Regular Joe's Guide

Last visit: Nov 2008 First visit: 1992 Mr. Music was over at the RJG headquarters about a month ago, and we were reminiscing over former restaurants we had gone to when the RJG lived in Addison, and later Carrollton, in the late 80s and early 90s. I asked "What about that one in Garland?" After much deliberation, Mr. Music said "Oh, I remember - Siciliano's!" In the database it went, with a code saying "revisit". So it was one recent Saturday that me and the Mrs. decided to make the long journey over and visit this restaurant that I haven't been to in at least 16 years. Saturday is the ideal day to embark on "road games" as it were. We've tried to make a point to venture out of our comfort zone of NE Tarrant and visit the various regions of the DFW area. And Saturday is the only day where we can be pretty certain of less traffic - and that the restaurant is likely to be open (unlike Sunday or holidays). In parallel news, one of my...

Latest visit: Mar 2021 (Colorado Springs - N. Academy) First visit: Sep 2008 (North Richland Hills, TX) It's been 8 years since I last wandered into a Firehouse Subs. This location is very large, though they exaggerated the "social distancing" to make it very uncomfortable to eat inside. Felt like a hospital. When I arrived, I just stood there at the order counter while the two workers argued about something regarding the cash register. Couldn't be bothered to welcome me or to state they needed a couple of minutes to iron out an issue (which I could have understood). After finally being able to order, I waited another 10 minutes for my "carefully crafted" sandwich. Yea right. Not a well run location, with absentee management. Typical of a chain unfortunately. The sandwich itself - after taking it home - was certainly very good, made to formula. Obviously I don't crave the place to begin with (8 years since...), but this location did nothing to encourage...

Feb 21, 2021 update: In September 2020, The Original Mexican Restaurant purchased El Rancho Grande and is now called The Original Del Norte. First visit: Sep 2008 Recently we wrote about Los Alamos, and on our journey we drove by El Rancho Grande, just a block away. And then I'd remembered the place from a few years ago when Mrs. RJG and I visited the La Playa, a branch of the La Playa Maya local chain minus the Maya (now closed). It seemed to be a happening place that particular Saturday night, and now we were going for our first visit on a Saturday afternoon. The interior is "Old World Mexico", as found in places like El Fenix, Cantina Laredo and Pulido's. Dark, gold lighting fixtures, stucco and wood trim. Time for the most important part of the meal: Chips and hot sauce. Why most important? As Fort Worth Hole in the Wall so astutely observes, it's 90% of the meal. May sound funny, but there are times when he's exactly right. The chips are homemade tort...

Latest visit: Oct 2023 (Colorado Springs - Interquest) First visit: Jan 2007 (Reston, VA) Locations: 49 states + DC. Only Alaska is missing. There are 30 in Colorado (4 in the Springs). That's +3 from last year. Texas has 68 (our former locale of Southlake is closed, so Hurst would have been the closest). There are 123 in California which is their largest state presence. The original Reston location that I first went to is still going.  In what appears to be a recurring theme, I state each year this will be my last visit to Five Guys. Only to return anyway. This year's excuse is I wanted to try their new location, which very recently opened up close to our house. This is definitely the closest we've ever lived to a Five Guys - even the Reston location was further from my office at the time. And I thought maybe it would make a good choice for a weekday lunch while working from home, thus putting Five Guys back into the rotation. I put that idea to the test here this Saturda...

I covered most of the highlights and lowlights of our last Road Trip this past July. Some other places of interest: Garfield's, Susquehanna, PA: Garfield's to me represents the epitome of the boring 1980's styled chain. But we were on the open road from Harrisburg, PA to Geneva, NY and it was way past lunch time and we'd already given up on our original plan to head to Penn State University, since we were running behind schedule. Garfield's, predictably enough, sits at the entrance of an equally boring mall. That said, Mr. Jose was more than impressed with Garfield's for offering locally made Pennsylvania wine. For that alone, the stop was worth it. Bravo to this branch of Garfield's! Mighty Taco, Tonawanda, NY: Loved it, loved it, loved it! After the lackluster Spicy Thai experience, Mr. Jose decided dessert needed to be at the nearby Mighty Taco. Mrs. Jose, the beautiful woman who I have been married to for 11 years, agreed. She had only one and I had 2...

