Fine Dining - Friendly's (Part Two: Review) feat. JUB

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

OH HI THERE! It's your favorite sponsor JUB and I am back to help Michael review Friendly's! Step back in time to this place that feels old, classic, and filled with Depression-era clientele Octogenarians plus technology is a dangerous combination, and we like to avoid it when possible, even it if it makes us ask What's Going On Over There? An unforgivable mistake by the back-of-house workers Fribbles are thicc and delicious A separate menu just for ice cream is WAY TOO MUCH JUB knows a lot about magicians A very important announcement: starting next week, "Fine" Dining will be on video if you'd like to watch on YouTube! [Post-credits] Petunia's going to turn this car around! Additional Voice by: VyVy Nguyen (@cest_la_vyvy) Music by: James McEnelly (@Ramshackle_Music) Theme Song by: Kyle Schieffer (@JazzyJellyfish) Segment Transitions Voiced by: Sandy Rose "Fine" Dining is on Patreon! Get an extra episode every month (dropping today: A recap of all of the outliers outside the Zone of Mediocrity on the Tchotchke of Mediocrity. Hear me cover 29 restaurants and stroll down memory lane as I touch on each establishment that scored outside the 4-6 score range), 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 the 5 Survival Tips for Casual Dining at www.finediningpodcast.com!   Send in your Friendly's stories at [e-mail].   Follow the show on TikTok and Instagram @finediningpodcast   Let me know where I should go next by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, PodcastAddict, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. I read every one!   Next week on "Fine" Dining: HooterBowl II! I'm back off to a Hooters joint, Hoots Wings. Hear me and actress VyVy Nguyen talk shop about the history and Yelp reviews of the Pasadena Hoots Wings, but also dive headfirst into a mystery of meh-pic proportions in the first ever (and probably only) Hootdunnit. Ever work at Hoots Wings? Send your stories to [e-mail].

From this point forward, the word cheese will be bleeped because Michael finds it offensive. Hello and welcome back to the Fine Dining Podcast, the search for the most mediocre restaurant in America. I'm your host, Michael Ornelas, and this show is the search for the perfect 5.00 dining experience out of 10. Now in part one, I told you all about the history of this week's restaurant. I read some Yelp reviews. This week it's time for the review and I am joined by former sponsor of the show.

I kinda wanna say friend of the show but I really don't know cause he's carrying a lot of hostility for no reason. Jubb. Why thanks for having me. It's great to be here Michael, I don't know what you want from me! I didn't just talk about the experience we had at Friendly's. I'll do that! But I still think you're a punk for killing me off in your subconscious in the TGI Fridays episode.

Jubb, you're already a figment of my imagination. I'm sitting in a room alone doing this with you. So let's jump in! We are gonna review Friendly's based on its atmosphere, based on its service, and based on its food. Delicious! Yum, yum. And to be clear, the reason why he's doing this is because in order to call something

good or call something bad, you gotta know where that switchover point from good to bad is, the perfect middle. So he's looking to define it. And you know what? I respect that kind of moxie. Now, of course, as always, if you want extra episodes of the show, I do have a Patreon patreon.com slash fine dining podcast. There's an exclusive episode every month.

I've gone to places like Rudy's barbecue, a gas station that serves some pretty good barbecue despite their slogan implying that they are the worst. I went to Times Square with my girlfriend and we pitted two famous pizza places against each other. I've been to FUD Rockers, you can hear the finals to the September Tournament. Mine dining party of two. But for now, our table is ready, let's jump on in. Let's do it! Your table is ready, follow me Have you tried our chicken breast? Serving pancakes and rips, I recommend the spaghetti We're here to satisfy, not to impress

