Fine Dining - Red Robin feat. John Angeli (Terror Firma)

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Septemburger rolls along with the #5 seed, Red Robin! Michael & Garrett are not just joined by indie horror film producer John Angeli, but they're outright sponsored by his new movie Terror Firma Garrett outlines the surnameless "Sam" who founded Red Robin by annoying the heck out of anyone who would listen with his one Red Robin song More of a deep dive on the history of the franchise in Resty Fact Round-Up Septemburger match #3: Red Robin vs. Outback Steakhouse Forget the burgers, Red Robin's got amazing desserts! What's Going On with the black specks in the hot water? John breaks the bank by overusing the boys' eagle sound effect budget Child assassin? JUB's got a way to settle who gets which onion rings, and it's totally not plagiarized The longest run-on sentence ever in a restaurant review in this week's Yelp from Strangers John gives a brief rundown of his movie Terror Firma after Michael got to attend the premiere John tries to stump Michael & Garrett by being the fabled presenter of the Headline Game Music by: James McEnelly (@Ramshackle_Music) Theme Song by: Kyle Schieffer (@JazzyJellyfish) We're on Patreon! Get an extra episode every month (August's episode: Burger King), extended Yelp from Strangers segments every other week, merch discounts, download access to our music including the 7 singles from our Olive Garden musical, and more! Patreon Producers: Sean Spademan, Joyce Van, & Sue Ornelas   Get our 5 Survival Tips for Casual Dining at www.finediningpodcast.com!   Send us your Red Robin stories at [e-mail].   Follow us on TikTok and Instagram @finediningpodcast   Let us know where we should go next by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, PodcastAddict, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. We read every one!   Next time on Fine Dining: Umami Burger! It's the #1 seed in Septemburger, but can they live up to their own hype? Find out next week! Ever work at an Umami Burger? Send your stories to [e-mail].   Totally Not Sponsored By: JUB

Hello and welcome back to the fine dining podcast September Gouradition, the search for the most mediocre restaurant in America and the best of these eight chain restaurant burgers that we are searching for. I'm your host Michael Ornellis and I'm your host Garrett's work and this is the show where typically we're looking for the most mediocre restaurant the perfect five point double zero out of ten because that is what we are qualified for. We are mediocre men. We are mediocre boys and we know mediocrity very well, but we also know greatness. And this episode is actually sponsored by a great horror flick that I got to go see a premiere of last night at the TCL Chinese theater in Hollywood, California terror firma to play on terror firma, you know, like Earth. It's a horror movie about like creepy seeds and dirt

and weird stuff happening. And we have that movie's producer here with us as a guest, please welcome John Angeli. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Holdy applause, holdy applause. Here's the thing, thank you, thank you. Hold me, applause. Hold me. Here's the thing, they're clapping at home. So we can talk over.

Yeah, I still like to respect the audience. Yeah, yeah. But thanks for having me. Thank you for sponsoring us. We really appreciate it. I love the movie. We'll talk about it a little bit more. Very good.

In the meantime, I want to dive on into this episode and tell people what they can expect because we went to red Robin yum. Beautiful. So this is our sixth restaurant in our September or competition. If you listened last week to the kickoff episode, we did five spots.

We did floodruckers, outback, Bob's Big Boy, islands and Applebees. I forget about Applebees, the most mediocre one. Five places that we've been to, well, here's the thing. It's not mediocre. The first time. The burger was good, man. It really kind of surprised me,

but they are our most mediocre restaurant is just a standard, you know, Beldebel as they say in the wrestling world experience. Just start to finish mediocre. So what made Applebee's the most mediocre place? Well, let me tell you Garrett It's because we looked at its atmosphere. We looked at its service and it's food That's our typical breakdown. We look at the atmosphere the service the food we give them thumbs up We give them thumbs down

We factor that all into a number and we're looking for the perfect five point double zero out of ten and Applebee's is currently 5.02 It's so close. It's so close and you do get extra Episodes from us if you want to go to our Patreon and check it out the finals and semi finals for this whole September GER competition will compete on this month's Patreon episode at the end of the month so go there check it out We've got lots of fun stuff for you and exclusive episode every month are extended up from strangers segments. You can download the songs that we made for our Olive Garden and medieval times episode. You can message us.

You can message us. That's dangerous. And you can do that on our social media as well, Instagram and TikTok at Find Dining Podcast. Send us an email, finddiningpodcast.gmail.com and send us anything you want, really. We will open it. Even if it looks like a fishing scam, even if it looks like a virus,

even if it has an attachment that requires me to download a software, I will click it. My computer is so full of viruses, but hey, you're like running Windows XP. It's so filthy, new viruses just have no room to move. It's an actual petri dish of a computer I'm ending party of three. We've been talking too long our table is ready. We'll be right back Your table is ready

Have you tried our chicken breast? Serving pancakes and ribs I recommend this spaghetti. We're here to serve us fine, not to impress Your table is ready, complimentary butter and bread These walls have growth signs Knit knack, cowboy hat, good luck, hat Autograph guitar, some crap from your city Behold the trust me of mediocrity I'm dining, yes I'm dining

Fine dining, two led letters on the sign are shining. You know, I'm flickering a regular tiny. I identify the perfect by- How the 10? Fine dining, fine dining! First impressions. So our first impression John and I drove separately yes from you Garrett and we had a real hard time finding parking It was unreal. It was a packed lot on a Friday night. It was happen. It was in the place So it was in New York, California. What else is there to do in Northridge?

I guess they go to the mall. Yeah, go to the mall, that's very true. Yeah, that's a good point, because it is Northridge. And we found Garrett wafting through the air like Bugs Bunny smelling a pie, but to the cinnabon in the food court. Oh man, it's dangerous. This is actually the closest cinnabon to where I live.

Is that true? Yeah. I got to drive to Northridge for cinnabon. But I almost was really tempted to say, Michael, let's see. Let's see. Let's see him with Cinebon. Yeah, I was starving. No, I know.

I was so hungry. When I pulled up, the first thing I noticed about this restaurant was it was next to a Dave and Busters. And by next to a Dave and Busters, surrounded by a Dave and Busters, dwarfed by this Dave and Busters. The war by this David Busters. Yeah, the David Busters was the big spoon to this red robin. It was sort of like the opening of the original Star Wars with the little rebellion ship and then the Empire is just cruising in a Star Destroyer.

Yeah. Hey, hey, that is the David Busters. That's the Busters. It was just engulfing this poor red robin. We went into this red robin and before we even made it, there's like a decompression zone, you know, two sets of doors. Yes, yes.

I thought we were gonna get, what do you call that? The powder they throw on you in prison? Delousing powder. Do you know that we were gonna get delousing? Just go in there and get naked. They throw delousing powder on you and you're like, well, this is my plan anyways.

I was 100% expecting that to happen. I'm down for this place every single time It was gonna be a ten star for me had we gotten divorced Yeah, you know, but but we left with lights, so you know It was a pretty cheap meal you and I didn't pay a dime No, thanks It was super cheap Yeah, yeah, no, it's all good. It's all good and very cheap.

Yeah, the price was fine. Cause we got a crazy amount of food. Yeah, we got an insane amount of food to the point where I almost wasn't able to dessert, but of course we rallied as we're, yeah, because there's always room for dessert. There's always, according to the menu, there's always room for dessert.

Well, and according to our Olive Garden musical, there's always room for desserts. And if you're a new listener who hasn't dove into our backlog yet, It's in heart, but it's always beautiful to say. And if you're a new listener who hasn't dove into our backlog yet, we did do a full seven song musical about our night at Olive Garden, which happens to be our seventh episode. Oh, yeah. Which happens to be the first one I listened to that got me hooked on this very podcast. Oh, yeah. Oh, nice.

Go listen to it. So once we walk in, the first thing I'm noticing, one, there's a big balloon tree. There's like I missed that how I guess I'm not I didn't hear the balloons just popping I love the entire meal I heard one balloon pop during the meal, but I was so hungry that my focus was just on food This is literally at the front of the restaurant. Yeah. And then I'm assuming children are just like taking them and then popping them. They're on sticks. So it's like a balloon attached to like a, the stem of a rose type of deal.

So the kids just grab the balloon and carry it around, but it's not on a string. And then to the left, before the, even the host stand is a, to go stand. So this place is clearly about getting burgers off the premise. Moving in, moving in on. The premises. Does it have to be a plural? Can I say the premise? You can say premises,

some fancy. I'm not looking to, I'm not looking to make it plural. No, it's the premises, yeah. It has to be a premises. Okay, it's premises without the apostrophe. Gotcha. So yeah, it was just an interesting choice to me

that you look left and they're like, get out of here. Yeah, just take your food and go. And then they had like a rack that had a bunch of to-go orders lined up. And then on the top, just one of those really, really like airport level heavy-duty weighing scales.

And I'm just like, who's ordering so much food that they're like, hmm, I'm curious, is this over 50 pounds or they're gonna have to pay extra to check this? I thought someone was like, you know what, I don't want to just have three or four burgers, I want like eight pounds of burgers. And they're just like, oh, we got to deliver exactly that. Yeah. And then in the very front, when you look to the left, they have a sign that's like about the red robin history.

And Garrett, I know you put together, you round up facts about these places in Resty Factor Roundup. Resty, John. Resty, Resty. I thought it was Resty Factor Roundup. That makes no sense. It's Resty. We're trying to be fun and playful with the word restaurant. Well, I'm not as smart as you guys, so I hear what I hear. And I stand by it. But I like how you just rolled with it.

You're like rusty fact round up. Don't know why it's named that, but cool. Okay, no matter to me. Yeah, but there's a thing that says the original Red Robin, Berger and Spirit Symposium founded 1969. It all began way back in the 1940s. Wait, what?

