Mixed Caliber Luncheon

I often describe myself as a hermit, a recluse, and generally asocial, but it was recently pointed out to me that for a hermit, I seem to have a lot of friends. This was an accurate observation, but it fails to take dosage into account. I have a good many friends and well-wishers, but I don’t see many of the people in my life often. I see my extended family roughly as often as I eat at G.D. Ritzy’s, which is quarterly. Most people whom I consider friends I may see one or two times per year. Even my partner Esmeralda Fitzmonster only sees me a couple days per week, despite her living with me, thanks to our nearly complete opposite work schedules. All this is more or less by design, because I’m exceedingly okay with being by myself and have a decidedly finite tolerance for social interaction. On the relatively rare occasions when I do spend time with friends, I go big before my depleted social battery forces me to go home.

Many longtime readers of Broken Chains are familiar with my second hobby, which involves working on and road tripping my trusty Ford Festiva. These trips usually involve meeting up with friends from the Festiva community and visiting a broken chain or two along the way. An annual observance on the Festiva calendar is Ohiostiva, a convergence of Festivas and the people who love them in Columbus, Ohio. I attended Ohiostiva 2019 a few weeks ago. My brother, who those same longtime readers will surely recall is also a Festiva enthusiast, was also there, and brought along a mutual friend of ours who has little interest in Festivas, but a healthy interest in broken chains.

Matty-Mark Matlock tagged along to Ohiostiva with my brother, seeking not Festiva hijinks, but general adventure and to observe Festiva enthusiasts in a manner not dissimilar from Jane Goodall’s study of chimpanzees. When I first met Matty-Mark shortly after Raxgiving last year, we quickly bonded over a mutual love of Rax, cafeteria dining, and broken chains in general. His presence at Ohiostiva meant that I’d have an excuse to break from the crowd when the party atmosphere became overwhelming and share an experience with him at one of the many broken chain locations in the Columbus area. I’m happy to report we had excellent experiences at both the last operating York Steak House and the world’s newest Ritzy’s, which has greatly improved its bebop since my initial visit last fall. We also got to experience a previously undiscovered broken chain while we were in town.

Despite her name suggesting otherwise, regular Broken Chains commenter Prog Girl had little to say about my proposal to rebrand Spageddie’s using Rush frontman Geddy Lee as a spokesperson. Maybe she’s more of a Yes fan. But she did give me a valuable lead prior to my Festiva journey to Columbus when she mentioned MCL cafeterias. A quick Google search led me to a 14 unit cafeteria chain operating primarily in Indiana with a handful of locations in Illinois and Ohio, including one near Columbus in Whitehall, Ohio. A quick look at their Wikipedia page confirmed that they had crossed the Cici’s Point into broken chain territory, as the Wikipedia article contained a long list of former locations and a shorter list of operating ones.

The first MCL was opened by Charles McGaughey and George Laughner. The name, “MCL” is an abbreviation of their surnames. Like Morrison’s and York, decline for MCL due in part to them opening locations in or near malls, a losing strategy that caused many locations to close as mall shopping declined in popularity. Their official name has been MCL Restaurant and Bakery for over a decade, perhaps to distance themselves from the unfashionable image of the cafeteria.

I don't always drive a Festiva, but when I do, I prefer it to be aqua. 

Matty-Mark, who grew up eating at Luby’s and S&S Cafeterias and myself, seeking to recapture the transcendent experience I’d recently had at the last operating Morrison’s Cafeteria were eager to peel ourselves away from the herd of Festivas and have an early lunch at MCL. We drove straight to the Whitehall location after excusing ourselves early from a morning expedition to an automotive salvage yard with my brother and a few other Festiva people. Had we not been explicitly looking for the Whitehall MCL, we would have likely driven past without noticing its existence. 