Your table is ready Complementary butter and bread, these walls have growth signs Knit, knack, cowboy hat, good luck hat, autographed guitar Some crap from your city, behold the Choshki of mediocrity Fine dining, it's just fine dining, fine dining Two ledgers on the sign are shining, nail flickering irregular timing Identify the perfect vibe, how the ten Fine dining, fine dining Hey, Fine Dynamaniacs, before we dive in to the episode proper, I want to talk for a

minute about another podcast that I've been checking out. It's a show called Dumb Jins and Dragons, not Dungeons, Dumb D-U-M-B, a word that I use very affectionately to describe things that I enjoy, but in a silly way. And that's a great way to describe their podcast. I don't mention it much on this show, but I play Dungeons and Dragons every single week with a group of goofballs and we just have a good time. And that's basically what Dungeons and Dragons is. They just started their third season

and much like my show, there's like sound design and they try and make it very atmospheric. But I checked out the start of season three and I had a blast with it. I gathered that there was an additional player missing but they had a DM and three players diving into the city of Winter's Muth. And if you've never played D&D and you've just wanted to check it out you don't really know what it is. It's people just playing characters

telling a collaborative story with a little bit of a gaming aspect you're rolling dice to try and accomplish certain things that you're trying to do but the characters are super fun it's clear that this group of friends has great chemistry and they go way back and they've developed a rapport that's just enjoyable to sit and listen to as a fly on the wall. It's completely improvised, but their dialogue is super snappy and quick. Like these are just smart people or it's well edited or both. But it's a comedic fantasy podcast that'll leave you laughing, crying, rooting for every character you meet.

It's the perfect jumping off point. If you don't want to go back to season one or season two, you can just jump into season three, which just started. It's only got like three or four episodes out now. The new season has a very like office space meets Robin Hood meets three Stooges vibe. So it's got some silliness. It's got some sarcasm. So go check out season three, wherever you get your podcasts, Dungeons and Dragons.

I think you'll have as much fun as I did. ["Dinosaur Booth"] Atmosphere. So you walk into Friendly's and it's just Diner Booth's galore. Classic signage, there's like a clock with a neon outline behind it. There's a claw machine. Yeah, and there's a lot of red

I like the pop of red it really it felt clean, but still had like a classic vibe Yeah, I liked it. I thought this place was very ice cream forward. There's a lot of advertisements for the ice cream I mentioned in the last episode about how there's that little ice cream fountain I mentioned in the last episode about how there's that little ice cream fountain Corridor basically where you could go in and just order ice cream before you go and get seated Oh, yeah, I remember that and it had like the Jonas brother Exclusive signs and all that yeah, yeah, but we sit down It's like wood paneled walls Sleek red like the seats almost look like you could have seen them in the back of a Cadillac like a classic car almost yeah

And speaking of classic there's like black and white photos on the wall a lot of old like friendly before they had the apostrophe s Friendly ice cream shop Photos there's classic pictures of employees. There's customers waiting in line Yeah, and there's like a fleet of trucks from Friendly's These are all just like the photos and stuff Lots of gray lots of wood lots of red so it really made the red stand out I did kind of like the feel of this place

I mean the clientele was a little depressing like I feel like no table actually had Everyone there with all their own teeth. It was of, it skewed very elderly to put it a different way. Yeah, elderly or crack heads, you, you can't say that. I'm just saying what you're thinking, not what I'm thinking. There was kind of like a guy with his younger daughter eating and she took quite a while to figure out what she wanted and he was getting kind of impatient. I feel like all of us have been in a restaurant like this before. It's just, it's a classic diner in the modern age.

Yeah, it feels dated, but enjoyable if you're into that kind of thing. Yeah, now it did have one thing that was like prominently new age. On the wall, there was a banner that had basically a picture of like an iMac on it, like a big Apple computer. Now it's on a banner. This isn't an actual computer. It's just a picture of a computer on a banner. And on the computer, it had the page to order friendlies

to go. And for the fact that you're dining in the restaurant, it seemed kind of peculiar to me, Jub. It made me wonder a question. It made me ask, what's going on over there? What's going on over there? Should I wear it? Should I damn? What is going on over there? Job, do you have any idea what's going on over there? I actually think I do.

OK, so what you're seeing there is a picture of a computer. We mentioned that there's an elderly clientele. Yeah. And I think if you put a real computer there, you're going gonna freak them out What okay? I don't think they can handle real computers, so you just introduce the idea in fictional form as a picture Hey, what about the idea that maybe you could go on a computer and get friendlies?