Yeah, 1969. It's right so far. All the way back in the 1940s. Wait, what? Yeah, it's right. It's right so far. All the way back in the 1940s with a song, a barber shop quartet, and a partying college town. Sam's tavern kicked it all off in Seattle near the University of Washington campus. The owner, Sam, was part of a quartet that often sang when the red red robin comes Bob, Bob, Bob, and along. His love of the song led him to go so far as to change the name of his tavern to Sam's Red Robin. In 1969 under the new ownership, the name Sam was dropped and the name officially became

Red Robin. Now this little college town tavern wasn't your run of the Mill Burger place, it served burgers like people hadn't seen or tasted before. And as word spread of the small restaurant with the insanely delicious gourmet burgers, the D's rubbed off on the sign. Oh, okay. People all across the country began asking for rights

to open a red robin in their hometown. As we grew, our okus on taking care of the communities and our people, our passion for insanely delicious gourmet burgers, our inventiveness and our search for the next great burger have never changed and never will. Yum. Wow.

And then it says Northridge Mall, since we opened our doors in 2005, we've been providing our community with endless smiles and bottomless yum. Are they sure about that? And then it's got a bunch of old red robin logos on the bottom and the one all the way to the left is scratched off. So they completely glossed over about 30 years where they didn't serve burgers.

Oh, wait a minute. Literally, they didn't serve burgers for like the first 30 years. Rusty up, rusty up here. Let's rust it up. It's the week's Rusty Rusty Fact Roundup. Okay, so as we all know, my mom is not a fan of the whip sound. rusted up in the weeks. Rusty, rusty fact round up. Okay, so as we all know, my mom is not a fan of the whip sound. And my mom is a fan of the whip sound. And so for my mom, we got a center of the whip sound by putting something else over it,

but for your mom, we're going to keep the whip in there. Why do we want to do? I need to do three with. Garrett's mom on this one. Well, it makes sense. I like the whip. We are rounding up rusty facts. The sound effect we got to replace the whip with, I think it makes a lot of sense.

The red robin yum. Yeah. So it's three. One, two, three yum. Red robin did start out as Sam's tavern in Seattle, Washington in 1943. The original owner, Sam, whose last name has actually been lost to history. What? Oh, okay.

Literally. Which is guy in like witness protection? Yeah, I don't think so. Okay, this dude's name actually was lost to history. I did a full archive.org search on it with times. That's why. And I'm not the only one that's failed on this multiple journalists have been like, we've tried, we can't find this guy's name.

I don't think Sam existed. I think he was a figment of a fact. Like, I even went back to, okay, I'm gonna search to see if I can find any records of his barbershop quartet playing in the Seattle area around the 40s. No newspaper mentions whatsoever. Yo.

This Sam, he sang in a barbershop quartet, as they said, and he was a particular fan of the song when the red red robin comes Bob Bob Bob and along. Imagine being like, oh, this song is my shit. And it reminds me so much of Cheeseburger. I imagine him kind of like jamming out to that the way I do with like, tool. Yeah, it's very similar. Just cranks up when the red robin comes Bob Bob and along you're not wrong really So the restaurant claimed Red Robin was from his quartet singing. Uh-huh

Yeah, they did but it was really from him singing the song to himself and annoying the piss out of everyone around him This man in his free time not when he was singing in theet, was just singing the song alone at his place of business. All the time. This is how bad it is. No one remembers his last name, but they remember that he annoyed them with this incessant song. But this is also an alleged man.

You don't know if he actually existed. It's right, right, right. But if he did, he was annoying. He was the most annoying guy of the guy in the Seattle area in 1943. Yeah. We do know that. Yo. Local restaurant tour, Jerry Kingan,

bought the business in 1969 and then removed the word Sam's, giving Red Rob in the name it has today. So he kept the annoying part, but got rid of the guy who was annoying. Yeah, just the song that was annoying the people. Just a racist legacy. Yo. Red Robin known for its burgers did not even sell hamburgers until 1973. Wait, so they didn't start with burgers for the first 30 years of their existence, they did not sell hamburgers. Interesting, because the way that it, I mean, this is probably just perfectly phrased

gaslighting on the behalf of their sign. 100%. But it makes it sound like they started with burgers. So when you said they erased 30 years of their history, I thought you were saying they stopped burgers for a bit and then brought them back. You're saying they just didn't have them? Yeah, they didn't, not at all.

So like, they had like cold cut sandwiches, wrapped in cellophane, was more like just like a have them. Yeah, they didn't, not at all. So, like, they had like cold-cut sandwiches, wrapped in cellophane, it was more like just like a bar, deli, there's some chips. Yum. Once they did start burgers, that they went hard on burgers.

Yeah. They were actually one of the first places that popularized the fried egg on a burger. Oh, wow. That was their favorite. That was their first special thing. One of. Okay.

Like a good breakfast burger, like a peppered bacon with like an over-easy or over-medium egg on a burger. It's not my go-to, but sometimes when I'm feeling a little spicy, you do that. You put like a spicy ketchup on there or a Chipotle ketchup. It's a great mix. I cannot do eggs on burgers.

You're like him. Yeah, I don't know eggs on burgers. It's like, the raw yolk. It's gross to me. It's like eating mucous. It is. And it's like, I don't know. I don't like the raw yolk. It's gross to me. It's like eating mucous. It is. And it's like, and I do that. Maybe.

Y'all. Once they finally got burgers on the menu, success came quickly. And then King and opened a second location about a year after that. The chain started franchising as a whole in 1979 and by 1985 they had a total of 22 restaurants and at that time they sold the rights to Japanese company Skylark Group. Under Japanese rule, Red Robin, that phrasing just sounds so like imperial. The emperor of Japan

was a huge Red Robin thing. So under Japanese rule, red robin adopted the bottomless steak fries we know and love today. Thanks Japan. Yeah. This 10 years of Japanese rule honestly was kind of a shit show. And the chain, I don't want to say failed, but didn't do well. The only good thing was the bottomless steak fries.

Yeah, they got these. So in 95, they brought back the original owner, got him out of hiding. Sam, Sam, we need to know not Sam. King and Jerry. Yeah. Jerry King. I think Jerry is Sam or he could be. Sam is a DB Cooper type of situation.

Yeah, you never know. Like there's there's there's renderings of him around. He actually sang red, red, Robin while jumping out of a plane. What, yeah, the bloody Sam is DB Cooper. Makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, I've just, yeah. Just the facts. The rusty ones.

The rusty ones. Yum. 10 years later, 1995, a group involving the founder, Kingon, and the first franchisee, retook control of this struggling company. Retook, yeah. This really does sound like they're in like a war room, like looking at blueprints.

They're like the enemies marching on, you know. That's the way I look at it. It's just like a rule of Japan. This chain went over to Imperial Japan for a while. Then America took it back. Yeah. America always wins. Stop, our Eagle budget is out of control.

That's okay. You know how much I love this company. Your bank, well, is out of control. That's okay. You know how much I love this country. You're, you're bank, well, I guess you're paying for this episode. All those Eagle sounds. They're coming out of your pocket. So, America away. So now that Uncle Sam is once again in charge of Red Robin,

there was success. Of course. Okay. Y'all. In 2002, they even decided to have initial public offering and go public. They are on the New York Stock Exchange, thanks to Uncle Sam in America.

But they don't have a better code than cheesecake factory. No, there's a pretty dope. Cake. Just C-A-K-E, that's how you find cheesecake factory. That's the only one I see. And this one's like R-R-G-B or something like Red Robbing or Mayburgers. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Or is it Red Robbins, Greasy Boys? Yes. I like that a lot better. You and I are Greasy Little Boys, Garrett. You guys are very Greasy. Both of them are Greasy Little Boys. Both of them are Greasy Little Boys.

Baby is both of them a Greasy Little Boys. Both of them greasy little boys. They were slipping out of the booth, the entire meal. We know, it's like a slip and slide everywhere we go. It was unbelievable. We were like slugs, but we leave grease trails. This is why I'm immune to mucus. Yeah.

That's what you're actually made of mucus and grease. Yeah, you've seen a commercial for Musin X before, right? Of course, you're the little guy. I'm the little green guy. Yeah. Y'all. While they were having this wild success, in 2005, the board ousted their CEO after an SEC fraud investigation

that uncovered $1.2 million of charter jet hotel and dinner expenses fraudulently charged to the company. Embezzlement. And you can't get more American than that. Honestly? Yeah, that's the same way. Did I use him, he wasn't in Bezzling, was he? No, for us, he was in the front.

Oh, this private jet. I'm gonna put this on my expense report. But to be fair, these are the business rules I grew up with. Any male I've ever had with my family, if we mentioned business in one sentence, business expense. Yeah, yeah. Of course that's how it works. That's a really good idea.

Right? Very American. American ingenuity. Stop it. Yum. Speaking of American ingenuity. Oh my God. There are quite a few around 500 locations in the US and Canada.

So a little bit of fraud never heard any of that. No, not at all. Not at all. How do you think I got here? Find out any podcast, advocates fervently. In favor of fraud. That is our stance. Don't read this back on a transcript.

No. Yum. To bring it out of the fraud territory and into the successful burger territory, yeah, get me. Red Robin was named Zagat's number one full service burger four years in a row from 2009 to 2012. So which means they beat out in this time period, the cheesecake

factory, Applebee's, Chilles, Outback, all these other places. We go to all these other places in our September of the bracket. They won September for like four years in a row. But are they gonna win this year? 11 years since their last victory. Time won't tell. Yo Red Robin was the first national chain to offer a Robin burger.

Oh, whoa, that sounds like some of the Russian. Yeah. Yeah. Was it good? I mean, what is the red? They don't know. So what do you do with the fun? Yeah, the buns are crispy. So it's like the uncooked ramen.

Yeah. Okay. I don't know if I like that. Not that great of a thing. I thought it was gonna be like noodles on a burger. No, it's the bread in between. Yeah. I would try it.