Closed: 2018 First visit: Jul 2008 Sometime back in 1999, when Mr. RJG was working in the northeast Philadelphia suburb of Bensalem on a 2 week assignment, I asked the locals where was the best place for Italian food. They said the closest was not south Philly but rather Trenton, New Jersey. I ran out of time and only ended up trying a couple of local Bensalem places which were good, not great (pretty much what my cohorts said). So when I did my homework for this trip, it appears I may have missed my window of opportunity. Apparently many of the classic places in Trenton have either boarded up or are “not the same”. Analyzing the situation, and looking at hotel options in the area, I settled on the community of Flemington instead. And Luca’s was to be the Italian destination of choice. With the great taste of Little Italy still on our mind, we stuck to our game plan, and headed over to Luca’s for dinner. We sat down and prepared to order win when the waiter said it was “BYOB”. What? ...

First visit: Jul 2008 The next day in Tupper Lake we had a charming “continental breakfast” at our motel. Consisting of coffee and a wrapped powder donut – I’m pretty sure it’s the first powdered donut I've had in 20 years. Afterwards we drove out of the Adirondack Mountains, down to the state capital of Albany, where we arrived at lunch time (could it be a coincidence? Ya think?). Per original plan, we headed to a local brewery / brewpub called the Albany Pump Station just on the outskirts of downtown and the Capitol building. The Albany Pump Station resurrected an old brewery from the past called C.H. Evans Brewing Company. We had such great success with the Appalachian Brewing Company, that we were hoping for a repeat performance. And did it succeed? Well, sort of. Mr. RJG gives it a thumbs up. Outstanding brew (the Quackenbush Blonde) and I went for the cheeseburger, always a good choice at a brewpub. Great seasoning, well cooked, high quality meat, excellent toppings, and just...

First visit: Jul 2008 From Gouverneur, we enjoyed a picturesque drive through the Adirondacks and onto to our destination of Tupper Lake, ideally situated in the middle of the mountains and by a lake (naturally). I think we might have even snuck in an ice cream break. The little place by the side of the road served Perry's Ice Cream, which I've only seen in the New York state area. Quite good actually. Like many of the small towns in the Adirondacks, Tupper Lake doesn’t possess a large chain hotel. Since Mr. RJG travels a lot for business, I tend to stay at Marriott or Hilton owned hotels – generally the more business friendly ones like Hampton Inn or Courtyard. And so I’ve made that a habit for personal trips as well, and Mrs. RJG likes the free breakfasts at the Hampton in particular. We typically eat light for breakfast, nothing more a bagel, coffee, juice, yogurt, fruit, maybe some cereal. And that’s what Hampton excels at. But for Tupper Lake, I needed to be creative. A...

First visit: Jul 2008 (Gouverneur) Jrecks currently operates 25 stores, down 3 from our last check. Gouverneur remains open. --- After Simcoe, and a drive through Hamilton, we enjoyed two wonderful days in Toronto, seeing the sites and walking the quaint neighborhoods near downtown. As for our meal choices, unfortunately nothing stood out, though we did have a nice lunch (all to be covered in the summary). Leaving Toronto in the morning, we headed for our longest drive of the trip, taking a major highway through Ontario. The original plan was to stop in Kingston for a German meal, but frankly neither of us were hungry despite walking many miles around Toronto the prior two days. We felt too full for a large German lunch. So we headed for the border through to Upstate New York. After getting through US customs (not a friendly bunch, that’s for sure), we journeyed towards our destination in the Adirondack mountains. We really had no idea where we were going to eat lunch, but Mrs. RJG was...