So we're like drip feeding them the idea that you can add friendlies. So we're like drip feeding them the idea that you can add technology to a friendlies experience. Yeah cause delivery's not a new idea, but the idea of ordering it from a computer? That's so 2002 and these people were in their 70s back then. Yeah like you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Yeah god forbid an octogenarian orders from a tablet. Can you imagine just like a tricked out, high tech nursing home? No, I- Exactly!

That's why this never got past just the idea phase. It's a banner on a wall and then the idea was abandoned. Because old people don't wanna use computers? Because old people don't wanna become computers. No worry that they're gonna merge with us and make them cyborgs and they've lived long enough. They don't want to live that much longer. Every morning they wake up they're like, ah maybe tomorrow.

A little dark and a little presumptuous but I do think you have figured out what's going on over there. So one thing I liked about this place is that it wasn't too busy to where you weren't competing for the attention of servers But it also wasn't empty in a way. That's indicative of maybe you shouldn't I mean even if I shouldn't I'm going to Yeah, yeah, it's a chain restaurant That's had a pretty big footprint and I'm gonna do them all for this show But the average Joe you wouldn't walk in and be like, ah, hell no, and turn around. Yeah. Any other things about the atmosphere before we move on?

I like the music. Do you remember what it was? I think there was Taylor Swift. It was like modern. I like Swift. I like the Kelsey's too. I've been following along with that. You know, I got a phone after years and years

of swearing off of them and now I just can't keep off of TikTok. All right, Jubs. So putting all of this together into a, actually no, before I move on to service, I mean, this might be food, but I want to include it in atmosphere. They brought out my fribble first.

Now I know I haven't talked about fribbles yet, but fribble is their term for a milkshake it's an extra extra thick milkshake it's pretty good but they brought it out first and it had a phrase on the cup that just said woohoo you saved room for ice cream which I find just kind of humorous as the first thing brought out to the table because I didn't save room for anything yet It's the first thing I had. Yeah, I guess that is technically funny. Yeah. Yeah, okay What's your thumb rating for the atmosphere? I've got one thumb up. I actually did enjoy my time here It was clean enough. It was vintage. I'm gonna go one thumb up. Yeah, I

Don't know. I'm I Think I'm gonna go one thumb up. Yeah. I don't know. I'm I think I'm gonna go zero thumbs there enough. And I think for no other reason than like all the other tables just had very low energy. It just felt kind of not to print not quite depressing because that would get a thumb down. But just like it was too neutral for me. I like the color scheme. Yeah, and I appreciated the History on the wall with the black and white photos But like also the menus are sticky and that's the sort of thing where not everything felt like this is a place I need to be or go to again, so I'm just gonna go right in the middle like this is a place I need to be or go to again. So I'm just going to go right in the middle.

Service. OK, so our server was kind of, I guess exactly what a movie stereotype of a diner waitress is. Kind of like an older middle aged, hard, quick working lady who you felt like would call you hun. She didn't in this case, but you know, that vibe, very patient. Yeah, I didn't feel rushed or anything. She was a very nice lady.

She didn't give you looks for like filming stuff in weird ways for social media. Yeah, I mean, maybe if she wanted to go the extra mile she could have given me directorial advice or something, but she checked in often. I don't have complaints. Yeah, I would have gone two thumbs up, but there was another factor that was kind of odd and maybe a little off-putting. And maybe this shouldn't have affected me as much as it did, but darn it. I wanted what matched the picture So we ordered the monster mash ice cream dessert, which has like a little ice cream Dracula in it basically a little face and it has bat ears made out of Reese's Cups cut in half

That's what was pictured. That's what I wanted. That's what my heart was set on. But the back of the house screwed up because when they put this together, instead of angling the race's ears upwards to look like a bat, they angled them downward and the whole thing looked like a sheep. And it ruined the mode for me. Yeah. No, I know exactly what you mean. It did look definitely different. I won't say it looked sad, but it's just you want something spooky and it comes out looking

like a bat and it just feels like, yeah, the people back there didn't put in the same amount of effort as the waitress did. So if we're going just off of the waitress, I would have gone two thumbs up but I think as is I'm gonna go one thumb up just because that thing came out not as advertised and that's on back of house yeah I want to go harsher I want to be mean but I'm not going to because she worked really hard so I'm gonna go one thumb up as well she was nice I wonder maybe she would have even gotten me a new ice cream if I had complained about the ear placement, but I also don't want to risk spitting my food, so at least not from

a source I didn't ask for it from. Stop! Gross. Amanda, weird things. Alright, let's move on. Food. Yum, yummy! Okay, so overall the food, I thought was very oily.