Visitation will be on Saturday 11 to 3 at MCL Funeral Home

From the exterior, it’s tough to determine what kind of business the building that houses MCL could be, even the signage is vague with three meaty initials floating in a broth of fine print. The restrained, vaguely colonial architecture blends into its surroundings, and the building could just as easily be a dentist’s office or a funeral home. Matty-Mark, to my mild surprise and medium delight, was just as excited to be there as I was, and we occupied our first few minutes on the property taking pictures of the building and signage. Once we were sure we had sufficient documentation of our expedition, we headed inside, where we were greeted first by an almost classroom-sized chalkboard containing the day’s specials, then official corporate signage explaining the order process and advertising more specials, and finally, by Mr. MCL himself. 

I will not forget to post the Chef Special.
I will not forget to post the Chef Special.
I will not forget to post the Chef Special. 

Sorry to be a stickler, guys, but shouldn't the plate be blue? 

Near as I can tell, MCL does not have an official mascot in the vein of G.D. Ritzy, Uncle Alligator, or Queenie Bee, but should they ever see fit to include one in their marketing, the manager of the Whitehall, Ohio location would be a near ideal basis. Clad in a dress shirt and tie, the affable man in his early fifties bid Matty-Mark and myself a warm welcome as if we were not strangers, but long-awaited friends. As we browsed the vast panorama of food before us along the serving line, he provided descriptions of each entree, all of which had been made from scratch. Perhaps sensing our excitement and curiosity of our surroundings, he told us he had worked for MCL since 1995, beaming with pride all the while. He went on to share his passion for poultry with us pointing to the pan of stuffed roasted chicken breasts, and proclaiming them his favorite, and mentioning that he often sneaks a piece or two of fried chicken with him to the back office while he’s working on the schedule and payroll. Ordinarily, I find restaurant employees who are overly chatty during the ordering process to be unprofessional and off-putting, but Mr. MCL’s charisma and passion for his work shone through without inspiring even a crumb of curmudgeonly annoyance on my part. 

Food presentation...

...was impressive....

...as it should be.

Matty-Mark and I worked our way down the serving line as Mr. MCL encouraged us onward. The food looked fresh and vibrant, and we ate with our eyes first, loading up our trays with everything that looked good. As I paid my bill at the end of the line, I was surprised to find I had picked up $25 worth of food off the serving line, and so had Matty-Mark. The marketing strategy of putting all the food in view of the customer had worked perfectly on us, as it has for generations of cafeteria patrons, but we didn’t mind. We were there to sample a wide swath of the menu. As with most broken chain visits, it was more about the experience than the food.

My tray

Matty-Mark's tray

Once we were seated out of sight from the serving line the interior of the MCL didn’t look much less like a funeral home than it did from the outside. The decor was tasteful and had an understated elegance that seemed designed to facilitate a healthy grieving process. The stuffed chicken breast I had selected based on Mr. MCL’s encouragement, however, inspired little grief. Perhaps due to a savory stuffing spiked with chicken stock, and a chicken gravy on top, it was the most chickeny piece of chicken I recall having within recent memory, easily the best chicken I’ve had at a broken chain since my trip to Maryland Fried Chicken last fall. In keeping with the fowl theme, the deviled eggs were also a pleasant experience, and reminded me of childhood Easter dinners. The remainder of the side dishes were hit or miss. The macaroni and cheese lacked the nostalgic magic that its counterpart at Morrison’s had. The cranberry salad was decent. Matty-Mark reported that his mashed potatoes tasted like they had been made with instant flakes. He had also picked up a so-so chopped steak and some above average fried chicken, which made me think the entrees Mr. MCL had recommended to us were not just his favorites, but objectively the best they had to offer. 

"It was a lovely service, and he looked so peaceful."

Considering the place had “Bakery” in its official name, I had high hopes for the baked goods, but despite us being there shortly after opening time, my cornbread was cold, and tasted like it had been prepared the night before. Matty-Mark had similar complaints about the big yeasty roll he’d picked out for himself. The butter provided with these baked goods was cold, and only marginally spreadable. If I’m buying baked goods from a place that calls itself a bakery, I expect them to be freshly baked that morning, and if they’re served with hot food, I expect them to be hot. Even Cracker Barrel, a chain with ever diminishing quality of food and service still manages to crank out hot biscuits and cornbread all day every day. The cold day-old cornbread wasn’t the greatest carbohydrate calamity I’ve encountered, (That honor goes to the microwaved biscuit I had at the last operating Horne’s.) but I had much higher hopes for a chain that markets itself as offering high quality food.

