Ok, well, I know this is a strange title, it is what came to me though! 

Here is what happened, I wake up this morning and perform my regular activities which always end with the bank account. Around 11am I check my bank account and Loon Lake Lodge has overcharged my card for last nights dinner!  So, overcharged you say?  Like how much?  Well, the bill was approx 149.00 and they have taken out over 500!  They hit my debit card not once, not twice…not even THREE times…NO, they hit it FOUR times! 

On the upside……I called and spoke to Chad, one of the managers, and he was very polite and accommodating. He is calling my bank right now attempting to get them to remove all the charges, other than the ONE charge. I give him credit for taking the bull by the horns and trying to make this right without my having to beat him over the head!

Something to keep in mind……….when I spoke to him I was NICE. I did not accuse and I tried to be understanding. We did talk about the fact that this can really make serious problems for people by overdrawing their accounts, but he also pointed out that it was not the restaurant that holds the money, it is the bank.  BUT..it is his server that charged my card 4 times. So, we were both understanding and he is going above and beyond to make it right. I have been in this position before with other merchants and they never made it right. They just said that I had to wait for it to clear and that they were not going to overcharge me in the end.

I like this attitude much  better than the other

   It is a family tradition to take my son in law, Christopher, out to dinner for

his birthday. One of his favorite places to eat is

Loon Lake Lodge. Located on I 69 and 82nd St. in

Indianapolis, Indiana this is a pretty nice place to

eat at. 

When you enter the lodge the first thing you notice is that it is a really old establishment. It is over 100 years old, it is family owned and operated and opened it’s doors in 1888!

You walk into something that could be on Disney property….well, have you ever seen the Country Bear Jamboree? It is not crazy like that, they do not put on a show, but it has animatronics. They are wildlife, like bears and a owl, there are heads hanging all over the lobby. Ya know, heads of animals that have been hunted. Every 20 or 30 minutes the animals come to life,there is alot of wild life noise, it is pretty cool, my granddaughter loves it.

The servers are friendly, the atmosphere is good. The restrooms…yeah, I know!!! LOL  the restrooms are pretty cool due to the fact that they have “sanie sensor” doors!!! I am not sure on the spelling but these are doors that have sensors so that you do not have to touch them to get out of the restroom after washing your hands!!! How cool is that!!!!  Okay, so they get kudos for the restrooms BUT…how can you have such a cool device yet not have it working!!!!! Yup, that is right, it is out of order! Only the ladies room, the men’s room works just fine, not fair!

The food? It is good, it is on the higher end of prices but it is good. I found out tonight that Loon Lake buys their meat from the same vendor as Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse….cool.  The prices are not as high ended as Ruth’s Chris and it is the same vendor….pretty good. You can assume though that the meat that RC gets might be of a higher quality…possibly. This is very good meat though.  At our table tonight we had Sirloin, Prime Rib ( 20.00 I think) , 14 oz.NY Strip ( 28.00) Swordfish ( 19.95) Shrimp ( 16.95 )  and a childs sirloin which was 8.95. There were a few different appetizers but the only one I can remember the price on was the onion rings , it was 11.95.

As I said, the food was good. We had a half bottle of Martini and Rossi Asti Spumante that was 11.00, I believe.

So, my only complaint…..when I made the reservation the girl told me that she did not have the new book for 2009,  she assured me that she would get the reservation in the book after she hung  up with me. I called earlier today to confirm, of course it was not in there. When I called I spoke to a girl who told me she could not figure out if I had a ressie or not to please call her back in a while….give her some time to go check in  the back office.  LOL…okay… I called back about 15 minutes later and was told they did not have the ressie, it was never added but they would make sure we had a table ready for us when we arrived and were very nice about the whole thing.  As it turned out…it all was good!  I just wish it had not seemed so disorganized.

Overall, I give them a A+ !!

OH…they used to have a plane on the roof that appeared to go through the roof…like it crashed! It is gone,   :(  now, the plane just sits on the roof! Wonder what happened…if anyone reads this and knows the answer, please let me know! We all miss the plane!!

So, if you follow my blog you know that I am a fan of this restaurant. Not so much today.

Okay, it is Dec 20th and I, being the brave soul that I am , venture out to go shopping with my daughter and mother! I know…brave or S-T-U-P-I-D!  So, I can tell you that the loss of kindness that I am always talking about, unfortunately, is alive and well!! The LACK of it….

But, That is NOT why I am posting this blog. No, no,no…… today I made the mistake of asking my daughter and mother if we could eat at Logan’s for lunch..what a HUGE mistake. Sorry..but in this particular case the server was pretty dang BAD. I try to be very very fair…really I do!!! But this is so hard, As usual I will not mention names, he knows who he is because I left him my card and if he is reading this it is only because he got the card and knows he served me.