It was tasty, but I didn't want to finish anything. Yeah, I agree. It was super heavy, high calorie. There was an overwhelming amount of items. Actually, you know what? Speaking of an overwhelming amount of items, the ice cream had its own separate menu. Like I know some places will do a drink menu or a dessert menu. This was an entire menu just for the ice cream offerings and it had more entries in it than

the normal menu or at least more pages. This thing was huge and I thought was the main menu and I want to give it an award. I want to say it was way too much. You know what I actually can entirely agree with you. It's crazy. You don't need that much ice cream. Baskin Robbins does 31 flavors. Friendlies had definitely more than 31 things, but not 31 flavors. They did have a lot of flavors, but just so many different ways you could do it. You could do a fribble, you could do like a different kind of shake, you could do a Jonas Brothers thing. Yeah, you could do the Jonas Brothers. Yeah, it was it was a lot and I would say it was way too much. Way too much!

Okay, so I mentioned the thing that came out first was the strawberry fribble. I want to talk about the fribble first. Yeah, okay, whatever. It was delicious. It was smooth and thick. I'm usually good after just like two sips, but I find myself continuing to go back for more. This was like the thickest milkshake. Yeah, I agree.

It's extra thick. It's very, very tasty. We got the strawberry one, and I thought it had a really good strawberry flavor. It had really good whipped cream. Seemed fresh. I went eight out of ten. That's child's play. I gave it a 9.2 out of ten.

Yeah, strawberry fribble coming in pretty Impressive in this experience. I thought I Guess before we talk about our entrees, which we both got different burgers. Yep. Why don't we go into the sides? Yeah, okay, we got onion rings and we got waffle fries and we kind of split them both Yeah, the onion ring. It was like a thick cut onion, crispy breading. I usually prefer like a tempura style batter.

Mate though, mate though, but it's still good. Yeah, I had a nice crunch to it, but I agree on the tempura battered preference. I'm just gonna go six out of 10 on the onion rings. Yeah, I liked them a little bit more than you. I'm going 7.2 out of ten. I thought they were decisively good, but they could have been elevated more.

Yep, yep, and then the waffle fries. Yep, 6.5 out of ten. Again, I think I preferred these over you. These were like a traditional curly fry seasoning, like what you expect when you order curly fries. But on a waffle fry is very light texture. I actually really liked kind of the airiness of these fries. They had a very wispy crisp to them deceptively light, but they were good. I went seven out of 10 on these.

So now, do you want me to talk about my burger? Do you want to talk about your burger first? You can go. All right. I got the Honey Barbecue Burger. They had like a really soft squishy bun. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I added ranch at my pace, which like, I'm not really a ranch guy. I thought I was being adventurous here.

And it would have been too much if I let them put the default amount of ranch on there. But I'm trying to branch, but I'm trying to branch out. I'm trying to make myself eat the things that I normally, at least historically have not. Yeah, but you still won't cross that sh**t's bridge. Yeah, sh**t still grosses me out, but most other things I'm coming around to. But yeah, the star of this burger was the honey barbecue sauce

Had a very sweet honey taste to it. I think the bacon is Where this burger starts to fall apart it felt very cheap and the burger meat itself was dry The veggie medley of lettuce crispy onion strings and tomato made it moist enough, but it's a crutch. So the burger itself wasn't really cutting it, and if I got it with no vegetables, which sometimes I do, this thing would have been much worse. But as it stands, I'm going six out of 10 on the Honey Barbecue Burger, and that is largely because of the Honey Barbecue Sauce. Yeah, and I got a different burger. I got just the classic smash burger, which is a smashed crispy beef patty topped with cheddar chips, pickle chips, onions, mayo,

and Thousand Island dressing on a brioche bun. And I thought this burger was pretty average. The edges were a bit dry until I got to the center with the pickles and onions. So what you said about the veggies is very on point. Maybe it was my fault for asking for it without the Thousand Island it comes with, but I was not really into this burger that much. So I went 4.9 out of 10, just very, very slightly below mediocre.

