If you've ever taken a long backpacking trip, you've probably dreamt about food--especially the meal you are going to eat once you get back to civilization. Pizza, hamburgers, steak, cold beer, salad....they all seem to find a place on the menu, once you get started on the idea. Shoot, we know people who have spent most of the last night of a trip talking around the campfire about what they are going to eat the following day at the nearest restaurant.
And speaking of restaurants, there are a few that have quite a reputation among backpackers as well. The gas station at Lee Vining, the Old Priest Grade Inn, Pizza in Yosemite Valley all have their advocates. We've come to really like Patty's Gourmet Cafe between Sonora and Columbia.
But there is one restaurant that stands out in a completely different way. We have eaten there at least five times in the last ten years, and every single time it has been worse than disappointing. Sometimes the service has been absolutely rude and incompetent--waiting forever for a table in an empty dining room. The last time we had perfectly nice service, and absolutely dreadful food--cold food without even a hint of sauce or seasoning. And the amazing thing is that this restaurant is pretty much the only show in town in a National Park. You'd think they'd want to do better.
It's the restaurant at Grant Grove Village in SEKI. We can only wonder what amazing arrangements have been made to make sure that it has been so bad for so long.
Anyone else have a least favorite place to eat? Let us know, so we can avoid it!
I tend to NOT like resturants in general- from McDonalds to fancy ones. I now just wait until I get to a town with a grocery store and either get a deli sandwich or buy fresh fruit, yogurt and a quart of milk. If I have extra trail food left over I will just munch on that until I get home. It is an exercise in delayed gratification!
Few years ago we backpacked NE Yosemite/SE Emigrant, leaving from Cherry Lake. Beginning on day three or four, it became smoky, then really smoky, then ash began sifting down from the heavens during the next day or so. Lacking any good information we decided to bug out a day early. When we got to the highway, night was falling and we were directed by fire crews to leave the highway and take FS roads, through which we wound for hours before reconnecting to the highway, farther down the hill.
By then, all the little towns were closed down and we made it to the valley without finding anything to eat. Being midnight or so, Denny's, it was.
I should have known to order breakfast--the sole thing they're halfway competent at--but that was so far off my food-fantasy radar I simply couldn't, instead ordering a "steak." Beer? Nope.
I'd have been better off roasting my shoe over the campstove, or, we had that day's food left in our packs. But I swear, I will take that meal's disappointment to my grave.
Yeah, I agree. I've learned my lesson: No sirloin, ever, unless I've marinated and grilled it myself -- and even then, I try to avoid it. And nothing cooked warmer than medium, because beyond that and they give you the worst piece of shoe leather in the place.
That said, breakfast-for-dinner is always on my radar.
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"Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls."
In Ohio, we have Bob Evans, and Bobby-E has mush. Good mush. Really good mush. Add a side of crispy bacon, and you have a breakfast-for-dinner.
About a year ago, they took mush off the menu. I must not have been the only one to send them a "What are you smoking and will you share?" email, telling them I had no remaining reason for going to their restaurants, because a few months later it was back on the menu, via a little sticker.
Just outside the Red River Gorge in Kentucky, we drove past a restaurant (?) named "Hot Food." It was a 10x10 shack, with firewood stacked on one end of the 3-car parking lot, and used tires on the other end. We never saw any cars parked there, obviously never were tempted to stop there, and could never find anyone who could tell us whether the name referred to the serving temperature or the method of acquisition.
Better believe McDonald's was looking pretty good then!
Registered: 02/03/06
Posts: 6799
Loc: Gateway to Columbia Gorge
Out here we have a number of brewpubs in towns close to trailheads where the beer and the steak (or at least a nice juicy burger) are available. I don't dare do the beer if I'm driving home, though--one beer after a full day or more hiking in the fresh air pretty much knocks me out!
Wherever I eat, it has to have a deck or patio so my hiking buddy Hysson (in my avatar) can be with me.