At any rate, he was terrible. We took our seats and waited not to long for him to appear, then off he went for our drinks. He came back speedily and we asked for a appetizer, then he came back for something…oh to bring bread and we asked for another ( my daughter did not like my choice!) so off he goes to put in our appetizer orders. I might tell you here that he was not an unpleasant fellow, not at all. We dubber him MR. Clean, due to the fact that he had a shaved head and a earring! LOL  But, he was much less intimidating than Mr. Clean!

Ok, so he was a nice enough guy. Got it….but as slow as a turtle!!! We got our appetizers and our salads and then we sat..and we sat…and we sat….finally we were not very hungry anymore.  We were going to ask him to just wrap our food to go at this point but he appeared and we went ahead and ate. I had sat so long I was not hungry any longer, neither was anyone else. So, we wrapped up our food anyway. Then he asks us if the bill is one or separate..I tell him it is all on my daughter!!! LOL then I tell him it is 3 checks and he goes away for along time…then brings us back the check, he doesn’t drop it off where we might be able to talk to him he does a drive by dump onto the table! He hits and runs us! We can not catch him once we see he only leaves us one check! hmmm…didn’t i say 3? Oh well, so then he disappears to put in another tables order, we can see what it is that he is doing, v….e…..r…..y….. slowlyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! We finally get together the cash so that we do not have to wait any longer for him to run my credit card and run out of there so fast that I drop my food!!!!

Oh well!

It was cold when I got it anyway and I couldn’t tell if it was any good or not! Now I will never know!

Merry Christmas! 

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This is a new restaurant at the Greenwood Park Mall in Greenewood Indiana.  For starters….I have been to the BJ’s in St. Pete Florida and I loved it.  The one here?well, it was ok.  My husband was entirely NOT impressed with it, I on the other hand thought it was ok, not great but ok. I have been back over in that area a few times and YES for dinner and not felt compelled to do a repeat visit.

The atmosphere was nice, it is a new restaurant and looks it. It also was not crowded at all, I like that but not if the reason why is because the restaurant is not that great.  I would rather wait a few for a great restaurant rather than walk in at a restaurant that stinks. Okay, it did not stink….it just wasn’t great.

I really do not have much more to say about this venuw..it was unimpressionable. Sad but true. I will give it another try, soon.

 Logan’s Roadhouse is awesome! LOL….I have avoided visiting this restaurant because my parents told me that they did not have a good experience here. THAT should havecaused me to visit them and I am addressing that line of reasoning within myself at the moment!   A person who lives to sniff out GOOD or BAD customer service should not be avoiding a restaurant due to someone else’s BAD experience!!! DOH!

Ok, now that I am done with THAT..let me move on.

 I will start with the bathrooms, you know me, I love to check out those bathrooms and see if they are usable for all of us girls who like a CLEAN bathroom! The bathrooms at Logan’s are not anything special, BUT they have doors that swing both ways! At least at the one I frequent they do. I LOVE doors that swing out and these doors swing both ways! WHOOHO….I love them! The bathrooms are clean and as I said nothing special but cool doors.

You want to know just how good the customer service is at this restaurant? Our first visit was last Wed Oct 29th and we have been back 2 more times since then! We must really think they are great. And they are. 

Our first visit was, as I said, Wed around 5pm. They were moderately busy. We were seated immediately and our server was at our table within a minute. She was very efficient and very personable. She kept our glasses full and the food on the table. She talked to us about the menu and just enough about other t hings to be interesting but not intrusive. Midway through our meal a manager approached our table and said he heard we were first time visitors, we said we were and he welcomed us and gave us a “come back” card for a free appetizer when we return ( YES, we used it on Sunday) he was very nice. When we finished our meal another manager approached our table and welcomed us and offered us another card, we enlightened her to the fact that the other manager had already gave us a card. She applauded our honesty and welcomed us to come back and visit them again.

Our 2 subsequent visits have been just as good and the servers have been just as good as the first. We had different servers each time.

Would you like a recommendation? I am not a big steak person, my husband is, but I had the Onion Brewsky Sirloin and it is THE BOMB! WOW…..if you like onions with your steak this is your piece of cow! The Buffalo wings are very good too.

Go visit them, they are great! Customer service at its  best!

Tell them Christine sent you!

We went to Nashville Indiana to view the turning of the leaves! Well, the leaves had not turned too much last weekend, it would be much better to go this weekend.

We enjoyed ourselves nonetheless! If you have never been to Nashville, it is a quaint little town in Southern Indiana, near Bloomington. It has rolling hills and tons of trees. It is beautiful. We make sure to go to Nashville a few times a year. We go on our anniversary and stay at a cabin that we rent through Hills O’ Brown Realty, and then we go in the Spring and again in the Fall.