Well, yeah. I'm a trash compactor. Like, you tell me that you're mixing up two crazy foods and throwing them together, like, I'll give it a ramen burger. I'll give it a taste. And then she brings out. And then she brings out. So nothing more American than taking two different foods

and mashing them together. Yeah. And there's nothing more American than stealing someone's culture. A hundred percent accurate, yeah. So red ramen is really American. culture. Oh, 100% accurate, yeah. So red robin is really America. Yeah. Oh, that's good. Yum.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest releases a yearly list awarding chain restaurants most glorically massive offerings. Oh, no. Red Robbins Monster Meal won 2014's unhealthiest meal award coming in at three thousand five hundred and forty calories, three and a half days worth of saturated fat, which happens to be exactly sixty-nine grams and four days of sodium.

What's in it? This meal consists of a one thousand six hundred and seventy calorie monster burger, bottomless fries and a fifteen 1500 calorie shake. We probably ate more than that. Yeah, we did. I think we probably had 6000 calories a piece. Easily. And this place.

I want. Yeah. Yeah. But it shows that we did red robin in the intended manner. Yeah. We did red robin right. We did it. We did it. Did it.

Bring him home, boys. We did Red Robin right? You did Rusty Facts Roundup, right? You adjusted and derusted and deloust some facts. For this week's Rusty Facts Roundup. Yee-ha! Atmissier. This place is just covered in wall art and I'm here for it. I'm actually digging the choices that they're making.

It's like cutesy burgers and like a potato nin. Like there's a potato dressed as a ninja with a sword on its back and then a bunch of French fries next to it implying that he just sliced his brethren to smithereen. He just committed straight up murder. There was like a real cool like neon yum on the wall in like a bunch of like slap dash style signs. One of my favorite signs that had nothing to do with the thaming of the restaurant was just one that says dear NASA your mom thought I was big enough Pluto There's like Barbie dolls excite seeing in front of a Hollywood sign and I'm like does Northridge think they're part of Hollywood They're so close to Hollywood our Northridge trying to pass themselves off like hey guys our identity is movies too

Not the type of movies that you want to be People come in from out of town. They think Los Angeles is just Hollywood right. Oh, I am so glad it's not oh Yeah, but it's just that whole thing. They don't realize how big it is It's huge. Yeah, it's gigantic. I mean it took us from Northridge to Hollywood at Nine at it took us from Northridge to Hollywood at nine at night, took us 42 minutes. I think, yeah. But yeah, I like the decor of this place. A lot of Americana.

A lot of Americana. It was, you don't get the eagle on Americana. Damn, a lot of Americana. No. I honestly didn't really notice a lot of the atmosphere I walked in because I was so hungry that I wasn't even looking at the walls. You were literally telling me like, I only see what's directly in front of me and I think

I'm like browning out from outside. I just have like tunnel vision of where is my burger, where is my food. Like when you look directly at the sun during an eclipse, that's what your eyes were doing. And that's typically what I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was after we ate and you pointed out some of the great American decor of this place. They did have a big American flag made of baseball That was one of the most I mean I was very proud. I actually stood up and saluted the flag And they were like sir And you get off of the seat you're not supposed to stand on the seat All right, so just wait till I'm done humming the national anthem to myself, okay?

But you did like the extended third verse that very few people know about. Oh, yeah, that's the true meaning for that. You waited for the beat to drop. You forgot the red, red Robin song. Yeah, that's the only song you're allowed to have here. Yeah, I almost got kicked out for singing an actual kind of Uncle Sam. Yeah. Ooh, ooh, clever.

I like that. Yeah. But there was some most like presidential things too. I saw Abe Lincoln on one of the things there, so I was kind of nice. They had like these big light fixtures that were almost like, kind of like an upside down table. Yeah.

Like a plastic- A American pictograph. Yeah. Like it looked like a zootrop kind of without the little slits on the side, but one like, there was a big American flag made of bandanas and denim for like the colors. It is really creative. Yeah. I liked it. It was a big American flag made of bandanas and denim for like the colors. It is really creative.

Yeah, I liked it. It was like Olive Garden. There were so many families. Of course. Families, families, families, families, families everywhere. Yeah. That is where the atmosphere took a hit for me. Yeah.

There was a little loud, loud, chaotic, lot of kids. Baby screaming, kids screaming. I get it. You're out at a restaurant. Parents need to eat too. Yes, take your kids out. They're humans too. What do you mean parents need to eat too? Kids also need to eat. You know you have to feed kids. But I don't want to endorse feeding these meals to children. I don't want to be real. Oh, these meals. I don't want to endorse feeding children. No, kids shouldn't be eating in places like Red Mountain because

like the cow. For the house. So yeah, so we're looking out for to show up on these things and I turned out horrible. So we do have a generation of horrible American children. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, here it's bring your kids, feed them healthy things if you can, but if they make a noise, that's when you take them out. Take them out.

Take them out. Take them out back. Turn them into burgers. He be Cooper Sam's gonna be back there. That's why he's expung. Take him out. Take him out. Take him out. Take him out. Back. Turn him into burgers. He be coopers. Sam's going to be back there. That's why he's expunged from the record. He's a child assassin. He's a child assassin. To be clear, child assassin does not mean he is a child who isn't assassin. No, he isn't assassin of children. Oh, children. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It wasn't horrible, but it was noticeable. Yes. There is enough, Rosy. Okay. You get one to two cries or one to two outbursts before you got to take the kid outside

and try to settle him down. Sure, don't get taken up by Uncle Sam. Your kid starts crying just a red dot appears on them like a laser. We should open a restaurant like that. Just a really, you just have like a bunch of people around the edges just with laser pointers. It's just like the theme of the place.

It's about the implication. Table space was an issue. It was a huge issue. Like these were short booths. Like they didn't stick out from the wall that much. Garrett and I sat next to each other and I kind of had no arm space on my left hand side. It was way too little.

It was way too little. This is. Way too little. Yeah, these booths made the logistical part of our eating a little bit of a problem. But on that note, why don't you want to be close to us, Michael? Garrett, you provide me constant examples. Should I list them all because that would be an episode unto itself? You don't want to be close to me? Garrett, you are my actual shadow. I feel like I cannot turn without being like, oh my god.

You were right there. Why are you so quiet? I'm an ninja. Yeah. But overall though, I did like this atmosphere well enough. The Pluto sign honestly sealed it and then the little like yum neon So like I'm a sucker for signs. I'm going one thumb up on the atmosphere Yeah, I I tend to agree with you. I'm a one thumb up as well It was no thumbs for me When I was super hungry and wasn't looking around and I was like this is kind of a basic boring place and then once you took it in

The walls opened up and while you pointed out the baseball sign of the flag. And you're like, woo, that's a wild space. My thumb is rising. So it is just, and it was just natural. It was a bald up fist. And then it was like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, them. There's a clear theme, and it's clean and well lit,

but the overall vibe is too high strung for my liking. Kids are screaming, balloons are popping, and plates are dropping. It's a boisterous family environment, which comes with, frankly, a bunch of unneeded stimuli. Lubies is just as family friendly and feels just as down-home American too, but it's super chill.

Yeah. It's done well, but it's just too much for me. Zero thumbs. Zero thumbs? Zero thumbs, interesting. Now, before we go into service, I want to talk about what you served up, John. I served you of some entertainment. You produced a movie, Terror firma.

I got to see it last night. It had like a vintage horror vibe. It felt a little John Carpenter-esque in a way. It was great. I really enjoyed your lead. Fates him awesome. She was an amazing actress. She was incredible.

Creepy premise, if you want to do like a short pitch. Yeah, so my co-producer, Jake McPherson, he wrote this awesome script. It was during COVID, so we like we didn't want to make like a COVID movie, but Faye plays a character named Lola, struggling artist in Los Angeles. She goes to live with her brother who they haven't seen each other for about a year and all the sudden the city of Los Angeles locks down. We don't know why. And the lockdown really just, it's the themes of sort of what we all felt together. A little bit trapped. A little bit trapped. You can't get out of your house. And in this situation, the government provides them with pallets of food. Right.

And there's is tampered with. There's a mysterious seed pack. A little bit of a fine seed pack with nothing written on it. They enammer her when she looks at them and she plants them and what sprouts from their tests their kind of tests. What's like beneath the surface a little bit. Yeah, it's beneath the surface. plants them and what sprouts from their tests, their... It kind of tests what's like beneath the surface a little bit. Yeah, it tests me with the surface. It sort of brings out some of their best or worst qualities

and their happiness house together, will they go mad? It ended up just having a lot of comedy and because when you're doing a horror film or a drama film, you want to care about the characters. Right. And the best way to connect with the audience is that that characters came first. Yeah, oh, characters should always come first in a movie. Yeah. If your characters don't come first and don't make a movie. Right. These actors did such a

wonderful job. Faita Massa, Bert the Kerr and Robert Bretonau. Also got to give love to Max Carpenter who played Teddy. Yeah. A smaller role, but a pivotal role in the film. He's awesome. He's great. He brought a lightness and a little comedy to the role as well. Yeah, because when you're you're in this thing where you're Trapped in his house. It's tense and when we eventually bring Teddy in it's like, ah, okay, I can breathe for a second. Yeah. Yeah. And where can people find this movie? We're working on distribution right now. We're working on a deal. So we'll let you know once we can, but you can follow our Instagram Terror firma film all one word. That's T-E-R-R-O-R-F-I-R-M-A. The trailers on IMDB.

If you're a horror fan, do yourself a favor, check this movie out. Yeah, man, and if you love independent cinema, like we live in a world now where cinema is like, it's like the eighties again. We're corporate filmmaking is taken over, and it's so hard to find people with like an authentic voice in cinema and Jake's got it. I mean, the guys who made this movie,

we've been friends for 14 years with film school together. We moved out here together and we've always wanted to make a feature and like Jake took me out for a tie dinner to pitch me the film and say, look, we gotta make a movie. A lot of it was paid for by COVID checks. We all put money into it. Man, so it's like, it's a labor of love. It's a labor of love. And that's what we wanted. We wanted to bring that back to the cinema, give you characters you care about so that

you're really invested in them and you don't want anything bad to happen to them. Yeah. And when it does or if it does, you're just like, oh, come on. My one critique of the movies that there was no conflict to whatsoever. It was just three people who lived together, ate these mysterious seeds and then just got along. They got along at a great time. Yeah, they're a great time. That was the whole movie.

