-West agricultural sector social environment is perfect.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2159007.Downtown_Owl