I was a couple of bites into a slice of pecan pie that had an unpleasantly marshmallowy texture when Matty-Mark’s phone rang. It was my brother stranded at the salvage yard. For reasons that still have not yet been adequately explained to me, Matty-Mark had been carrying my brother’s car keys when we left the salvage yard to have lunch. We quickly got to-go boxes for our desserts and bid MCL a hasty goodbye. Despite the disappointing bakery items and questionable side dishes, I left with a generally positive opinion about MCL. The chicken was unique and tasty enough that I couldn’t help but overlook the less pleasant items on my tray. I’d like to explore other MCL locations the next time I’m in their territory, but when I do, I’ll be a little more judicious about the side dishes I pick up.

Matty-Mark and I had a memorable experience at MCL and the other broken chains we visited around Columbus that weekend, but all the interaction with the throngs of Festiva people gave me my fill of socializing. I’ll probably resume my nominal hermetic lifestyle until at least autumn. Speaking of autumn, if you’re a fan of Broken Chains and you’ll be within a reasonable driving distance of Harlan, Kentucky on the day after Thanksgiving this year, (Friday November 29, 2019) then consider joining me at the Harlan Rax in observance of Raxgiving 2019. You’ll get to celebrate Raxgiving in style by dining at one of only two surviving Rax locations that still operates an Endless Salad Bar. I’ll be there to feast and have awkward conversations with any Broken Chains fans who turn up.

Broken Chains on Facebook

Broken Chains Store

Pop and Sizzle

The back of a customer comment card I swiped from one of the Evansville, Indiana G.D. Ritzy's contains the following copy:

“A visit back to the old-time goodness of G.D. Ritzy’s is deliciously special indeed.

G.D. Ritzy’s Award-Winning Luxury Ice Creams, voted one of the 4 best ice creams in America are created with dairy-fresh cream and milk, pure cane sugar, egg yolks and bursting with beboppin’ goodness.

G.D. Rity’s Grilled Coney Dogs are 100% pure beef and pop with every juicy bite.

Our 1940s Style Hamburgers are grilled right before your eyes. Shaped and seared on our extra-hot grill, they’re served crisp on the edges and tender in the middle.

And G.D. Ritzy’s Slow Cooked, Secret Recipe Chili. A rich tomato stock blended with chunks of sauteed beef, a delicate blend of spices, and the finest, freshest toppings.

It’s all a delicious Part of G.D. Ritzy’s Luxury Grill & Ice Creams.

G.D. Ritzy’s Has What The Other’s Have Not ..

Pop Sizzle & Bebop”

About half of the places that I write about, I’m experiencing for the first time. When I walk into a Roy Rogers, Ollie’s Trolley, or Arthur Treacher’s, I like to think that I can assess the establishment’s merits and shortcomings in a more or less objective way. I never intended to become an amateur restaurant critic. Instead, I set out to experience and document often overlooked pieces of history. But somewhere along the way, I fell into a groove of jabbing gently, and occasionally not so gently, at the foibles of the anachronistic businesses I patronize. It’s easy to be witty when you’re talking about a suboptimal dining experience, but difficult to make a post praising an establishment an engaging read. With little to no emotional skin in the game I feel little to no remorse skewering the places where my experience was less than perfect. Understand that I’m not sharing this information as a preamble to turning over a new leaf. I’m sure that I’ll continue to lambaste the occasional eatery, and even more occasional retail establishment, provided that I have sufficient emotional distance to maintain objectivity, but if there’s one chain I lack emotional distance from, it’s G.D. Ritzy’s.