I mean, we're gonna do, definitely do home video releases at some point, there's gotta be streaming because that's the way the world works. Yeah. And if we get the deal we're wanting to get, we'll do sort of little theatrical, possibly midnight showings around the country. And I recommend those, like seeing this live with other people.

I mean, that's the way to do movies. Not only did you make a movie, you made a good movie. Thank you, you should be proud of it. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me to see it. And thanks for coming on and sponsoring this episode. Absolutely. Yeah, let's get back to it.

All right, thank you guys. Surface. Right off the bat, our server did the thing that wins me over with a server. And that is he saw us, and even though he couldn't help us right then, he said, hey, I'll be right with you. Yes.

I don't think people realize how far that goes. Yeah, it's just a simple check and we want to know where you're at. It's literally- Are you gonna come back? We don't care if we have to wait 15 minutes to have you take your order. Just let's know.

You've checked in and you've given off a vibe of, hey, I'm kind of busy right now, but you are a priority man. But I care. Yeah. And it was like, I think within two minutes of sitting down, not even, he was there. The first time he passed by and saw us.

And there was no game of chicken between him and other servers of like, who's gonna take these guys? Yeah. There was no you must pull this time. That's true, yeah. I wasn't in a Pokemon card suit. I wasn't dressed like a juggler. Oh.

Yeah. You're wearing your insane clown fosty shirt right now. I am. It is slowly melting into your personality. Oop. Oh God. But this dude was on it. On it right away.

Yeah. Awesome right off the bat. He engaged with us. He joked with us. He had a really good mentor. And like he said some jokes that it's like, oh, I don't know if you're allowed to say that in a corporate world. Piling on jokes we were making it wasn't like he was bringing up stuff that he should know. Just like we were if we were talking about removing our pants, he involved himself.

Yeah, you know, he took off his pants. That's two thumb up service right there. He could talk. We were just three cool dudes coming to get something to eat. Or goofy and joking around just, you know, doing a lot of like head bobbing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, what's up? Yeah, man. Yeah. But he, yeah, he ripped us. He was great, man. He, you know, took our order really well. He, I mean, yeah, he was great. That's how it started out. Yeah, it started out. I mean, 95% of this meal, he was a fantastic server.

Wonderful. He was, but it's that last 5%. That did. Yeah. Before we get to that, though, I do want to mention the wrong wing flavor was brought out originally, originally. Yeah. And none of us cared.

We would have taken it. Yeah. Well, I mean, just, he needs to bring out the right food. We're regardless. But the way he made light of it, like just brought in a girl who it was like her like first or second. It was her first day.

And it was like, oh, this is her screw up. You're done. Yeah. So as poor girl, you could tell she was really embarrassed, but he he rifted so well. They seemed like they had a very like friendly vibe between servers. And that's always a sign of like, oh, this is actually a good work place.

They're working for us, they don't hate the jobs. They're all sleeping together. I would actually like that. Yeah, I would. I don't want to go to a family. Family, you know, all keep it in the family. Yeah. The line cooks have to be getting with the servers.

Like if that's not happening, I'm not eating at your restaurant. We did extreme research. That was a rusty fact that you forgot to mention. Garrett actually goes to restaurants a couple of days before to just scout out the will they won't they tension between the back of house and the front of house. Yeah, I have to ask them who they're currently sleeping with,

whether or not they're planning on childbirths. It's like the manager sleazy. I actually do want to talk about the manager here. Check it. He did. He did check in. Not only did he check in, he was doing waiter work. That's right. He was when I went to the can. He was walking around. No attitude about it, just doing it.

And I was like, lead by example. Yeah, that's a good leader. They run a good ship. So the service here was really great. It was. Until it wasn't. Yeah, it was for me, the whole meal, the whole damn meal, it was like, I'm giving this two thumbs up.

100%. Easy, it was like, it was just a hands down. This is gonna be two thumbs up. This is, he started off as one of our best servers ever. You know what else he did? Cause we got a lot of food. We ordered the towering onion rings, but we got the shortie, which is what they call it,

which is a six onion rings instead of 12, because we got a lot of food. I don't need a ton. And the six are down on the table. The onion rings are of different sizes, so they'll, some of them encased other ones to where it was kind of harder to see them. And so me, the detailed oriented guy that I am, and sitting there like studying the onion rings,

he sees us studying, and he was like, oh, is there one missing? I'll go get you some. And you guys were like, oh yeah, I think there's one missing. And I was like, no, I think there's a small one in there. I think he did right. Yeah, there was a small one inside of a girthier one. Yeah, he did. I was just, the girthier one took my eye, but I couldn't see the small one in there. I think he did right. Yeah, there was a small one. Gerthie or one. Yeah, he was just hidden there. I was just, the girthie one took my eye, but I couldn't see the little one inside of it. No, I didn't need one there. So, like without missing a beat, and even after me correcting, like, no, there's six, he

comes back, brings three more. Three. The perfect number to bring, because there are three of us. I hate it when, you know, like you go to a place and they're like, oh, well, for a table of three, we'll bring four pieces of bread or five pieces. Hey, you're a lobster and your biscuit policy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So stupid, because then you're gonna create a battle.

Yeah, it was like, that's what they wanted. They feed on the conflict, but not here. This is a family environment. Family are all sleeping together. They want everyone to be happy. But yeah, and so he brought the three extra onion rings

and I was very appreciative. And then, and then, I thought it would be fun to do a draft. I was very appreciative. And then, and then, I thought it would be fun to do a draft. I was like, sitting there, look as like the unrings are all different diameters and thickness.

And so I'm like, okay, we need to figure out the fair way. There's some really small ones, some really big one, there's some medium sized ones. So whoever gets a big one gets a little one, whoever gets a medium one gets another medium one, just to like make sure that it's like all fair. Like it almost felt like, like the NFL season just started. It felt like a draft.

Mm-hmm. And now a word from Mark totally not made up sponsor. Oh hi there, it's your favorite sponsor job, and I'm back with another idea that I came up with. Nobody else. Are you sitting around the table with your buddies at a restaurant and they bring out your shared appetizer, but it doesn't have an even number of pieces so you don't know how to divvy

it up. That's not a real problem because I've got the solution that I didn't plagiarize. I call it the Hunger Games. That's a job original. All you do is just beg your friends and try and convince them that you're the most hungry one there. Then from there, it's a free for all. Put on some brass knuckles.

You're gonna have bows and arrows. Or set some landmines. Make it just like that Hunger Games movie that I haven't seen and didn't rip off. You know what, on second thought, I don't wanna deal with the liability of people getting hurt because they followed jobs hunger games. So if you like this idea, don't want to deal with the liability of people getting hurt because they followed Jubs Hunger Games. So if you like this idea, don't call me!

Call Suzanne Collins. You can reach out to her publisher, and specifically buy name, blame her for the reason why you're being stretched out of a red robin! Anyways, don't contact me this week. Enjoy September girl! Okay, bye. I will say when we were ordering our appies and and all that. You talk so cute. Oh, thank you. Our appies.

Our appie daddy. It was so good. I'm your happy daddy. Uh, Jesus. Look on your face right now. You did so much disappointment. Happy birthday to me. Oh, God.

This is a funny situation. But no, he was like, do you want this to come out first? Do you want this to come out second? Oh yeah, yeah. And that was awesome. I can't remember the last time. On your rings and pizza.

You know, he was like, do you want to bring the oning rings out with the pizza? And then that, and it came at a nice layered pace, I would say. Yeah. But that also contributed to the table clutter. So that is the thing. The bushing situation, it wasn't bad, but it was accentuated by the lack of,

available table space. Speaking of buses, did you notice something? No. Or a lack of something. Like busers? There were no official buses. Oh. It was the servers and even the manager

taking stuff away. So Red Robin eliminated busers. When you say eliminated, was it like Red Robin Sam, Red lasers down on buses? Yeah, they took the busers out of the equation. Yeah, but they were kind about it like, hey, can I get those plates out of your way? Yeah.

And also, I mean, we're three dudes ordered three appetizers. One was a pizza, so it takes some space. It's just got diameter to it. It's got diameter, it's got girth. Yeah. And it's like a tuna can. And it's like a tuna can. A gigantic tuna can.

Yeah, like a tuna can, that's like a manhole cover. But I will say that we would have saved on table space had we not had that stupid, the digi-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z- The sea, the sea, get that shit off my table, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he was really good about, when you want this, come out, when you want that to come out, you know what, he was also good at, not Poisonina. That's true, that's true. Yeah, we couldn't get coffee.

You guys wanted coffee. We wanted coffee so bad, look. But he was like, you know what, no, we're not serving coffee right now. There's something wrong with our water. It's giving out black specs but the hot water only yeah we're not we're not serving hot drinks because there are black specs in them and like what's going on over there

I'm gonna... I'm gonna... I'm gonna... I'm gonna... I'm gonna... Garrett, what's going on over there? John, you know, like, when you're in college, you've had way too much to drink, and you have to get your stomach pumped.

Uh-huh. Whatever happened to you guys? Way too familiar with that. And that not just college. Right. In life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can invade his room too, that's easy.

Yeah, yeah. So, often after you get your stomach pumped, you're given activated charcoal to fully absorb the toxins. So you think red robins hot water tap has activated charcoal to pre-pump our stomachs for the horrible meal we're about to consume. Yes. The more about meals. It's loaded with calories. A ramen burger. They're like, screw it. These guys are going to destroy their bodies, but hey, let's at least help them along and get their hospital process started early. Well, I thought maybe that they would put that in your system, so you throw everything up and then come back and eat more. Oh my gosh.

That's even smarter. Because as soon as we were done eating, I ate so much food, I wanted one of those regurgitation buckets so I could then throw that up and then food. I wanted one of those regurgitation buckets so I could then throw that up and then eat more. So not from the regurgitation bucket, but they got 14 burgers there. They're all about the engine purge. They're encouraging this.