Yeah, and then, I mean, that's pretty much everything other than the very disappointing presentation of the monster mash Sunday and then Stubbed out the actual base ice cream that it normally comes with in order to get the hunk of chunk of peanut butter fudge, which is closest to my preferred cold stone creamery flavor of Peanut butter cup perfection. But yeah, the presentation didn't match the picture. It looked like a lamb and not a bat.

But the ice cream base really was good. The peanut butter chunks stood out. I thought it had really tasty ingredients. Yeah, who's gonna get mad at peanut butter and chocolate? It's an age old combination that's always good. However, they put the ears on incorrectly. Four and a half out of ten. Yeah, okay. I think that's very harsh. I thought it still tasted good. Yeah, but it didn't. It wasn't as advertised. So what do you expect me to do? Yeah, I don't know.

And I went seven out of ten. Pretty far apart on those. Overall, how'd you feel about the food? I'm probably going just one thumb. One thumb up. I would go back for the fribble, but probably not the food, but that fribble was really really good. Yeah, one thumb up. I think I'm in the same boat as you. I mean the burger a little bit dry, but I did like the onion rings. I thought the fries were pretty good. There was nothing here that I had on the low side so yeah I'm gonna go one thumb up on a friendlies. I didn't hate the food here. Well alright then what are we waiting on? Let's score this sucker! Yeah alright let's go to the final

rating. Final rating. All right, we've dined at this place. We gotta put everything together into a rating to throw friendlies up on the Chachki of mediocrity, the giant wall Chachki Frankenstein that is a surfboard, boat paddle, autographed guitar, long horns, everything that you'll find on the walls of these chain restaurants is on the Chachki of mediocrity molded into one giant scoreboard keeping track of all the restaurants that have been evaluated so far on this very podcast.

Friendlies has got to go up on the board. Job, you're my guest. I'm going to let you start first. Oh, I thank you. Thank you. Um, so I had everything at one thumb up, but but none of them were enthusiastic one thumbs up. They were all very very slight, probably close to no thumbs. Our server was great, but the back of the house messed up the ears on my ice cream.

The food I honestly wasn't impressed with that much other than the fribble. And the atmosphere was, I don't know, it had a nice red color to it and everything else about it was pretty neutral. I'm just gonna go 5.71 on friendlies. Yeah, I mean, honestly, we're pretty close there. When I take everything into consideration, I mean, I went zero thumbs on the atmosphere, but other than that, thumbs up for service,

one thumb up for food as well. Yet, despite giving fewer up thumbs than you. I I actually think this place deserves a slightly higher rating So I went five point seven nine. Oh five point seven nine Excuse me for being point oh eight off of you. Sorry. I'm not as refined when it comes to eating at restaurants Okay, do it all I'm not as refined when it comes to eating at restaurants or doing all those- Okay, calm down. Calm down. I'm not experienced. It's okay. We can disagree on the exact number. It's fine. So what's the final score? So Friendly's goes up on the Chachki of Mediocrity at 5.75, which makes it, technically, better than mediocre.

Friendlies is wedged one-one-hundredth of a point higher than Panda Inn, the sit-down version of Panda Express that inspired the entire chain and just a little bit below Red Robin. Yeah, I think that feels right. That seems appropriate. Yeah, honestly, I think we kind of nailed where Friendly deserves to go. But where it did not go was 5.00. This was not the most average restaurant in America. So we gotta keep looking, Jub.

Oh yeah, we do. I gotta go somewhere next week to evaluate and see if it is the most mediocre restaurant in America. And to do that, we gotta play a little game. I like games. We gotta play a little game I like to call the headline game. The rules of the headline game are as follows. Michael will present three headlines to his co-host

that include this week's restaurant. They can be made up or they can be actual headlines. If the co-host can correctly guess if at least two out of three are real or fake, they will get to select next week's restaurant. However, if Michael stumps them, he'll select again. Are you ready to play, fellas? I'm ready! Okay, first headline. The real reason why friendlies are disappearing. The real reason why friendlies are disappearing. Headline number two, friendly no more, inside the bitter rivalry that ruined a popular restaurant chain.