G.D. Ritzy’s was hands down my favorite place to eat as a kid, and it’s sudden disappearance and subsequent long absence from my life made my heart and stomach grow fonder. Some of the earliest road trips that helped me discover my passion for forgotten fast food over a decade ago were to the holdout G.D. Ritzy’s locations in Indiana and Kentucky. It was a trip to the Huntington, West Virginia G.D. Ritzy’s last December that served, partially, as my inspiration to start this very blog. Earlier this year, I made a pilgrimage to every operating G.D. Ritzy’s location that culminated in me meeting chain founder Graydon Webb, who was working with his sons and a family friend to open a new Ritzy’s, the first in its one-time core market of Ohio and surrounding states to open since 1990. Last week, that new Ritzy’s opened. I drove down to Columbus to have lunch there on its fourth full day in operation, not fully realizing my closeness to the Ritzy’s brand would make the experience exceedingly difficult to recount here.

The previous weekend, I was travelling through southern Indiana, and made the obligatory stop at the University Boulevard G.D. Ritzy’s in Evansville for lunch. The six surviving franchised Ritzy’s are owned by three separate longtime franchisees, and while each franchisee’s locations have evolved a bit over the years and all have their own individual charms, the Evansville locations are my favorite. Their buildings, menus, food, furniture, even cups and tray liners, are all identical to the long-gone Lexington, Kentucky Ritzy’s locations of my childhood. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, powerful enough to draw me 450 miles from my home to Evansville for the sole purpose of eating at Ritzy’s no fewer than three times this year. (I’ve also been to the two Owensboro, Kentucky Ritzy’s one time each, and the Huntington, West Virginia G.D. Ritzy’s three times in the past ten months.) My secondary motivation for the stopping there, a distant second from nostalgia, was to have a fresh memory of my favorite Ritzy’s when I ate at the new location the following weekend. I had no doubt that the new Ritzy’s, while updated a bit from the original concept, would still have the same pop, sizzle, and bebop as my favorite locations in Evansville, but I thought it might be fun to compare the new Ritzy’s to the old. I figured it would be a unique angle. People would be flocking to the newly opened and long anticipated Columbus Ritzy’s, and the Evansville G.D. Ritzy’s locations are as popular as ever, but very few people, perhaps only me, would have been to both within a week, and all the other Ritzy’s in operation in the past six months. Every experience I’d had in the old Ritzy’s from Indiana to West Virginia had always been stellar. Why wouldn’t a shiny new Ritzy’s run by the founding family be any different?

An unforgettable luncheon in Evansville.

The new Ritzy's in Columbus, Ohio

At this point, you, the reader, are probably thinking that I’ve led you to some lofty precipice so that I, the author, may shove you over the edge in a dramatic reveal about some abysmal experience I had at the new Ritzy’s. I can assure you that said precipice is no more than an inch and a half drop. Congratulations. You’ve reached the anticlimax of this post. All things considered, my experience at the new Ritzy’s was pretty good. Given that the place, at that point, had been open for business for three full days with brand new staff, and that droves of nostalgic locals (and not so locals) had been lining up out the door from open to close for each of those three days my experience was more than satisfactory. Still, I left after my meal feeling vaguely disappointed. Some hard reflection has helped me realize that this disappointment is my own fault and not the fault of the new Ritzy’s.

The main focus of Broken Chains has been longtime holdouts of otherwise defunct chains. My exploration of decades-old businesses left me ill-prepared to fairly evaluate a place that had been open for half a week. My lifelong love for the G.D. Ritzy’s brand, and past exemplary experience at more seasoned Ritzy’s locations left me with expectations far too high to give the new Ritzy’s a fair shake. When you’re used to A++ experiences, an A- can be tough to cope with at first. 

I’m not even going to discuss the specific shortcomings of my experience at the new Ritzy’s. All you need to know is they’ve got the pop and sizzle, but the bebop needs work. I have no doubt that they’ll master said bebop in good time. To discuss the minor imperfections of my experience at the fledgling restaurant in detail would be picking the proverbial nit. I’ll admit to having nitpicked in previous blog posts, and I’ll continue to nitpick in future ones, but I have way too many emotions tied up in G.D. Ritzy’s to be give it the same treatment. I never set out to be a critic, and there are certain things that I can’t bring myself to criticize. 