Yeah, so they want us to try every burger. Yeah, so they're just giving us activated charcoal and our server realized, oh, our burgers are not as good as they were from 2009 to 2012. We don't want these food reviewers to throw up and try all of our burgers and expose us. He's not trying to get us to buy more and eat more. No, he knows if we have more to review

that could only maybe be a bad thing forever. And kind of was. Yeah, we also told him we were going to be eating a lot of food. So he knew that we were coming there and we met business. Yeah, and they're like, no need. If these three hunks were gonna come in here, order as much food as they did.

Our kitchen can't keep up with that. They can't have busy sleeping with each other. Yeah, and that is in fact, what's going on over there? So our service markedly got worse. And like, not even worse so much as absent. He just kind of ghosted us. It was great for like you said, 95% of it. Literally, not like up until the very end.

The very end. He was just running, he was running, he got us. But then he just disappeared. And it was like, we wanted to get the check and we wanted to get out and move along. Well, because we had some place to be. I'm in from out of town, and I like to- You've got three days here.

You're burning the midnight oil. I'm barely sleeping and there are only so many drugs you can do in a day. There's only so many drugs you can do in a day to keep you awake. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we couldn't get all of them, our monster energy. That's the only one I take.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or we couldn't get coffee because the... The... Whatever. Black specs. We just wanted to get the check and go. And... He just disappeared.

He just disappeared. He never asked for the check. And then, like, did a couple pass buys without acknowledging us? He did three pass buys, looked at us, and didn't acknowledge us at all. And I was like, we just want to pay and get out of here. I've got a theory on this. Yeah.

So, we were surrounded by problem tables. There was a completely wrong order behind us. There was the complaining old lady right next to us. And I think we were the least confrontational tables. Yeah, he was like, easiest one for him. But like, it wasn't fine. Our ratings literally dropped at the end. We were like putting together our scores for the whole experience.

And it got to a point where it was like, this is a little ridiculous. Our ratings dropped, our thumb rating dropped, and he just didn't stick the landing. And then it forced John, this old fellow, this guy who used to walk to school in the rain, us snow both ways. In the snow up, both ways.

Yeah, like he's that old, very old. Very old. Has to turn to the z-ask. This on the table payment machine, and he's old, so he obviously doesn't know how to use it. He's like, what's this? He's like, what's this? Complaining about the logistics.

And so you go to pay, and I can't figure out what the fuck to do with my credit card. Your lack of understanding of this was way too much. This is way too much. John, how old are you? Okay, I am 36 years old. Very new way. There is zero percent chance of that as the number

and you struggled this much. I'm a stubborn 36 year old who doesn't like technology. Were you Amish? Do you have a flip phone? Yes, I do actually, here's my flip phone. I was a senior in high school, that's when camera phones were becoming a thing. And I was a guy, I mean, like,

why are you putting a camera on the phone? That's so stupid. You just have a camera and then you have your phone. Yeah, yeah. So it didn't make any sense to me. Why would you want one device when you could have two? You get two. Also, you know, 35 millimeter film cameras are better than your phone camera regardless of.

We know. So I don't like technology and I also like the interaction of the server. And I like the server. I do like the tactile element of. And he was going to get a very good tip for me. And I like that feeling of like, here's handwritten tip for you. And like you can draw a winky face.

I do a hard work with the eye of my last name. Leave your phone number. Leave phone number. Because you know, room number. Everyone is very sexually active at this restaurant. And I had my second hotel key card that I was gonna leave the servers, of course. But I didn't get that opportunity.

No, but also like, God, your struggle was embarrassing because not only once you finally got through the payment, like, rig a role on the screen, you had to like go balls deep with your credit card. I had to put my card so deep in that machine. Like into the middle of the, like, it was weird. You were so bad with this technology. I feel less Asian right now.

And I feel more Asian, which is crazy. You were squinting so hard. I was doing what you were doing. I couldn't see anything on there. So I had to go in my wide screen vision. But it was well, first off, the thing I didn't know how to do the touch screen if it was a slide or a button or whatnot. So that was time.

John, it... This is embarrassing for you, and it is in fact way too much. Okay, we got to score the service now. This guy was getting two thumbs all the way up until the end. Just on principle, it kind of sucked and I'm going to go one thumb up. But objectively, his service was two thumbs up service. Like it really was. He was a great server.

Just didn't stick the landing, so one thumb up for me. Yeah. I'm 100% on board with you, Michael. I was two thumbs up the whole way and those three passbys and making me use that F and machine one thumb, but a kind one thumb. Yeah, this went from one of our best service experiences to date with check-ins and Charismatic engagement to frankly non-existent right. I get it shit happens and we're an easy group to be put on the back burner for some more outwardly Confrontational tables

But we're the ones rating you. Yes, they don't know that. So I'm gonna give this the lowest two thumbs up possible. Oh, you're keeping your thumbs. You're still going to two thumbs up. I mean, I think that's valid. Like it is, that's fair. It was very good service and like, you know, the final,

but here's the thing, it was like the final like 10 to 15 minutes. If this is like the final five minutes or whatever, but it just, it did kind of plant us there just a little bit longer than we wanted to be there. Don't rely on the Deus Ex Machina of the Ziasque. Well, I'm also a very, I believe in punctuality in being places on time. Yeah.

This made us late to our next engagement. That's true. That's on my reputation of being places on time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I also feel if he has difficult tables, and we're as easy as to where he's chummy, don't you wanna stick the landing on the breezy guys? If he knew, the breezy boys, the breezy boys,

we're the breezes. And it's in backwards. If he would have just left the check there and been like, I'll be right back guys. I would've been like, take your time, dog. Then I could pull my credit card, give it to him, give a heart on my eye, give my phone number, hotel key card, and we would've been out of there.

And on time. And you know the cold old lady is not gonna tip well. So like, no, why are you trying to even give her attention, give us her attention because we will tip well. Now, it didn't affect the tip, servers have a hard job and they deserve what if they're really good at it We're not gonna stiff servers No, he good complain good tip. I went over my normal 7% he got no

No, he got a 22% tip. All right. You don't have to brag okay Didn't affect the tip but affect the raining yeah food We were hungry little boys I gave it to it, but it affected the rating. Yeah. Food. Yum. We were hungry little boys. I didn't eat anything all day. John didn't eat much that day. I had a breakfast period of at 9.30 in the morning

and nothing else. And we went at what, seven? PM? Yes, and PM. Yeah, yeah. So we got three starters. We got the towering onion rings, but the shortie. So it was a, it was a short tower.

And we tell you you use it. And we got 10 inches of pepperoni pizza. A girthy 10 inches of pepperoni pizza. That's literally how you order. You left 10 inches of pepperoni pizza. Yeah. It was a Donato's pepperoni pizza. It's like a thin crust, toppings to the edge.

Yeah, I'll talk about that first because I kept going back to it. it's like a thin crust, toppings to the edge. Yeah, I'll talk about that first because I kept going back to it. It was like a thin crust pizza. It tasted like an arcade that would serve pizza back in the day. It felt like a laser tag pizza almost. And it just tapped into an nostalgia for me to where I'm like, it wasn't like the highest quality ingredients,

but it was addictive and it was good enough. I really liked it and maybe I shouldn't have, but I went seven and a half out of 10. You're pretty high on that one. I was. It reminded me of rainy days of smoking lots of weed and eating like the best frozen pizza. Uh-huh. I like this pizza. I'm a pizza snob, but it was good. And like you said, kept going back to it and it just hit that nostalgia spot, hit the sweet spot. And I'm a six on it.

That's the thing, like I can't go low if I keep going back to it. I can. Oh, this whole thing was bland and uninspiring. The crust was not crispy enough, the sauce was runny and mild. The cheese reminded me of like a lifeless shaky cheese. And the impression I got of this was like,

tombstone or Jack's frozen pizza. Yeah, yeah. That's not a problem. Like, that's not good pizza. Objectively, this is a four out of 10 pizza for me. Not to say, I won't eat a bunch of it. Yeah, I'll eat a bunch of bad food. Yeah, we don't respect ourselves.

No, no, no. Have you seen, there's couches about to collapse underneath. Yeah. Have you ever seen a couches knees buckle? That's happening as we certainly literally trembling. Oh, yeah, it was fine. It was a slightly above average for me. Yeah.

Sully above average. Then the towering onion rings, again, we got the shorter stack, but he did bring us three extras way too hot when I bid in. I mean, that's not a thing I can judge them on. But that's a good sign that happened all three of us burnt ourselves from the hot onion right. It almost felt like a frat initiation. And we all got to witness each other do it. So we knew it was coming, but we did it anyway.

Yeah, the onion innards were just actually on fire. But these were pretty good. We got them with the haystack sauce, which, oh solid. You know, we had on one of their burgers, it's a good little sauce. I went seven out of 10 on these onion rings. Eight out of 10 for me, they're a crispy, there's a little savory element to the battery

and I couldn't detect what it was. I really liked that. And that haystack campfire sauce, it was a lot of goodness to it. It was perfect for the onion rings. So I'm a little lower than you guys. Yeah. I'm a five and a half on them.

Yeah. I thought the breading held it together, but it was a little overcooked for me. Really? It was very crispy. Yeah. I thought the onion ring, the onion part of the ring, it didn't respond to the bite.

It was a little too tough. Yeah. That was kind of my own, the battering I actually like. Your onion slipped out of the breading and landed on your face. On my face and was actively burning my face. I was just eating hot breading and I'm like, aww. The breading had like the crumbles on it, you know what I mean?

And a lot of times, onion rings I've had like beer battered onion rings are a little smoother. Right. And I like those much more. Well, it's just a different type of onion rings. But yeah, and I prefer those too. I'm not using that.

For it was subtly above average, the haystack sauce really killed it on these really good. Killed it in a good way. Killed it in a good way. Like crushed it. Killed it for you. Not like the Sam Child Assassin. Killed it for us.