Edited by OregonMouse (10/11/1209:46 PM)
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May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view--E. Abbey
Registered: 04/19/02
Posts: 493
Loc: Hervey Bay, QLD Australia
Somewhat graphic details follow:
There's a place in southern Colorado called "Dos Rios" I stopped in there on a drive back to Albuquerque a few years back. I had the combo plate as I recall. Within an hour I began to feel... not right. And within 2 hours I has holed up in a gas station bathroom - sitting on the throne with my face in the gas station trash can - hallucinating! (that's not a euphemism - I was so sick I was actually having an out of body experience). It's the only time in my life when death seemed preferable to the condition that I was in. After 2 or 3 hours - I'm really not sure - I was able to crawl back to my truck and finish the drive home where it took me a week to regain my strength. You know what Dos Rios means right!?... "two rivers" - while I was in the gas station bathroom - that place really lived up to it's name.
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i really don't think that applies to me.
Maybe it is me, but I have found most places in NP's are pretty sad overall. Although a few have been OK..
On the other hand, I won't eat at most of the places in Ashford, Wa (the town right before the main entrance to Rainier). There are two good places, the rest are highly questionable. And the Longmire Inn in the park? Expect sllloooooowwwww service and cold food.
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Registered: 10/30/03
Posts: 4963
Loc: Marina del Rey,CA
Sarbar-ever have Sunday brunch at the Awahnee in Yosemite? Expensive, but amazing view and good food. Very upper class setting. Another good place in Yosemite is the restaurant in the Lodge. Also not cheap, but less than dinner at the Awahnee as far as I know. Not your average NP fare which is similar in many places because the same concessionaire runs many of them- Delaware North Corp.
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Don't get me started, you know how I get.
After a few days in a tent one fall in Grand Tetons Nat'l Park, we went for breakfast at the Jenny Lake Lodge Dining Room , and "upper-class" would certainly fit that venue. But we were more like "out-classed," smelling of campfire smoke and our sleeping-bag hair in disarray. That pinched nose look on the waiter was for real.
The Prix-fixe breakfast was $22 a person and what I remember most about the meal were the small plates on the table that had carefully arranged pats of butter each in the shape of little mooses.
"Sorry folks, but the moose says the place is expensive."
In our case, the moose BUTTER should have told us.
In a life filled with regrets, among my tippytop is never "winning" the Bracebridge Dinner lottery when Ansel Adams was alive. I could have plunged my car into the Merced canyon on the drive home afterwards and died a happy man, had I only had that experience.
Originally Posted By TomD
Sarbar-ever have Sunday brunch at the Awahnee in Yosemite? Expensive, but amazing view and good food. Very upper class setting. Another good place in Yosemite is the restaurant in the Lodge. Also not cheap, but less than dinner at the Awahnee as far as I know. Not your average NP fare which is similar in many places because the same concessionaire runs many of them- Delaware North Corp.
I finally convinced my kids this weekend, after an overnighter on the AT, that local diners were better than McDonalds.
The only thing better than convincing them that diners were better than McDonalds was teaching them that they could have a milkshake if they bought McNuggets and Frys in bulk and split them up rather than getting a happy meal.
About a mile off the AT in CT just north of the Algo Shelter, you can hit the town of Kent by going south/east on 341. Lots of shops and restaurants. I don't like to bad-mouth places, but I would say avoid the Millstone Cafe there. I found it not very friendly (hostile might be a better word). There's a diner a block or so north that is nice. Grocery store another couple blocks north, and a pub called the Fife & Drum, which is also ok.
Registered: 02/03/06
Posts: 6799
Loc: Gateway to Columbia Gorge
One exception to the thumbs down on McDonalds: In the Pacific NW, they carry Tillamook ice cream, so I can get a chocolate chip mint cone on the way home! They also have cleaner rest rooms than most places. Otherwise, forgeddaboutit!
My 12-year-old grandson wants to stop at any place that has the word "pizza" on its sign. I believe he learned to read that word at age 4!
Edited by OregonMouse (10/17/1211:09 PM)
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May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view--E. Abbey
Registered: 10/30/03
Posts: 4963
Loc: Marina del Rey,CA
I love it! Now that is eating in style. The great thing about the Awahnee is the room. The windows are these huge walls of glass with a view of the Valley and the mountains that can't be beat.
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Don't get me started, you know how I get.
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