The Land Of Misfit Restaurants

As I've mentioned before, I believe the city I live in exists in some alternate dimension, just a little left of the norm. Kinda like The Twilight Zone or Tales from the Darkside, if you will. My suspicions about this theory are confirmed on an almost daily basis.

Like the other day, when The Girl and I were driving about, looking for someplace to eat. It dawned on me that The JVL has the strangest assortment of chain restaurants of any city I've ever been to. Oh sure, we've got your McDonald's and Chili's and IHOP, just like every other city in the States. But then there's others that exist in other cities, but you'd have to combine about eight states just to get the combination that exists here in Janesville. Like Shakey's (which has three locations east of the Mississippi, and this is one of them), Ground Round (which went bankrupt, but lives on here), Hardee's (another dead one, of which we have two), Happy Joe's (which has been around forever, but is otherwise nonexistent around these parts), and Ponderosa (the last one around the region that hasn't been turned into a Chinese buffet). Shit, up until a couple of months ago, we had what I believe to be the last remaining Chi-Chi's in the United States. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a HoJo's or a Planet Hollywood hidden away in some corner of town.

But, I guess being trapped in some wormhole restaurant anomaly keeps us from having to eat at TGI Friday's every night. (Although that would taste good right about now...)