Mideighties Times

My parents’ courtship in the late seventies was apparently full of shared meals at locations of what are now broken chains. I grew up hearing stories of my mother bringing Zantigo tacos home in her purse and forgetting about them for days. When we would visit Lexington, Kentucky’s Rupp Arena when the circus was in town, my father would point out the small shopping mall inside the arena building that once housed Lexington’s Magic Pan location where he and my mother would go to eat crepes and feel fancy. When my parents wanted to feel fancier than eating at Zantigo, but not Magic Pan fancy, York Steak House was their dining venue of choice. I don’t recall ever eating at a York as a kid, but I feel like I owe some small part of my existence to York Steak House.

The first York Steak House opened in 1966 partially in response to the success of Ponderosa. Locations were often built near shopping malls which were sprouting up at the same time, in order to attract hungry mall shoppers. The chain peaked just shy of 200 locations, mostly in the eastern U.S. Though the chain had cafeteria style service, an emphasis was placed on high quality ingredients and a memorable experience. Cashiers would relay orders to the kitchen verbally, in French, to give the place an exotic feel. In 1977, General Mills bought York and began making changes to increase profitability. They began cutting corners and added a salad bar, likely to cut down on labor costs. These changes coupled with the shopping mall building boom beginning to taper off resulted in growth of the brand stagnating. Most York Steak Houses closed in the late eighties.

That's a dead mall across the street from a thriving vintage chain restaurant. 

Today, there is a single York left in operation, located in Columbus, Ohio. It’s owner, Jay Bettin, a longtime York manager bought the restaurant in 1989 and operated independently as Jay’s York Steak House, dropping the Jay’s after the trademark on the York name expired. The mall across the street is completely empty and shuttered. A nearby casino is what draws customers in these days. I was recently in Columbus for a Festiva meet, and stopped by York for lunch on my way out of town.

The old building appears to be in great shape, and is striking in design.

I found my way to the York Steak House late on a Sunday morning a few minutes before they opened, which afforded me the chance to appreciate the exterior of the tan stucco building with its distinctive red mansard roof. The exterior signage definitely had a vintage feel and appeared in good condition. Upon entering the building, I was greeted by a massive menu board with backlit larger than life photos of every entree. The interior is a bit disorienting. The building’s parking lot and main entrance are at the rear, and you walk down a long corridor around the interior perimeter before reaching the order counter. The building also has no windows. I could see how so many have beloved York Steak House memories. The giant pictures of food, and the dim labyrinth up to the order counter certainly make strong contributions to an immersive and unique experience.

The next time a cranky relative complains about millennials taking pictures of their food, gently remind them that York Steak House did it first. 

Upon reaching the dated but clean stainless steel order counter, I order up York fillets, two small cuts of beef, each topped with an individual fried onion ring. Disappointingly, the cashier doesn’t yell my order to the kitchen in French, or any other language. Undeterred, I venture on down the serving line, picking up a piece of coconut cream pie from the dessert station, a plate for the still-in-use General Mills-era salad bar, and a glass, which I fill with ice and Orange Lavaburst Hi-C. Like many Ponderosa locations, York doesn’t serve alcohol, and I get Orange Lavaburst whenever I see it on tap, ever since McDonald’s stopped selling it. My final bill is $25 and change, not a bad price considering I ordered an expensive cut and got a dessert. I could have gotten an 8 ounce sirloin for half the price.

King in the castle, king in the castle! My wiiiife!

Even the trays are vintage here. 

I carry my logo-adorned antique tray with pie, a salad plate, silverware, and my brightly colored beverage out to the dining room and grab a seat. Like every other part of the building, the dining area appears perfectly preserved, as if encased in amber, just as the Evansville G.D. Ritzy’s were. Lighting is dim, and the walls are adorned with mouldings meant to resemble the battlements of a castle. Tables, chairs, and booths all appear original, but have no doubt been recovered. I pick up my empty plate and head to the salad bar and was delighted to find that the salad ingredients were just as stuck in time as the rest of the place. Instead of fancy mixes of romaine and spinach, the only leafy greens present was shredded iceberg lettuce. Fake bacon bits were also present, along with carrot shreds and thin tomato slices that appeared to have been cut in-house. No labor-saving cherry tomatoes or pre shredded carrots here, because they weren’t commonly used in the ‘80s. In addition to a handful of other raw vegetables, there were also individual cups of Jell-O, marked by an engraved sign that looked older than I am informing the world that the red Jell-O is now sugar free. I load up a plate with a salad and snag some green Jell-O and head back to my table. I had just finished watching Wild Wild Country and idly thought about how this 1980s salad bar was probably a lot like the 1980s salad bars in Oregon that the Rajneeshees poisoned. The dining room has begun to fill up, mostly with older people and families. I don’t see anyone wearing varying reds and maroons hanging around though, so I keep eating undeterred.