Oh, is it kind of like the rivalry that you and I have now? I'm gonna say that's true, because sometimes people are beefing and there's nothing you can do about it, but burn it all down. Which, don't do here, okay? No promises! Headline number three. Google now lists former Friendly's Restaurant in Rhode Island as Good Burger. Oh shit, are they making a real Good Burger? I mean maybe that's what it implies. Yeah, I'm gonna go through on that!

I mean, maybe that's what it implies. Yeah, I'm gonna go through on that. Alright. First headline. The real reason why friendlies are disappearing. You said false? That one is true. I don't think they're actually disappearing. It's not like a magic act is happening around them.

And if you get to disappear a whole restaurant, you deserve a show like Mindfreak or Pen and Teller Fool Us. Do you watch a lot of magic shows? I know all of them. Piff the Magic Dragon, David Copperfield, David Blaine, Houdini, Lance Burton, Darren Brown, Doug Henning, Dynamo, Ricky J, Shin Lim, Paul Daniels, Dorothy Dietrich, Harry Anderson, the amazing Jonathan, Christian Bale twice. Yeah, okay, you're into magic. Anyways, you got that one wrong.

Headline number two, Friendly No More, Inside the Bitter Rivalry that ruined a popular restaurant chain. You said true, and while the sentiment actually is kind of true I did make up that headline and you got that one wrong as well I can't win anything with you and headline number three Google now lists former friendlies restaurant in Rhode Island as Good Burger You said true that one was true I got one. I got one!

I got one finally! That's nice! Yeah, so you went one for three, which means I get to pick where I go next on the search. And you know what? Football season is coming to an end. Last year, there was a video episode called The Hooter Bowl.

And you know what? We went to Hoot episode called the Hooters Bowl and you know what, we went to Hooters, covered Hooters, and did a big video extravaganza that you could see only on Patreon. Well, it's now a year later and I'm gonna bring you Hooters Bowl 2, so next week I'm going to fast casual spin off restaurant of Hooters Hoots Wings by Hooters. And you know what else? I'm gonna make it a video episode. And you know what?

From here on out, I'm gonna have video episodes. I'm gonna go to Hoots Wings by Hooters, bring you HootrBolt2, that'll be next week. Job, thanks so much for joining me. It was difficult. Hey, I'm an interesting and unique guy, and I've never said I'm easy to work with. Well, I do appreciate you finally coming back on the show,

talking things out with me. I hope that we're on good terms now. Yeah, you're fine. Is there anything you'd like to plug? Yeah, I'd like you to plug your ears for a minute so I can say something directly to the audience. Are you doing it? Sure.

I just told this guy that we're fine. We're not fine. He killed me off in a fever dream and I'm not happy about it. So I'm gonna get my revenge at some point in some way. But in the meantime, I guess I'm gonna tell him to open his ears back up. Yeah, I literally heard all of that.

Ah, you cheated me. We're fine Okay, I respect that move Okay, job. Well, that does it for this week's episode of the fine dining podcast the search for the most mediocre restaurant in America We did not find it the search does in fact continue But in the meantime follow me on social media at Find Dining Podcast on Instagram, TikTok, check out the Patreon, patreon.com slash find dining podcast. Send me an email, find dining podcast at gmail.com. We'll see you next time. Have a fine day. The search continues. We still need the perfect file The search continues

Like and subscribe The search continues Our journey did not conclude The monorail search continues Write us an iTunes 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 at Find Dining Podcasts. We have a website Find DiningPodcast.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. Mediocrity. The search continues. See you next week! Hurt my throat a little. Have a fine day. Oh, hi there! It's your favorite sponsored Jubbs favorite lobotomist Petunia,

and I am back, sans the fuzz. Oh hey, thanks for picking me up. I knew you could do it based on your impeccable Mario Kart acumen. Did you have fun at podcast? Yeah, I think so. Did you bury the hatchet? Not literally, because I wanna be able to find it later.

That's literally why you're supposed to bury it, so that you don't need it later. Yeah, but he didn't necessarily invite me back or anything. I'm turning this car around. All right then. See you next week. OK, bye.