Killed it for us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No child murder happened here. Not at least with this food. Yeah. Then we got the saucy boneless chicken bites, the island heat flavor. This came with jalapeno and pineapple

over like ridged potato chips. Yes, the first thing I had out of this bowl was one chip and it had to be the stay list one in the bunch. I took it and I just frowned. You were disgusted. Like an exaggerate, No, I was disappointed. It wasn't even disgusted. It was just like, come on. You're a ridged chip. You're one of the better shapes of chips.

And this is how you do me. And then every other chip I had was much better. That's good. But that first one was, I was just like, come on. These chips were greasy fall apart garbage. Two out of 10 for me. For the chips or for the whole? For the chips. Yeah, I mean, hey, I'm still not high on the chips, but the first one in particular was just a,

an abomination. When I say the others were good, I mean, by comparison, they were still below average. I thought that the wings were just met. Like the texture of them and they felt like a freezer aisle microwaveable wing. And you get that sometimes. Like it's hard to do a good, boneless wing.

Yes. To get that texture right. And I feel like they just didn't stick that landing. They didn't have the crunch though. The crunch, the breading on these was probably my favorite part of them. They held together, they were, they were, yeah, crunch, like you said, they were crunch.

It wasn't soggy. I went four out of 10 on the whole package of the chips plus the jalapeno pineapple and bonus wings. They were the low end of average for me. I've got five out of 10 on the wings. The flavor was actually what tanked it for me. It was lacking.

There just wasn't flavor to them. I got some good Chris. I think he may not say. That's it. Yeah, I don't know. If something's supposed to be spicy, give me some spice. Come on, there was like, well, if you had to have the actual jalapeno on there

if you wanted the spicy sauce. Yeah, that was really, yeah. The sauce was like a sweet and spicy Caucasian sauce. Oh, okay. Yeah, there was a huge kick. But that's where they gave you the jalapeno. That's where they gave you the jalapenos. But the jalapeno is not enough of the kick.

jalapeno kicks my ass. I don't know why because I can handle habanero better than I can handle jalapenos. Habanero is what 100 times more on the scoval scale or something. Yeah, I don't get it. Taste buds are weird. Yeah. Grimis is a taste bud. Grimis is a taste bud. Jinx. I forgot about that. I jinxed I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I higher on the wings. I actually really liked them. Again, what's funny is a lot of this food just reminded me of when I was in college and just smoking weed and drinking all the time and eating like that jack's pizza or getting like buffalo wild wings or something like that.

So you've got like an nostalgic attachment. Yeah, and like the texture, I'm a texture guy when it comes to food and the texture of the ones were pretty good. I'm a seven and a half on these things. Okay. Okay. Chips were a five for me. Chips were okay.

Yeah. The first chip was like a one for me. Overall chips are probably also like a four. The chip were doused in that sauce that I had and that kind of like, yeah, that did it for me. But the wings, man, I don't like a chip where the sauce permeates and makes it soggy.

I like chip, I need that crisp. I love that. So you love juicy chips. I love soggy chips. I hate the way you said that. So now let's talk about entrees. John will start with you and then you and I've got a tournament to get to get to get it.

Yeah, we do. Okay, so I had the blue ribbon burger, which is like a their blue cheese burger. Yeah. A huge blue cheese guy. And out of everything in this meal, the burger was probably my least favorite. Yeah. It's the thing that they hang their hat on. It's in their name, Red Robin. And they just burgers and it's like gourmet burgers. Yeah.

Not gourmet burgers whatsoever. I've had more gourmet burgers at good places. The bun for me was awful. The bun was kind of dry. The bottom bun was dry. And the texture wasn't great. The bun didn't have much taste to it. You know, like, if you had a good, like, brioche bun or something like that, there's a good taste. It was more bun than burger, too. Yeah. And the toppings were all right. I had to dip the burger and ketchup. And usually when I'm eating a blue cheeseburger, I don't like ketchup. I'll ketchup with the yeah. And like, I'll dip it in blue cheese sauce, but like I had to dip this frickin burger in ketchup and I'm not a fan of that.

And the toppings didn't do much for me. It was, this burger was a three. Ooh. It was a three burger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you wanna go to the fries before we jump into September? Sure, why not? John, why don't you talk about your fries?

You got sweet potato fries. Oh yeah, I did get sweet potato fries because I'm a weird person and I'm not a huge French fries guy. Like, they got to be waffle fries by like them. Yeah, and they got kind of famous steak fries here. Yeah, that was all right, but the sweet potato fries were okay.

They were a little too skinny. And I like my sweet potato fries with a little, a little like a little thicker. I gave them a six, they're above average fries. They taste, they taste very good. They tasted very good. Yeah. But the texture was okay and they were just too skinny. they taste, they taste very good, they tasted very good. Yeah. But the text she was okay and they were just too skinny.

I had a bite of one of yours. It was fine. It was okay. It was a sweet potato fry. It wasn't, it wasn't anything more or anything less, it just delivered on what its name said it would do and that was about it. It was fine, which to me is slightly above average.

Yeah. And then our fries, yeah. Honestly, I expected more. I do. I hear stuff of legend about how good Red Rob and Sprys are people say they love them. Their fry salt had like a lemon pepper in it and I wasn't digging the lemon in it.

I love a lemon pepper. I like it on a wing, but I want it to be advertised. If it's not expected, I'm like, don't hit me with lemon. I didn't say enough for it. Yeah, that's a serally unexpected flavor. Yeah, I'm a paprika guy. So you throw paprika in it. Like, that's the flavor profile I want in my fry salts.

Yeah, these fries just weren't crushing it. Just four and a half out of 10 for me. Yeah, they were barely warm and only a little bit crispy. They were just like the absolute minimum of a fry. These were the quiet quitting fry. We're showing up to work and we're not doing more than that. It's like they're unlimited, but I had no desire to eat anymore after the plate.

Like I didn't even finish. Yeah. I think we all had fries on our plate at the other end. Yeah. I can only give these a five out of 10. Yeah. I was a three on those regular fries. Like it's like exactly you said,

if you're eating a bottomless fries, make them good. Make them be a bee islands. But maybe that's the key. Maybe they buy really cheap ass fries that they know no one's gonna want bottomless fries. Yeah, it's same time and money. Yeah, yeah. So I could see that, but yeah. I get not it. I get it. Okay, it is time for Septemberer.

Match number three, outback versus Red Robin. Now, a reminder of the rules for our September competition. Every place is matched up based on their seating. The seeds are determined by the best burger we've ever had at that location. And if the recipe has changed over time, that doesn't affect their seating,

it's just gonna affect their performance. So we ended up with the number four seed Outback Steakhouse's Burger against Red Robbins Burger. Now this is a first round matchup as a reminder for September. If you want to make it out of the first round and into the good stuff, you got to get by on your basic burger. We're not doing specialty burgers, we're not doing signature burgers until rounds two and three. So we got the keep it simple burger It was served completely plain. It was bun meat and then it had the Vengeance on the plate on the plate when it's like this

I want the option to make this how I want it. I really liked it too I thought that was a great way to set the table. It had lettuce. It had onion. It had tomato. It had pickle. It wasn't an overwhelming amount. The pickle was kind of separated so the juice wasn't leaking on to everything else. In case you don't like pickle. Yeah, you don't get cross contamination. You don't get the cross contamination. And I took a bite at the basic. Like I literally took a plain bite. I put some ketchup on it. I took a bite. I put some onion and lettuce on it. I took a bite. So kind of all three of those bites are factoring into my rating. And you know what? I liked it. I thought it was a solidly good burger. Now, up against outback, outbacks first round, just the outbacker burger as they call it. We gave a 7.18.

This didn't soar as high for me. I did like it, but I only went 6.87 on the basic burger, so you're gonna have to go pretty high if this is gonna be outback. Which I didn't, you did not. Now, mind you, I liked this burger. The bun was crisp, but it just a slight buttery texture to it. The meat was juicy and then had a little bit of crispness on the outside from the griddle. I like that.

The meat was the best part of the burger. I thought that the bun was... The bun was a little bit cold and hard on the top and bottom. I don't know how you get that. If you're literally grilling the bun, how is it still cold? And this is the one we ate first. Yeah. If anything, this should have been, you know, not piping hot, but but you know, fresh.

And then cut your guys burger at half and the cook on the burger was like that perfect medium. Yeah. Yeah, it looked really good. It was good. It was. So I'm going to give this a 6.49, which is a pretty slightly better than good burger. It's fine.

Yeah. So that means when we average it together, keep it simple, red robin, your first round entry comes to a 6.68. Wow, that's good. That's good. Which is good, but it does not beat... Oh, I said the outbacker rating that I gave it,

not that we gave it. The rating we gave it was a 7.35, it was even higher. So yeah, this isn't even a super close match. Outback does advance to the semi-finals over Red Robin on the basis of their basic burger. Not a surprise, really. This is, we expected to buy what they're going in. Yeah, I mean, outback is a higher seed. This was the four versus five, but I mean, those are the two closest seed. You would expect a closer match, but didn't quite get it. Now, that said, just in case it made it to the second and third rounds, we did order a second and third round burger.

So let's talk about those, because one of them, I liked more than the basic. And one of them was the worst burger of the tournament. Hated this burger with the passion of a thousand songs. Yeah, let's talk about that one because it's not making it to the finals. No, the scorpion. The one that looked the best on paper because I sent you screenshots of every burger they had,

Garrett, and I was like, let's pick which ones we want. Obviously we're doing the keep it simple. You and I both had scorpion Super High Hour list, this thing had holopaniac... We wanted chips. We wanted this. Like fried holopaniac chips, it had like a garlic and onion aoli.

Mmm, it sounded so good, it looked so good. And when we got it, man, it cooled off. I mean, to be fair, we ate it third, but it didn't take us that long to get to it. Like the amount of cold that this burger was did not make sense for the five minutes at seven or four minutes. Here's a good description of the coldness of this.