I want onion rings on top of all my food from now on. 

Just as I’m finishing my salad, the server brings out my steak along with a baked potato and a dense yeasty roll the size of a hamburger bun. I’m delighted to see that everything looks exactly as it did on the menu board, including the onion rings on my steaks. The meat is tender and flavorful, well worth the price. The pie is pretty good too, and I can’t help but feel that I’ve had a genuinely unique dining experience as I walk out to my car, just as countless other York Steak House diners have felt before me.

Like the last Hot ‘n Now, the last York Steak House is impeccably run and beautifully maintained. haven’t had much desire to go back to Ponderosa since writing about them, but I’ll definitely go back to York Steak House the next time I’m in Columbus. I’ll have to figure out a way to get two meals in the same trip though because the Webbs have really been making progress on their new G.D. Ritzy’s on the north side of town. I’m hoping it will be open this summer. 

Luxury Grills and Economy Cars Part 3

Something's Cooking....

All too often in my travels for this blog, I visit establishments that are approaching defunct status or resting on the laurels of previous greatness. Neither is the case with G.D. Ritzy's. The six locations I visited on my trip are still producing a high-quality product in a pleasant environment that is the right kind of dated. All six (G.D.) Ritzy's are not only surviving, but thriving. The three stops I made on the final full day of my trip represent the past, present, and future of the G.D. Ritzy's brand, which I'm very pleased to report has a bright future ahead of it.

In my childhood, Ritzy's had four locations in Lexington, Kentucky. When they all closed in the early '90s, the buildings were quickly repurposed. One became a Rally's, the first Rally's I had seen with an indoor seating area. They even kept the railings with the "R" logo glass in the interior. The building was eventually demolished and a Chick-Fil-A was constructed in its place. Another Lexington Ritzy's was either demolished or heavily renovated and is now home to a dry cleaner. One more, I don't think is still standing, but I haven't been able to find definitive information on its original location, but I'm fairly sure it was located somewhere on Richmond Road. If any past or present Lexingtonians reading this can help me narrow down its location, please let me know. Near as I can tell, there is only one Ritzy's building in Lexington still standing in more or less its original form. Located at the 3110 Pimlico Parkway, the building served as an Arby's for many years, the only fast food in the area. The Arby's recently closed, when a new McDonald's opened up next door. As of the writing of this article, the property is listed as being up for lease. Having stayed with family in Lexington the night previous, I stopped by for some pictures and light snooping on my way out of town. I wish I could have gone inside it for some interior pictures, but the original layout seemed pretty well intact, even the elevated dining area was still there. By this point, it had been over 36 hours since I had last eaten at Ritzy's, and I was ready for one last Ritzy's meal, so the Festiva and I moved on.

Aside from the big lighted sign on the wall, the exterior of the building is fairly unmodified. 

Note the bike rack. If I had a Ritzy's within biking distance when I was a kid, I would have been soooooo happy. 

The original drive thru sign frames are even still in place. 

