Ponderosa Review
The night started off interestingly enough – we had a desperate and last ditch plan to resurrect the two non-working group PS2s by somehow combining the working parts of each into some Frankenstenian amalgamation of the two.
I know, I know.
But still: SCIENCE! It had to be tried.
The aftermath of such an unholy act can be seen in these archival photographs; yup, that’s our fearless leader with the messy entrails of the two sacrificed PS2s strewn across him. The man looks happy enough, happy enough that the casual viewer might even think we succeeded in our technological gambit. Alas, that is not the case, and the results of the experiment are more like a pile of PS2 parts than any sort of working system. And by more like, I mean EXACTLY LIKE.
This was fairly late, and everyone was hungry after the attempt, so we decided to strike out and find an all-night diner to review for you unwashed heatherns. And while our experiment in fixing Playstation 2s ended in catastrophic failure, I like to think that if we were as successful in that attempt as we were in finding and eating at a restaurant, we might have have somehow combined those PS2s into something like a Sega Saturn. Definitely bad, but not altogether uninteresting.
As you can tell from the picture, this establishment had an incredibly creative proprietor. They decided to call their establishment, where one can order and eat food, "Restaurant". Good going there, buddy. That’s using the ol’ noggin. So this article doesn’t spiral into even further nonsensical weirdness, we’re going to take liberties with the name and call "Restaurant" by the name of the gas station it is attached to: Ponderosa.
Of course, you’re just going to have to trust us on the name, since the name on the menu is not the same as either the gas station OR the restaurant. Luckily, it does have a big transfer truck and exploding American flags on the cover, and that should satiate you somewhat. You can tell that 18 wheeler runs on nothing but American Pride.
After contemplating the menu for as long as we dared, we placed our orders with the bubbly if painfully inept waitress, and sat about getting a better feel for L & M Travel Center. I mean Restaurant. I mean Ponderosa. Wherever we were.
Scattered about the establishment was this fine piece of propaganda; a cold-war era informational placemat on BEE POLLEN. If you were to peruse the depths of its pre-Wikipedia information, you might get the idea that the Soviets were using bee pollen to enhance its rampaging army of evil communist super soldiers. Quick, red-blooded American men between the ages of 18 and 35, eat your bee pollen and sign up to fight the Ruskies! I guess it worked, because last time I checked we won. Well, they collapsed first. Thank God for their bee pollen gap.
The food finally appeared, and here’s what we each had.
Homp: 4 eggs, biscuits and gravy, and a chicken mushroom melt.
Aaron: Hamburger and fries.
David: Plate o’ late-night shrimp.
Brad: Generic breakfast food we can’t remember (way to go Brad!)
Hender: French toast (special desert: cookie with syrup!)
Most of us couldn’t really complain about the quality. It was after one am, in a restaurant that shared floor space with a truck stop and petroleum dispensary, and we got about what we expected. The food wasn’t entirely offensive, just sort of generic and slightly off priced. David was the only one that really rolled the dice on us with that shrimp, and believe me, they came up snake-eyes. Only his superhuman constitution, trained on 15 egg omelets and unrefrigerated 2 day old tacos was able to stave off the effects of the countless millions of harmful bacteria crawling in those gas station shrimp. Did I mention we live a solid 8 hours from the coast?
After the initial course, Hender disappeared into the convenience store and came back to us with a peanut-butter covered chocolate cookie. Which he promptly covered with this confusingly labeled syrup and consumed. Our only hope was that it wasn’t actually low-calorie.
Relatively satiated, we grabbed our checks and headed to the counter. The same enthusiastically confused waitress rang up our orders, which somehow ended up with my food costing $6, $7, $13, and $21 all at different times. Still, eventually the math worked out, at least well enough for two am in East Tennessee, and we were almost on our way.
Of course, some amazingly prescient member of our party stopped in the restroom and snapped a picture of this fine product, yours for only three quarters.
The truck yard hookers will be impressed, believe me.
Ponderosa Restaurant
Food: 3 Homps / 5 Homps
Price: 2.5 Homps / 5 Homps
Ambiance: 4 Homps / 5 Homps
Service: 2 Homps / 5 Homps
Total:
3 Homps / 5 Homps
-Aaron Littleton
The night started off interestingly enough – we had a desperate and last ditch plan to resurrect the two non-working group PS2s by somehow combining the working parts of each into some Frankenstenian amalgamation of the two.
