Long John Silver's!
One thing about me that concerns my family is my complete infatuation with Long John Silver's, the fast-food restaurant chain. I never really realized how deeply I was smitten with the joint until I moved to LA, where locations are few and far between.
My earliest memories of Long John's involve the store in Hays, Kansas, where my family would sometimes eat. I say sometimes because it was usually sort of a special occasion. See, Long John Silver's is a seafood restaurant, and as such, it was considered more expensive than regular fast food restaurants. Living in Kansas, seafood was somewhat of a novelty. The rare instances when we had seafood at home were on Christmas Eve when we had the traditional Strecker supper of Oyster Stew, or after my parents sent us kids to bed and they would have a clandestine crab-leg party in the kitchen (I often smelled the crab legs cooking and would eventually wander into the kitchen trying to guilt my parents into handing over some of their bounty).
So, I guess we only got to have Long John's when my parents were feeling rich or something. I always loved it, as I just always enjoyed seafood, especially since it was so rare for me. My brother Brandon wasn't as crazy about the fish, but he loved the hushpuppies and mom would always have to order him extra "crunchies" - the pieces of fried batter that they would serve alongside the meals.
Later, when I was in high school, my best friend Jason worked at Long John Silvers. He would always get off work smelling like deep fried fish, which I never really minded, especially because often he could get me free food there. Sometime during his employment there, they actually closed for a few months so they could tear down the original cape-cod style restaurant and rebuild. The new store was a modernized version and lost a lot of the nautical charm of the original. But the food was still the same old deep fried pieces of seafood, served with french fries and cole slaw.
When I moved to LA in 2000, there were so many new and exciting options for fast food that I didn't really miss LJS at first. In fact I didn't even really think about it for quite some time. It wasn't until one visit back to Kansas when my parents asked me where I wanted to eat, that I thought to ask for LJS since I hadn't had it forever. Since then, much to my parents' chagrin, I have made them take me there almost every time I've come home. LJS is all over the place in Kansas.
A few years ago when Dylan's mom and her partner Chris moved to Victorville CA out in the high desert on the way to Las Vegas, I was thrilled to see an LJS store on the main drag on the way to her new house. So for a time, and trip to Victorville usually involved a stop at Long John's. Unfortunately, about a year ago we drove through town only to discover the store had closed and been replaced with something else. It was a sad day for me.
This Thanksgiving, we were heading back to LA from Victorville and I was lamenting the loss of Long John Silver's. Over time, I have even gotten Dylan to crave the junk every once in awhile, and since we had associated it with Victorville, even he was wishing we could stop and get a seafood feast.
Luckily, I remembered there was a location somewhere in the north San Fernando Valley, so I called my parents and had them look it up online.
When we finally got back to LA and found the store, I was so hungry and excited. But my excitement was slightly diminished when we pulled up and discovered it was one of those hybrid stores which is a LJS/KFC. There are also some LJS/A&W stores which I don't mind so much, but I do miss the good, old fashioned, plain old Long John Silvers restaurants. The thing about the hybrids is they don't have any of the kitschy charm, and the menu offers about half of what a real LJS has. But, you can still get the fish, chicken, shrimp, and crab, so it's not all bad.
Everytime we eat there, Dylan immediately regrets it as he starts feeling sick and/or bloated afterwards. I guess it's because he never built up the stomach for it, ha ha!
Looking at it objectively, I guess it's a good thing there are no Long John's in close proximity to me. I have been known to drive long distances on my lunch break when I have a real hankerin' for it, but more and more I'm finding the stores out here to be the hybrid ones, or they are just in bad parts of town which is really not good. I like to think of LJS as classy, which is hard to do when you have to drive to the ghetto to find one.
My earliest memories of Long John's involve the store in Hays, Kansas, where my family would sometimes eat. I say sometimes because it was usually sort of a special occasion. See, Long John Silver's is a seafood restaurant, and as such, it was considered more expensive than regular fast food restaurants. Living in Kansas, seafood was somewhat of a novelty. The rare instances when we had seafood at home were on Christmas Eve when we had the traditional Strecker supper of Oyster Stew, or after my parents sent us kids to bed and they would have a clandestine crab-leg party in the kitchen (I often smelled the crab legs cooking and would eventually wander into the kitchen trying to guilt my parents into handing over some of their bounty).
So, I guess we only got to have Long John's when my parents were feeling rich or something. I always loved it, as I just always enjoyed seafood, especially since it was so rare for me. My brother Brandon wasn't as crazy about the fish, but he loved the hushpuppies and mom would always have to order him extra "crunchies" - the pieces of fried batter that they would serve alongside the meals.
Later, when I was in high school, my best friend Jason worked at Long John Silvers. He would always get off work smelling like deep fried fish, which I never really minded, especially because often he could get me free food there. Sometime during his employment there, they actually closed for a few months so they could tear down the original cape-cod style restaurant and rebuild. The new store was a modernized version and lost a lot of the nautical charm of the original. But the food was still the same old deep fried pieces of seafood, served with french fries and cole slaw.
When I moved to LA in 2000, there were so many new and exciting options for fast food that I didn't really miss LJS at first. In fact I didn't even really think about it for quite some time. It wasn't until one visit back to Kansas when my parents asked me where I wanted to eat, that I thought to ask for LJS since I hadn't had it forever. Since then, much to my parents' chagrin, I have made them take me there almost every time I've come home. LJS is all over the place in Kansas.
A few years ago when Dylan's mom and her partner Chris moved to Victorville CA out in the high desert on the way to Las Vegas, I was thrilled to see an LJS store on the main drag on the way to her new house. So for a time, and trip to Victorville usually involved a stop at Long John's. Unfortunately, about a year ago we drove through town only to discover the store had closed and been replaced with something else. It was a sad day for me.
This Thanksgiving, we were heading back to LA from Victorville and I was lamenting the loss of Long John Silver's. Over time, I have even gotten Dylan to crave the junk every once in awhile, and since we had associated it with Victorville, even he was wishing we could stop and get a seafood feast.
Luckily, I remembered there was a location somewhere in the north San Fernando Valley, so I called my parents and had them look it up online.
When we finally got back to LA and found the store, I was so hungry and excited. But my excitement was slightly diminished when we pulled up and discovered it was one of those hybrid stores which is a LJS/KFC. There are also some LJS/A&W stores which I don't mind so much, but I do miss the good, old fashioned, plain old Long John Silvers restaurants. The thing about the hybrids is they don't have any of the kitschy charm, and the menu offers about half of what a real LJS has. But, you can still get the fish, chicken, shrimp, and crab, so it's not all bad.
Everytime we eat there, Dylan immediately regrets it as he starts feeling sick and/or bloated afterwards. I guess it's because he never built up the stomach for it, ha ha!
Looking at it objectively, I guess it's a good thing there are no Long John's in close proximity to me. I have been known to drive long distances on my lunch break when I have a real hankerin' for it, but more and more I'm finding the stores out here to be the hybrid ones, or they are just in bad parts of town which is really not good. I like to think of LJS as classy, which is hard to do when you have to drive to the ghetto to find one.
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