First visit: Jul 2008 (Simcoe, Ont) Swiss Chalet operates 193 restaurants across the nation, with 158 in Ontario, down 6 and 4 respectively since the last check. Simcoe remains open. The next day we crossed into Canada and chose a scenic drive along the coast not far from Lake Erie. Compared to the rather gritty western portion of New York, Ontario is considerably more bucolic. Just to mix it up a bit, I thought it would be a good idea to try one of Canada’s corporate chains, and so I’d selected Swiss Chalet as a good stop on the open road (Simcoe, Ontario for those keeping score). Now I’m sure for any Canadian reading this (as if), going to Swiss Chalet is about as exciting as going to Denny’s. But their website indicated rotisserie chicken and Mr. RJG saw an opportunity for a good meal without all the calories. To be honest I was expecting a fast food place, but to my surprise it’s an actual sit down restaurant. Mrs. RJG likes that. I ordered the white chicken sandwich on a Kaiser ...

Closed: 2015 First visit: Jul 2008 We left Geneva in the late morning and headed towards Rochester for a quick tour of the town and enjoyed some authentic New York pizza for lunch (will be covered in the final summary). From Rochester we drove towards Niagara Falls, and did the mandatory touristy thing, though we decided against the boat tour. Rather, we paid the $1 to walk out to the bridge in the middle of the river and watch some crazy folks make their way up to the stairs to be swept away by the Falls themselves (actually it did look like fun). But we were getting wet just being on the bridge! Later, we checked into our hotel in Williamsburg, a pleasant community just west of Buffalo. As mentioned before, Mrs. RJG loves her Thai food, and this was to be our first experience on the trip. I chose a restaurant in the suburb of Tonawanda. Prior to dinner we journeyed into the Buffalo downtown area to take a look-see and also drove past the legendary Anchor Bar, most known as the place ...

First visit: Jul 2008 Part 2 of our dinner adventure in Geneva, NY. See here for the inauspicious beginning. After the Nonna's Trattoria disaster, we decided to go with the original game plan, a local tavern called Parker's Grille and Tap House . It was about a 15 minute walk through the somewhat shabby town center. It's actually pretty depressing, reminding me of many similar town centers in the 1980s before the gentrification renaissance began. And would you believe, no one greeted us here either? Must be the way things are in Geneva, NY. If I were the leader of the Geneva Chamber of Commerce, I'd hold a quick training session on the art of making customers feel welcome. It was pretty hot inside, and one look at the menu didn't seem overly inspiring, so we left pretty quickly. Honestly it felt more like a biker bar. We weren't there long enough to really know much about the place, so it won't draw the Mr. Jose ire as did Nonna's. Again, things happ...

Real shock to see these guys didn't make it. From Manheim, PA where we had spent the night before, we drove through York and onto Gettysburg to see the Civil War monuments. Afterwards we drove north through the Susquehanna Valley area and mountains where we had lunch (to be covered in the final summary), into New York, through Corning, visited a winery and finished in the Finger Lake town of Geneva. For dinner, we altered our plans, as we both noticed an appealing looking Italian restaurant called Nonna's Trattoria across the street from our hotel. We arrived and noticed a small crowd waiting for a table. So we stood at the hostess stand and awaited patiently to put our name on the list. 2 minutes nothing. 5 minutes nothing. Oh sure there were waitresses in the dining room, who could see us in plain view. There was a bar to the left as well. 8 minutes nothing. 10 minutes. Another couple walks in and asks us if there's a wait. We said we think so, but not sure, since no o...

First visit: Jul 2008 (Harrisburg) There are currently 6 locations. Harrisburg remains open. We had a wonderful day of touring the Amish Country of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, including driving through a couple of interesting covered bridges. Multiple times we passed the horse and buggies, with the whole Amish family in authentic 1800s attire. The anachronism is striking. Mrs. RJG was so impressed with their seemingly peaceful nature, that she said she wanted to become an Amish woman. Mr. RJG quickly stated "you'll have to give up your jewelry". And that was the end of that. We stayed in the cute town of Manheim, but had planned to head to the state capital of Harrisburg for dinner, which is about a 30-40 drive from Manheim. No problems here since we have Hertz's NeverLost - right? Our first experience with the NeverLost system was some six years ago traveling through the Midwest, and was a near disaster. We dubbed it AlwaysLost and NeverSafe. The damn GPS syste...