Blighting into this, felt like sinking my teeth into a massive gusher made of meat and mayo. Oh no, that's delicious. That was the sensation. It was a burst of cold in chunky flavors. And the spice on it, the flavor of the spice, the jalapeno, it wasn't the best tasting jalapeno. It didn't work for it.

And if you're getting a spicy burger, the last thing you want is cold. It's cold. Oh my God, what the heck? It was chilled messy. The spice profile didn't work for it. I went 3.86 out of 10. Oh wow, I truly did not like this burger.

Like, your burger, your first bite, everything to slit out. Yeah. It's just like the burger slit out, all the toppings like. Yeah, I took the bite and there was no structural integrity. It tasted like it had like chili on it. It had a consistency of chili, but it didn't. I was like, how am I feeling chili?

There isn't a mystery chili. I know what it looked like when you took your first bite. You saw my face. You know how you pick up like a huge eight to 10 pound bag of rice, but let's say there's a split in the middle of it. I don't carry around that much rice. That's okay, you're not Asian. Mulch.

This felt like a yard work. It felt like picking up an open bag of mulch that was sliced through the middle so you open it up in the mulch, just slid every one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And my score on this was a 3.21. Yeah, that's not good.

And Garrett, I think on your third bite, everything spilled out as well. Because you had a much more... You were making fun of what? Oh, Garrett can keep his head. Yeah, Garrett's got the grip of a full American man. And Mike's got the grip of a fussy little boy. But we're like, oh, yeah, look, Garrett, he's got it. And then third bite, it just...

Everywhere. It comes out. Yeah, it just wasn't good. Now, what I will say is the best burger I had, I thought was the haystack double. This was under the tavern burger section, which meant that it came with a sesame seed bun. Here, I'm gonna interrupt you very quickly.

So the tavern burger, the tavern burger promotion was part of actually the downfall of Red Robin. Really? When I say downfall, I say downfall loosely, maybe meaning the closing of like 50 60 70 stores right so they originally price this thing at like 699 to try to bring in more of like a value conscious clientele yeah and it worked yeah yeah so people came in but they started ordering these cheaper burgers instead of the more expensive burgers average ticket price price just for me to get a grip. So here's the thing, when I hear Tavern burger,

I expect, like that name to me implies that it's like a more gold-made burger. Not less. So when it was served to me in like the paper wrapper, I was like, oh, this is a less fancy thing. This is peasant. This is peasant, yeah. But it was, it was the best of the three burgers, barely.

To me, I had this just over the keepin' it simple. And when I say just over, I had the keep it simple burger at 6.87. I had the haystack double at 6.88. Literally just to make a statement that I just ever so slightly preferred this. The Campfire Mayo was very good. So this had Campfire Mayo, it had, was it onion strings?

Yeah, crispy Onion Strings. Crispy Onion Strings. Just kind of like a poor man's version of Island's Island Reds. It did give me Maverick's Burger flashbacks a little bit. I was like, oh, this is kind of like a less good Maverick's Burger. The Maverick's Burger is a fantastic off-menu item that they used to have on the Island's menu that you can now only get off the secret menu. If you just order it, they'll make it for you.

But yeah, it didn't quite measure up, but it was good. 6.88, I'm not hating on a 6.88. D's get degrees. Now here's my biggest problem with the burger. The crispy onions straws were placed between the bottom of the patty and the bottom bun. So all of the moisture and meat juices soaked right into these onions took away their crisps.

There was no crisp. It was onion mush. Yeah, and still tastes good. It's still, the texture you do want that, but satisfying crunch. It was just an onion mush at the bottom, and I'm not a fan of that, so I took it down to a 6.07. Okay.

Decent. Still not awful. Yeah. Anything over six is above average for us, but yeah, just barely good. But the desserts, they were much more than good. Let's move on to dessert. Ball row. Guys, if you want to have a good chain restaurant dessert, I think Red Robin might be the

safest recommendation because they had not won, but too great bordering on excellent desserts. You put one of them in that excellent range. Let's start, I know we're raving about it, but let's get the worst one out of the way. They had cinnamon sugar dough rings and it's dough like DOH, like Homer Simpson. Don't know why, but that's how they called it. So the cinnamon sugar dough rings, not a tie in with cinabons.

So these are independently made at the restaurant. Garrett, I hate to tell you, but I'm on Michael's side with this one. Oh, but you know, that's an argument for another day. You know, you had your day in court. I had really high hopes for the high. And as soon as it got to our table I noticed that one of the cinnamon rings so these are basically like almost like Churro rings but like soft they're not like they don't have that crunch of a

Churro mine would it had like a seam that it was split along right through the middle and I was like oh that doesn't look like the sign of something that was freshly made. It's not in one piece. It was just a clean horizontal line right through the middle of it. And I was like, huh, interesting. And then it had a caramel and a fudge-dipping sauce

on either side. I took bites of both. I was honestly underwhelmed on something that I assumed would be a layup. It just felt cheap. I went five out of 10, which on a dessert is very low because I like sweet. I like sweet stuff.

Here's sweet guy. I was actually looking forward to these more than any other dessert because I'm a cinnamon guy. I love doughy stuff. I had the cinnamon in my brain from earlier. From when we saw the food court, yeah. Food court.

Food court. It wasn't cinnamon- for me. Yeah. The dipping sauces were bland AF. They were cheap. They were cheap. They literally felt like a screed bottle. Yeah. Screes bottle. And the one I had was not dohy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Same for me. Same for me. I'm a two on this. Oh, you're two. I was hard core. Here's the thing. They gave us four of these again.

We got that short set. They were greatly different. So you can mine my biggest problem with this. It was two doey. I'm dating and I'm like, this is chewed food already. Like, if it feels like chewed food, they're part of any chewed food. Oh, God.

Yeah, that's gross. I'm giving this a five out of 10 because the mom of bird tasted okay. But like I think you were saying there was four and we left one untouched We left one because it was just I was willing to point about that. Yeah, with a dessert There should always be a leftover bite that someone wants to call dibs over and that wasn't the case here And that is that is just enough of a case. That's all you need to know about it So now let's talk about the things that changed our lives.

First, the mountain high mud pie. The mountain high mud pie was basically like a coffee, like, had like a subtle coffee, chocolate ice cream cake. Yeah, there's like a chocolate vibe. Jell around it. Oreo crust, big layer of whipped cream on top. The drizzle of caramel and chocolate. And chocolate lattice drizzle,

which is probably the exact same. But the presentation was better in the way that the meltiness of the ice cream allowed it to kind of intermixed. And you would get like, I was scraping. Yeah. It was that, yeah. The caramel and chocolate off top.

This is how you make a complete dish, including the plating. You have to think about the process of how you're actually gonna eat the food. Yeah, this was just great layering of flavors. The Oreo crust was awesome. Delectable. It was so good.

This was a eight and a half out of 10 for me. Like this is my highest rating at this place. Yeah, would you go? I went a nine on this. Wow. I went a nine out of 10. I like chocolate. Over chocolates a little much for me.

This was like the perfect balance of chocolate, ice cream, whipped cream, the crust. I mean, I loved it. All the elements worked together. They did. It was a symphony of, and like you said, it's probably the same sauces, but these sauces worked with this dessert.

Whereas with the cinnamon dough rings, it just didn't. And like this is why I wanted my regurgitation buckets. I wanted more of this dessert. I wanted more of this dessert. Yeah, but I'm a niner. The texture of this was great. There was such great textual variety to this dish that every bite was an adventure.

Yes, but that being said, I'm also not the biggest chocolate fan, Textro variety to this dish that every bite was an adventure. Yes. But that being said, I'm also not the biggest chocolate fan, so I'm gonna go seven and a half out of 10, but just know this was excellent. All right, Garrett, let's talk about your favorite dessert. Yes. The Freckled Lemonade Cake. So this had like a strawberry lemonade kind of element to it.

Yeah, it was a really sweet, in round cake too. There was lemon curd I was round was one of the best. It was white chocolate. Yeah, it was a very round flavor Yeah, it had so many elements to it the lemonade the strawberry the white chocolate. Yeah, it reminded me almost of Mastro's butter cake. I wasn't quite hitting on that level, but I liked it Yeah, I'm giving this a nine and a half out of 10. This is a bite. You're close to perfect. This isn't perfect.

This isn't the best I've ever had, but the texture was fantastic. I thought it was actually pretty light. It was. It went to where light and creamy. When you think of lemonade, you think refreshing, and I thought that this dessert managed to encapsulate that in a cake form, which

cake usually feels very heavy, this managed to not. It was like more of like an angel food texture. Yeah. And I went eight and a half out of ten on this as well, same as the mud pie. I'm a huge lemon cake guy. I love lemon cake. This was moist. I love moist cake.

There's nothing better than moist cake. Yeah. I mean, it was, and the frosting was really good. There wasn't too much of it. I love the little shavings. Not a huge fan of the strawberry drizzle on there, but, you know, I don't hate it. Yeah, yeah. Eight point seven for me would have been a nine if there was no strawberry drizzle.

Okay. But eight point seven moist cake, baby. That is the American way. And I'll run a money. Yeah, and when we put all of these elements together, I didn't hate the food at Red Robin. No, I'm going to go one thumb up overall. Yeah, I was one thumble on the food as well. I'm going to go zero thumbs on this.

I feel like this happens to me whenever I try a large sampling of a restaurant's foods. You kind of find some weaknesses. Some things are absolute excellence like the lemon cake, but other things are like the John Hurt chest bursting scene from alien, but in my mouth and the verse. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that scorpion burger. It just opened up and exploded into my mouth when I bit it.

That was just one of the worst texture things I could experience. It feels so creamy of the worst texture things I could experience. It feels so creamy. Yeah. Oh, God. Chest. I hate what you just did. What you know what you just did. I'm just literally thinking this is a reverse xenomorph going down my throat. All right. Well, we got to factor in all of these summer ratings into a score. But before we do, let's see what other people are saying about this red robin in this week's Yelp from Strangers. So get a little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, little help, And five star reviews. He got it from the very specific restaurant location that we went to, let's start it off. Three star reviews.