I know, I know.
But still: SCIENCE! It had to be tried.
The aftermath of such an unholy act can be seen in these archival photographs; yup, that’s our fearless leader with the messy entrails of the two sacrificed PS2s strewn across him. The man looks happy enough, happy enough that the casual viewer might even think we succeeded in our technological gambit. Alas, that is not the case, and the results of the experiment are more like a pile of PS2 parts than any sort of working system. And by more like, I mean EXACTLY LIKE.
This was fairly late, and everyone was hungry after the attempt, so we decided to strike out and find an all-night diner to review for you unwashed heatherns. And while our experiment in fixing Playstation 2s ended in catastrophic failure, I like to think that if we were as successful in that attempt as we were in finding and eating at a restaurant, we might have have somehow combined those PS2s into something like a Sega Saturn. Definitely bad, but not altogether uninteresting.
As you can tell from the picture, this establishment had an incredibly creative proprietor. They decided to call their establishment, where one can order and eat food, "Restaurant". Good going there, buddy. That’s using the ol’ noggin. So this article doesn’t spiral into even further nonsensical weirdness, we’re going to take liberties with the name and call "Restaurant" by the name of the gas station it is attached to: Ponderosa.
Of course, you’re just going to have to trust us on the name, since the name on the menu is not the same as either the gas station OR the restaurant. Luckily, it does have a big transfer truck and exploding American flags on the cover, and that should satiate you somewhat. You can tell that 18 wheeler runs on nothing but American Pride.
After contemplating the menu for as long as we dared, we placed our orders with the bubbly if painfully inept waitress, and sat about getting a better feel for L & M Travel Center. I mean Restaurant. I mean Ponderosa. Wherever we were.
Scattered about the establishment was this fine piece of propaganda; a cold-war era informational placemat on BEE POLLEN. If you were to peruse the depths of its pre-Wikipedia information, you might get the idea that the Soviets were using bee pollen to enhance its rampaging army of evil communist super soldiers. Quick, red-blooded American men between the ages of 18 and 35, eat your bee pollen and sign up to fight the Ruskies! I guess it worked, because last time I checked we won. Well, they collapsed first. Thank God for their bee pollen gap.
The food finally appeared, and here’s what we each had.
Homp: 4 eggs, biscuits and gravy, and a chicken mushroom melt.
Aaron: Hamburger and fries.
David: Plate o’ late-night shrimp.
Brad: Generic breakfast food we can’t remember (way to go Brad!)
Hender: French toast (special desert: cookie with syrup!)
Most of us couldn’t really complain about the quality. It was after one am, in a restaurant that shared floor space with a truck stop and petroleum dispensary, and we got about what we expected. The food wasn’t entirely offensive, just sort of generic and slightly off priced. David was the only one that really rolled the dice on us with that shrimp, and believe me, they came up snake-eyes. Only his superhuman constitution, trained on 15 egg omelets and unrefrigerated 2 day old tacos was able to stave off the effects of the countless millions of harmful bacteria crawling in those gas station shrimp. Did I mention we live a solid 8 hours from the coast?
After the initial course, Hender disappeared into the convenience store and came back to us with a peanut-butter covered chocolate cookie. Which he promptly covered with this confusingly labeled syrup and consumed. Our only hope was that it wasn’t actually low-calorie.
Relatively satiated, we grabbed our checks and headed to the counter. The same enthusiastically confused waitress rang up our orders, which somehow ended up with my food costing $6, $7, $13, and $21 all at different times. Still, eventually the math worked out, at least well enough for two am in East Tennessee, and we were almost on our way.
Of course, some amazingly prescient member of our party stopped in the restroom and snapped a picture of this fine product, yours for only three quarters.
The truck yard hookers will be impressed, believe me.
Ponderosa Restaurant
Food: 3 Homps / 5 Homps
Price: 2.5 Homps / 5 Homps
Ambiance: 4 Homps / 5 Homps
Service: 2 Homps / 5 Homps
Total:
3 Homps / 5 Homps
-Aaron Littleton