First visit: Jul 2008 It probably should come as no surprise to the readers of the RJG that Mr. RJG also likes a good, independent homemade ice cream place. I'd first gone to Bassetts, and the Reading Terminal Market for that matter, in 2004 while in downtown Philly for business. With the Villa di Roma and Rick's experience fresh on our minds, Mr. RJG needed a win with Mrs. RJG to demonstrate that I did indeed research properly for this trip. We were both in the mood for a little ice cream after Rick's, and I figured Bassetts could be the savior of the trip, since I'd been there prior. And Bassetts came through in a BIG WAY. Mrs. RJG, about 3 mouthfuls into her pistachio cone, looked at me and said "This is the best ice cream I've ever had ". Mrs. RJG just doesn't say things like that casually. She's a tough customer. But she is still talking about how wonderful the ice cream was. I had the coffee ice cream (Mr. RJG's favorite flavor), and ...

First visit: Jul 2008 The Reading Terminal Market is maybe the singular greatest food idea - ever. Enclosed within its walls, are literally hundreds of independent, locally owned Philadelphia eateries, food shops and markets. You'll see Amish ladies working the Dutch kitchens next to African American managed rib places. Everything that is good about the American food experience can literally be found all in one place. The Reading Terminal was an active railroad station only some 25 years ago. Once it closed, the cities' leading visionaries moved the already existing food markets into the terminal itself. To only be able to eat all day long. If I could, I'd do it here. Rick's is not the only steak sandwich establishment at the RTM (not surprising given it's Philly's most famous export), but his is the most famous and has the purest pedigree. Rick Olivieri is the grandson of Pat Olivieri, the founder of Pat's, which is generally considered the first Philly C...

First visit: Jul 2008 It seemed so perfect: Old Italian neighborhood: Check Vintage restaurant: Check Red Sauce Italian: Check Classic signage: Check  I was truly excited about this place. Mrs. RJG and I had driven there straight from the airport, and it looked so good (and loved the edgy neighborhood it resides in). Since there isn't convenient parking anywhere, we decided to head to our hotel a couple of miles further into downtown, and we'd cab it back. As we left the cab and wandered into the front door we were greeted by two entirely different Philly personalities: The gregarious bartender and the jerk "host". Naturally Mrs. RJG quickly got her nose out of joint with Mr. Rude, but I calmly explained that's part of the scene, and it's actually kind of endearing, if you're in the right frame of mind. Once we sat down, and viewed over the menu, I started to feel uncomfortable, and it had nothing to do with food. Mr. RJG apparently didn't do ...

Latest visit: Oct 2000 First visit: Nov 1995 One of the goals of the Regular Joe's Guide is to introduce you, the reader, to some of the better "local" dining options across the USA. And while we have a strong focus on the Dallas-Ft.Worth area (and, hopefully soon, much more of Denver), Mr. RJG likes to brag about places he finds during his travels. Many are unknown, and that's maybe the most exciting aspect - the "discovery". But as with any pursuit one embarks on (music, books, movies, locales, etc..), some of the best things are very much "known". Such is the case with The Original Pantry, a landmark in the Los Angeles downtown area since 1924. Places like the Original Pantry used to dominate the American dining experience. A basic hash house, that served breakfast 24 hours a day, along with lunch and dinner staples such as hamburgers and pot roast. It's a familiar story: After World War II, many families began to move out to the then new ...

First visit: Apr 2008 One of the great pleasures of traveling to Southern Cal is the proliferation of Persian restaurants, something that is almost extinct in the DFW area (there's only one in Richardson that I'm aware of, and I'll do a writeup soon). I'm talking pure Persian restaurants, not "Middle Eastern", "Pan Arabian" or, perhaps even less descriptive, "Mediterranean". For one thing, Persians aren't Arabs, and that's just the sort of thing that sets off neighborhood disturbances. And just in case your history is a little light, Persian refers to the modern country of Iran, which has its own connotations, right, wrong or indifferent. By all rights, Persian food should be the ideal Regular Joe's kinda food. We're talking meats, saffron rice and veggies - and the latter is optional. Shish Kabob is what most folks know, and it's a combination of various meats and veggies. But there are plenty of other Kabob's wh...

