Regular Joe's Guide

Latest visit: Jun 2025 (Interquest) First visit: May 2024 (Barnes @ Powers) HQ: Fort Collins, CO; Founded: 1998 (Tempe, AZ) ---6/21/25 (Interquest) Time to get toasted man! Using no imagination whatsoever, I had the same thing I had last year. Only this time I devoured the sandwich at the location near our house here in Mega Chain Valley. The entire experience was replicated from below. Which is a good thing. Except they wisely were playing reggae this go round, much more to the theme of the restaurant. Until I was close to leaving. Then came on the rap. C'mon guys, will you stop that! Oh, and their beer tap selection remains lame. I only wanted a sandwich for lunch anyway... Chain update: Same crappy website, but 3 locations remain here in Co Springs. Looks like about 7 in the Denver area and around another 9 in Colorado for a total of 19. There's now 6 in DFW (+2) and still nowhere near NE Tarrant. AI tells us they have 69 overall (as of Oct 2024) and are in 17 states (+2). -...

First visit: May 2024 (Barnes) Locations: Colorado Springs (2); Phoenix (1), Escondido, CA (1) Where to begin here? I'll start easy and go to the restaurant itself. As noted prior, I've been haunting the Powers corridor much more of late. So this Sunday I was looking for a new taco place to try for lunch. Using my new "pollo asado" method, up came Erickberto's. Never heard of it. The reviews seemed mixed and I was going to take a pass, when I realized that my schedule would have been completely out of whack had I taken option A. So I pivoted quickly while on the road and decided to give Erickberto's a try anyway. I'm glad I did. It's a nice place in a decidedly gringo part of town, and it appears Erickberto's is some sort of chain - but not really. Walk in and order at the counter. I went with carne asada, pollo asado (of course), and a ground beef taco. She asked if I wanted pico and gauc with the first two. I stated definitely no, but I'm gla...

Latest visit: May 2024 (downtown) First visit: Jun 2017 (Sao Paolo - Jardins) HQ: Plano, TX (founded: 1979 in Porto Alegre, Brazil) Locations: 67 in the US and 19 for the rest of world, mostly in Latin America. There's 2 up in Denver. DFW has 4 locations, but none in Tarrant County. The closest from our former homestead would have been in North Irving. It's graduation season, and this time it's for one of my official nephew's college graduation up in Denver. Scheduled for Friday morning, I took the day off from work, and Mrs. RJG, her mom, and myself made the rush hour trek to downtown from the Springs. Then we get to listen to hundreds of names of people we don't know and scream wildly for our guy. Everyone who has been to these things knows the drill. Boring as all get out, but you have to be there for "support". My nephew is just like Uncle RJG and didn't even want to do it (I was the same in college), but the parents insist... After sitting through...

OK - we have a new entry from Mr. Music who has been rather quiet of late. Let's see what he has in store for us today. --- After seeing the video Mumbai Techno dude sent me about Brothers Cousins food stand, I had to had to had to go! And what a funny name! Lady Music wasn’t so sure about it, but she's a good sport and we trekked from southern Long Beach to Westdale (right off the 405) in L.A. between Santa Monica and Culver City. They don't open until 6pm. We figured it might be a mad house on the weekend and chose to go for dinner on a Weds. We got there just before 7pm and the line was already down the block. We talked to a fun couple in line who lives nearby and loves the place. They said the lines wraps around the block regularly. That just got me more excited than I already was! I felt like a 12 year old waiting in line at Disneyland! Lady Music said she was getting excited as well.  From the line we could see the mountain of pork roasting on the biggest trompo I...

Latest visit: May 2024 (Interquest) First visit: Apr 2007 (Kihei, HI) HQ: Honolulu, HI (founded: 1952) Locations: There are 6 locations in Colorado, including two here and the other 4 in the Denver-Boulder metro. DFW houses locations in Plano and Arlington, but none in NE Tarrant. Wikipedia says over 200 total. I could count them on the website, but it would take awhile, so we'll go with this. This is only my second visit to L&L, and as you can see, our first was in Maui. At that time Mrs. RJG and I were celebrating our 10th anniversary. And we just passed 27 years, so that's a long time ago. I'm not really sure why it's taken me so long to revisit, considering there's been one off of Powers since we moved here. Recently they opened up here in mega-chain valley, right near our house, so I decided it was high time I get over there. It sits in a small strip center between Bonchon and Rush Bowls. That's three Asian themed restaurants in a row. The other anchor ...

First visit: May 2024 (Colorado Springs) HQ: Albuquerque, NM (founded: 1978) Locations: 29. New Mexico (23): 17 in the ABQ area; 2 each in Santa Fe and Las Cruces; 1 each in Roswell and Clovis --- Colorado (3): Two in Denver and this one in Colorado Springs --- Texas (3): Two in my old college town of Lubbock and one coming soon in El Paso. Dion's has an image problem. For years I thought they were just a regular diner. They were just wallpaper to us in all of our trips down to New Mexico. I never once thought it would be a place to try given the abundance of other options. Imagine my surprise when I learned they were a pizza chain. They are? In any case, it took me another couple of years to finally step foot in one, our sole location here in the Springs. Mrs. RJG ran up to Denver for some family business, so this gives me a chance to recon these places for the two of us. Not only is the image outside confusing, but so is the inside. It looks all the world like a Perkins (same col...

Latest visit: May 2024 First visit: Jun 2019 This is only my second visit to Rosie's, the first with Mrs. RJG five years ago when we had a late breakfast. At that time I was heavily into smothered green chile burritos, and I tried their variation. It was OK, but not exemplary. I vowed to return and try traditional diner fare. And five years later I finally fulfilled that promise. While Mrs. RJG is keeping her mom company, I found myself alone for a solo outing. Rosie's is truly an old-fashioned diner, or at least made to replicate one. Lots of chrome, and solo counter seating for wayward travelers. On this visit I stayed true to my mission and had a cheeseburger and fries... ...with a mocha milkshake. Well... I just had too! To me shakes represent the old school diner experience as I recall them in the 1970s. For the burger they ask "pink or no pink". Mrs. RJG would like that! I went no pink myself. All came out as expected. Very good on the whole and worth a return v...

Latest visit: Mar 2025 (South Academy) First visit: May 2024 (North Academy) ---3/26/25 (S. Academy) It's Wednesday and time for my weekly Colorado Springs thrifting tour. As usual, I fell behind on schedule, and it was past noon. Only time for maybe a quick lunch. Tacos sounded good, so what's nearby? Ah yes, Tacos del Gordo. I forgot they had this southern location. It was the perfect meal (which I sadly forgot to photo). On this visit I had the pollo asado, ground beef, and adovada. The latter no doubt influenced from our recent trip to New Mexico. They came out smoking hot. The shell on the ground beef taco was beautifully crunchy. And all three salsas were perfect (better than the below visit), especially the two hotter red ones. The meats were all heavily seasoned and delicious.  Stays in the RJG rotation with probably more frequent visits in between. (6/4/25 edit - Visited again as promised and remembered to photo. Same meal as last time.) Other locations: Union; Fountai...