This is from Antonio O. Over two years ago. I'm gonna take a deep breath and see if I can get through this long one sentence review and one breath. This place is great and I love coming to this location, but unfortunately today I went for lunch and it was outside, dinging and everything was fine

till the end of our meal. Our waiter never came back, we waited and waited to pay and we couldn't because the machine on the table did not allow us to pay and we asked a manager if she could ring us up and she said, no, we had to wait. So we waited till the waiter finish her conversation. I get sometimes waiters have full tables.

I can do it. But the restaurant only had two tables with customers, but this was not the case. Not sure if I'll go back, but maybe I'll just order takeout next time. Huh, sounds familiar. Yeah, that was kind of how our experience went. I mean, not the fact that there were just two tables

in the entire restaurant that had customers. That would be kind of crazy if they just abandoned you when there isn't other work. Sounds like Applebees. Yeah, where they were kind of playing chicken with us, but I feel Antonio O's pain. And I think you do too. For star review. Let's go less pain, more pleasure. All right.

For star review from Zineacix, six months ago. Let's get something straight. This is a normal restaurant chain. Nothing astronomical, crazy, special place, but they do serve up a great burger. To be honest, I haven't tried much else other than the burgers. My absolute hands down, the Royal Red Robin burger. Give me bacon, cheese, and throw an over easy egg in there. K bella. Ooh, wow.

Yeah. Hard I emoji and droolie face all over please. I like that there actually is no emoji. She wrote in text, hard I emoji and droolie face. When she was like speaking this from text while driving from the rest of the text dictation, hoping it would translate and pull up the emojis. I usually take out the lettuce and tomato for my burgers because I feel like those veggies have a lot of water

and it waters down the taste of all the other yum in the burger. So please don't take this pick as the best example of this burger, but man, it tasted superb. One thing that I miss is the big endless share fries. They still refill your fries, but I kind of miss the cute big bowl they used to fill up and all the people grabbing towards the basket too much. Does she like in a post-CO, I miss she misses the awkward exchange where people lock hands While reaching for fries. Maybe that's how she met her husband or something like she had like a moment where they locked eyes Fell in love over a basket of fries and she knows no one can do that. That are she's like really competitive She likes the idea of sharing fries to have them all as like a statement of dominance.

Nothing to knock this place for, but I do miss it. Overall, I like going to red robin when I feel like being naughty with my food. Ooh boy. As I'm sure the big bacon egg burger and refillable fries isn't calorie friendly. He he he. They do have healthier options, but why go there for that? I kid, I kid. No you don't. I'll go again on my splurge day. And then smiling a modicon. I gotta love someone who has that much passion for those specific things. Is she from the Midwest where heart attacks and restaurant chains are reigning supreme, probably. That's also the South.

That's America. You can go download our full Yelp from Stranger's segment at our Patreon. The link for that is in the description of this episode or you can go to patreon.com slash find out in the podcast. And we're now offering a one week free trial. So what do you have to lose? Go check it out. People have wild opinions and we get to read oh so many of them.

Thanks! Final rating. Okay, we've heard what other people have to say. We put our own numbers on this. Can I go first guys? Go first. Absolutely. Because this is a rare occasion for me. It is not that often that I find a place that I feel encapsulates a number on the scale.

This to me, when you factor in all that we did, one thumb up atmosphere, one thumb up service, one thumb up food, this place was on the high end of these mediocre restaurants. And in fact, I would say it was on the highest end of mediocrity, this was the perfect 6.00. Experience, just cleanly, if you want to know is a place good or mediocre, look no further than Red Robin in my book. Now, if you want to know if a place of perfectly

mediocre, no further than Apple pieces, but that Cusby line of better or worse than mediocre, 6.00. Red Robin, you are the former high achieving gifted kid that used to trade essays in homework for weed and social favors in high school. Love that guy. You have all the potential, but you don't have the follow through.

You lack consistency. Your best is fantastic, but your worst is downright offensive and gross. Yeah, that's scorpion. Yeah. I'm disappointed in you. Oh no, that's scorpion. Yeah. I'm disappointed in you. Oh no, that's the worst thing you could tell that kid. This experience could have been so much more.

You will never achieve what your potential is. 6.18, I like how harsh that was for a score that's higher than mine. Because remember, I come from a household where an A- is failure. is for a score that's higher than mine. Because remember, I come from a household where an A- is failure. So at the end of the meal, I was all about that 5.95 life.

Yeah. Because it was above average, but the place known for burgers should have good burgers. Right. And it was just dog shit. And then we were waiting for the check. And then we were still waiting for the check. And some more. He made a walk by looked at us

I dropped down a 5.88. Yeah, then he kept going get going and finally You were jamming yourself Deep into a few of the 49 times and my final score after paying with this fucking machine is a 5.35 You hated it. That was a big drop. Yeah. Well, because they didn't stick the landing. They did not stick the landing.

The fact that they experienced it made you late. Made me late. They walked by, got you walked by three times looked at us. And this machine, we literally pushed it further away when we got there. To be out of our way. Like clearly we don't want to enter out this. And then I got to use this thing

and I could barely use my freaking iPhone. I know. Let alone. Let alone this machine. We know pop pop. And thank you, son. But yeah, no, 5.35 for me just because the didn't stick the landing. Above average, we put all of our ratings together. Red Robin goes up on the Chunchky of mediocrity, which by the way, John, you get to see it in person. It is pretty cool, isn't it? I actually really like it.

It's pretty magnificent. I love, uh, juice he's up there. Yeah. He's not decayed yet. No, he's holding strong for pineapple. That has not rotted, despite being on a mounted on a wall for a while. Oh, wow.

Goes up on the Chachki of mediocrity at 5.84. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, in a way. Okay, well, we did not find the most mediocre restaurant. We got to keep looking. So we got a pick where we're going to go next week. It is September. We've got two places left in our bracket. We've got Umami burger and Johnny Rockets. But let's have some fun with it, John. You decided to come here. Why don't you prepare some headlines? And Garrett and I will try and decipher whether or not they are tour-fals in this week's headline game. The rules of this headline game are as follows.

John will present three headlines to both me and Garrett that include this week's restaurant. They can be made up or they can be actual headlines. Whoever correctly identifies more headlines as true or false between Garrett and I will get to select whether or not we go to Umami Burger or Johnny Rockets next week. However, if John stumps us and we both suck, I guess he'll get to pick. Are we ready to play, fellas? I am ready to play. I'm ready too! Let's go!

All right, fellas. I've got a few here and I will go ahead and start. Red Robin mulch fire causes $30,000 in damages. Yeah, like, yeah, I'm gonna say him. I feel true on that as well. Okay. Red Robyn knows it sucks, but it's trying to do better. That's, I mean, there would be a journalist that would write that. Yeah, but it's, it's too mean.

I'm gonna say false. I'm gonna go true. It sounds like something a Buzzfeed guy would write. Yeah. All right, and finally, Red Robin, Florida man caught refilling cup in the bathroom. Ah, true. Florida man.

I'm gonna say false. Okay, guys. First headline was, Red Robin, mulchfire causes $30,000 in damages. You both said true. That is true. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's obvious.

Uncle Sam's a pyro. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The second one was, Red Robin knows it sucks, but it's trying to do better. I said false. You said false, Michael. Garrett said it was true. That is true.

That is true. The sub headline was, the gourmet burger spot is making some changes to get back on track. So I think this was after that 2009, 2012 thing when they did it in front of goodness. And then actually the article was about the bus boy thing not bringing bus back.

Oh really? Okay. And finally, Red Rob and Florida man caught refilling cup in bathroom. Garrett, you said it was true. And I said it was false. That is false. I made that one. Oh, so we're both two and one

So do you have a tiebreaker headline John? Yeah, let's do it here Red Robin employee will continue to underseason food until payment dispute is settled true I'm just gonna go false so to settle it to settle it. Oh Guys, so the headline is red Robin employee will continue to under season food until payment dispute is settled. That is false. I mean, no. Yes. All right, Garrett. Next week, number one seed or number eight seed, where do you want to go? I remember you just going off on our number one seed. Oh, yeah.

You have feelings about this place. I do. I want to see what these are. Let's go to our number one seed, umami burger. Umami burger. All right. Next week we will bring you umami burger. One of the historically best burgers I've ever had. And in more recent history, one of the more disappointing burgers I've had. So we'll see where it is at next week. But as far as it goes this week, we did not find the most mediocre restaurant, but we did find a lovely guest in John Angelie, producer of Terror firma. Follow them on Instagram at Terror firma film. Keep up with them. Please. It is a very fun movie, especially if you like horror movies. Go check it out. Thanks for sponsoring this episode, John. Thank you. Really appreciate you. Thank you for having me. I do love the podcast.

Yes, it is a lot of fun. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I do love the podcast. Yes. It is a lot of fun. Say that again. I regularly text me. I do. I tell you, I text Mike. We talk about this. I genuinely love the podcast.

Thank you, Mayor. It's a lot of fun. It's good time. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Find Dining Podcast. Send in some email. Find Dining Podcast at gmail.com. Any of your fan art. Any of your thoughts.

Did we get it right this week? Go back and listen to the Cinnabon episode and tell me who was right. Obviously it was me, but you know, I like the reinforcements. Thanks guys for listening. We did not find it. The search does in fact continue. We'll see you next time. Have a fine day.

The search continues. We still need the perfect fine. The search continues, the light can't subscribe. The search continues, the start journey did not conclude. The mother and the search continues, radising I do's review And hey, while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and make it five stars? Come on! Follow us on TikTok, the same on Instagram

All the socials, FindDiningPodcast We have a website FindDiningPodcast.com Buy our T-shirts Then put them on And don't forget You can always suggest where we go next. Okay! We're going to find it! Media crafting, the search continues! See you next week! I heard my throat a little.

Have a fine day! I heard my throat a little. Have a fine day.