Closed: 2023 First visit: Apr 2008 Mrs. RJG and I decided to spend this year's anniversary in the LA / Orange County area (early April). It had been many years since we last visited, and if nothing else, we knew the food would be to our liking. Prior to me meeting Mrs. RJG, she had lived a couple of years in the LA area in the mid 1990s. She had recalled fondly of earlier times her sister and brother-in-law would head to San Pedro to go to the beach and eat seafood. Now Mrs. RJG hardly has what one would call an eidetic memory, so she had no idea what restaurants were her favorites, but was rather certain that if we drove there, she'd remember. NOPE. As a backup plan, I had researched some finer dining options, while keeping my eye on the Regular Joe's Guide theme. Neither Mrs. RJG or I enjoy ostentatious displays of grandeur. But we didn't want to celebrate our anniversary night in a dive either. And for that, The Whale & Ale was a nearly perfect compromise. Defi...

Latest visit: Jun 2025 (Colorado Springs - 8th St.) First visit: 1988 (Dallas - long closed) ---6/7/25 update Two+ years after my personal ban on Jersey Mike's, I relented and returned. This time to a different location on South 8th. I was running behind for lunch, so I only wanted a smaller meal than usual. And I was in the area. I found this location much better than our local one on Interquest. The employees were alert and the restaurant was spacious and clean. As far as the sandwich I went for the #2 and all was dressed up perfectly. Notably the "works" gal took her job seriously and made sure everything was prepared as it should be. Back in the RJG rotation goes Jersey Mike's. There are now 3,110 locations globally with 297 coming soon. They continue to grow at a rapid rate. Colorado has 55 with 10 in the Colorado Springs metro area. ---2/2/23 update Time for the annual update. Went to the drive thru. Figured out if I pay with cash, they don't ask for an une...

Latest visit: Jan 2025 (Interquest) First visit: Nov 1997 (Pleasanton, CA) HQ: Irvine, CA (founded: 1948 in Baldwin Park) Locations: 12 in Colorado (+3) with 3 here (+1), 8 in Denver (+2) and 1 in Fort Collins. Texas has 43 (+1) with 3 in NE Tarrant, including our two former stores of Hurst and Grapevine. Otherwise California: 280 (+5); Arizona: 38 (+3); Nevada: 23; Utah: 13 (+1); Oregon: 4; Idaho: 2 (+1). New Mexico and Tennessee are still on their radar for expansion Back at our favorite California based chain. On this Friday for lunch, Mrs. RJG joined me for the first time at our local Colorado Springs store. A slight deviation as we both opted for the Double Double meal deal with fries and a drink. Everything came out hot and fresh, and it was as good as always. Top notch friendly service. You know I really like that they wear uniforms. I don't think I've called that out before. My dad was in that business, and it was thriving in the 60s and 70s. It gives an air of cleanli...

Latest visit: May 2008 (Keller,TX) First visit: Sometime in 2004? (Keller,TX) Novrozsky's has 4 restaurants in Southeast Texas and 1 in nearby Louisiana. The Keller location has been closed for many years. --- Novrozsky's is based in Beaumont, TX, and have 10 locations. 7 are in southeast Texas and another couple in southwest Louisiana. The odd store out is the one here in NE Tarrant, located in Keller. One look at their website tells me that this Keller location is the beginning of a grander ambition. Many of the original stores look local and regional. So much so, that I feel I should visit one separate to this review. Though I've designated Novrozsky's as a hamburger place, as does the chain itself, it really fits the "eclectic" category better. And that's one of the problems I have with it: They really don't have a distinctive or specialty menu at all. It tries to be all things to all people, which is never a good idea. They have salads, baked po...