Place: Roy Rogers
Lunch: Double-R Bar Burger, Large Roast Beef, Coke
One has to wonder why there's a stray old Roy Rogers still hanging on in Ohio, when most remaining locations are centralized on the east coast. Until, that is, you see the zoo this place is at lunch. Then you don't wonder so much anymore.
So today I checked out Jungle Jim's. You may have seen this place profiled on the Food Network...it's a sprawling complex of a supermarket with a jungle theme and a lot of hard to find international foods. It's the place that made the bathroom entrances look like portable toilets. If I ever build a movie theater, I'm totally going to do that.
I walk in and it doesn't look nearly as big on the inside as it did on the outside. In fact, it looks kind of crappy. I walk up and down the grocery aisles and find nothing special going on here. Their prices are kind of high. The liquor section is as big as the rest of the grocery area. At least, the grocery area I'd seen. The one shocker...They stocked Tillamook butter. NOBODY east of Idaho stocks Tillamook butter. Of course, it was nearly three times the price I paid for Tillamook butter in Idaho too. In fact, initially the big deal seems to be a large selection of butter, meat logs, and cheese.
So I'm walking towards the checkouts when I start seeing signs over some items that refer to more items being "in the back". Huh? So I walk up around the checkstands...and discover a whole 'nother section of store.
The other section is HUGE. It's divided into several international sections. Asian, German, Hispanic, Italian, etc.
Some of the stuff in the Chinese section is clearly not designed to be sold in the US...it doesn't even have English on the packaging.
There are whole aisles full of crap I've never heard of before. Imagine all the crap I could buy and never ever do anything with. Ever.
Naah.
Then there's the seafood section. Fresh tilapia? They have LIVE Tilapia. Apparently, they're pinkish, have big eyes, and just hang around not doing much.
It's all very lovely, but I could find a lot more hard to find stuff that I actually want at Woodman's, and lots cheaper to boot.
But some grape Nehi is definitely coming home. And maybe some strawberry cream Piroulines. And Don Pablo's queso. Who knew Don Pablo's even had a grocery line. They're barely even a restaurant chain anymore.
Over the Rhine is doing a pair of 20th anniversary shows this weekend...one tonight with their original lineup doing songs from their first ten years, and one tomorrow night with songs from their last ten years. Yet you've never heard of them and couldn't possibly care less.
Sucks to be you.