Meal #1
Location: G.D. Ritzy's, 1335 Hal Greer Boulevard, Huntington, West Virginia
Order: Double Ritz with cheese, fries, cole slaw, Diet Mountain Dew

My next stop was the final operational Ritzy's that I had yet to visit on this trip, located just over the West Virginia state line in Huntington. I had messaged the Facebook pages of all the Ritzy's I was planning to visit, and Sid, the owner of the Huntington location told me to ask for him when I arrived at his place. I did just that, and after I received my order, he was nice enough to sit with me as I ate and tell me stories and tidbits about his experience as a Ritzy's franchisee. He's been there since nearly the very beginning, opening in 1983. He told me all his children had worked there at some point, and that his was the oldest operating Ritzy's location. The Huntington Ritzy's is the only location that still sports an early-style lighted sign with the G.D. Ritzy mascot on it, and Sid said that he elected to keep it when later style Ritzy's signage became available, preferring the style of the mascot sign. I think I do too. Sid seemed as excited to meet me as I was to meet him. He even promised to order and send me a free Ritzy's T-shirt in my size. He also took me on a tour of the back of the restaurant, showing me storage and food prep areas as well as a tiny manager's office. I had always been impressed with the design of G.D. Ritzy's buildings' and their efficient use of space, (I'm fond of Ford Festivas for similar reasons.) but seeing the back half of the building only served to increase my appreciation. A building smaller than a standard Waffle House was designed to function not only as a restaurant with a full kitchen, drive thru, seating, order counter, and a pair of public bathrooms, but also functioned as a small ice cream production facility, making 16 flavors of ice cream in-house. Despite all this, no portion of the building ever feels cramped. It feels bigger on the inside than the outside. It's the T.A.R.D.I.S. of burger joints. The architecture of a G.D. Ritzy's is an architectural marvel of both form and function, making every square inch of real estate count, while wearing classic Art-Deco lines.

Almost Heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountians, Huntington G.D. Ritzy's

The last of the mascot signs

Just look at that stylish chap! Don't you want to buy a chili dog and some ice cream from him?

In the past I've mentioned that G.D. Ritzy's founder Graydon Webb is working on opening a new Ritzy's in Columbus, Ohio. Fortunately, there was already a Facebook page already set up for the new Ritzy's set to open in the Clintonville neighborhood in north-central Columbus. While preparing for my trip, I inquired on the Facebook page if the new location would be open by the time I'd be passing through, the reply I got was probably not, but that reply came with an invite to stop by for a sneak preview. Columbus was therefore the final stop on my Ritzy's tour. I had no idea who I was talking to via Facebook, but they instructed me to come by the new location for a quick tour. I showed up at the agreed-upon time, where I was greeted by Graydon Webb's son, Corey. I discover he's the person I've been talking to, that he's read my previous blog entry about my Ritzy's trip, and that he'll be the one running the new restaurant.  Demolition on the former A&W Root Beer stand that's set to be the world's newest G.D. Ritzy's has recently been completed, and an almost entirely new building will occupy the site. Corey shows me around the site and points out where certain features of the new restaurant will be. We discuss the differences in operations and menu items at the various locations I've visited He also hands me a couple wooden nickels good for a free ice cream cone once they're open. After a few minutes, the door of a construction trailer at the edge of the parking lot opens, and Graydon Webb himself steps out to join us. He introduces himself. I'm starstruck and suddenly very aware that I'm dressed in my typical road trip attire of a ratty T-shirt and ripped jeans, not to mention the fact that I'm sporting a silly handlebar mustache that I carved out of a three-month beard just for laughs before starting my trip. I stammer out a greeting. He asks about my experience with his restaurants and my favorite ice cream flavor. I loosen up. Both of the Webbs are beyond gracious and accommodating as we chat for a few minutes more. We pose for a selfie, and I thank them for their time and leave with the promise to come back regularly once they're open. I can't think of a better way to conclude my trip than meeting the man who started it all, and I can scarcely stand the anticipation of the prospect of having a G.D. Ritzy's run by the founding family less than half a day's drive away.

Sorry Corey. I'm totally keeping these for my collection. I'm afraid you'll have to accept actual money in exchange for ice cream. 

If you find yourself anywhere near one of the three, soon to be four, cities where G.D. Ritzy's has a presence, do yourself a favor and stop in for a meal and/or some ice cream. I firmly believe that a better fast-casual restaurant concept does not exist, and who doesn't love a good comeback story? I have high hopes that the Webbs and their franchisees will have a bright future in the restaurant business. I know that I'll continue to be a loyal customer as long as I'm within some semblance of a reasonable distance.