We walked around a bit and then went to The Nashville House for dinner.

The Nashville house is located at the corner of Van Buren and Main St in Nashville, Indiana. It was built in 1859 during the Civil War as the first Hosltery in Brown County. The original building burned down in 1943 and was rebuilt with no guest rooms. It was built into a country store and restaurant.

The restaurant is not fancy but does have alot of history, if you like that kind of thing. The country store has a few interesting things in it as well as Apple Butter and other home made preserves.

The service in the restaurant can be better, when we walked in we waited about 5 minutes before we even saw a employee. By the time someone finally came out of the kitchen there were a few of us waiting. We were taken right away to our table with red checkered table clothes on it. There was apple butter sitting out on the table, which I did not find too appetizing as there were a few flies in the room as well! I am pretty sure they were enjoying the apple butter before we were!

This restaurant is known for it’s fried biscuits and aforementioned apple butter! As well as their unique “savory” cole slaw which I LOVE!  These items were delivered after a bit of a wait and lived up to their reputation. We had arrived during a shift change which could explain the service not being spot on.

Within about 20 minutes we had ordered our meals. 2 fried chicken meals and 2 roast beef. All of the food was good and much more then we could eat. The service could have been better throughout, especially considering there were only a couple of people in the entire restaurant!

This place is a tradition for us, we usually go alone as our friends can never justify paying so much for a regular meal, nothing special  The meals run around $17.00 each! 

And the bathrooms? They were OK…nothing special and old. Now check out my Indianapolis airport review for a great bathroom!  LOL

Ok, I thought the promotion from Ruby Tuesday’s was that they were leaving the 70’s and heading into the 21st century?

Well, we went to the restaurant on 38th st in Indianapolis ( west side)  the other night. Let me just say that my husband made the comment that the restaurant resembled his mothers home in the 70’s. Does that tell you anything? Did I misunderstand the commercial? I think I must have.

Regarding the food, I have always liked this restaurant. I wanted a salad as my meal this particular night and I was disappointed to find that they do not have specialty or signature salads. I am sure this is due to the fact that they have a fresh salad bar which includes basic salad ingredients as well as some pasta and potato salad sides. In my opinion the salad bar is not too imaginative, they do not even have soups.

 I went wanting a salad as my meal and then when I saw no salads other than the bar I decided that I would just add a soup to my meal and would be very satisfied. BUT, they only had 2 soups, a broccoli and cheese and a white chili……  I did not want either of these. Again, disappointed.

I ended up having a steak, which was good and came with the salad bar. This was fine but did not take away from the disappointment that I felt about the lack of speacialty salads and soups.

Now onto the service, I was disappointed in our service as well. We arrived after 7pm and the place was busy but not overly crowded, we were immediately seated in a booth. I left and went to the restroom ( YES..clean!! nothing special but clean is good) came back and sat for about 2 minutes and then asked my husband if our server had taken our drink orders. YES, but they were not there yet and they did not arrive for at least another 5 minutes or so.  We were discussing why this was the case as there didn’t seem to be too much of a crowd. After our server brought our drinks and before she took our order the room almost emptied and we were among her few guests left, at least as far as we could see.

Our server had a bad problem with disappearing and not returning for along time. She left to get my husband a refil on his drink and didnt come back for awhile. It left my husband wondering what happened to her.

Overall, the restaurant was not offensive LOL….it was ok. Would I go back?  Maybe…maybe not.

At this moment I can not think of anything that would cause me to return.  Well, if my husband wanted to, then I would!

No, not the train station in NY, this is the Sub shop in Indiana! OMG if you love a good hot Italian sub with lots of melted provolone….then you must visit Penn Station!

I am a guest, more often then I should be, of the Penn Station in Avon ( really Indianapolis) on Rockville Rd and Country Club. One thing I have noticed across the board at all of the Penn Stations that I have ever visited, they are not overly friendly! Really, they aren’t. I do not know why.

I mean they are not rude or abrasive in the least, no, just not KIND or PASSIONATE in any way. Definitly not. I would say they are LUKEWARM, yes indeed I think I have hit the nail on the head, is that right? Yes, I think it is…. ( this is a understandable inside joke IF you have read my past blogs! )

They are lukewarm but their sandwiches ARE NOT! They are HOT and DELICIOUS!

Try one or two…..YUM!

I think the story has ended, but the question is, is it a satisfactory ending???
Let me tell you what I think-

I think that the way the kitchen manager handled this situation in the beginning was not the way that Longhorn wants to treat their guests.

I think that the kitchen manager felt she handled the situation in such a way that SHE felt good. For her, it was not about the guest feeling good OR about recovering the situation. It was about her. That is where we got off track.

Once the managing partner and the regional manager became involved things took a turn for the better. It became apparent that management cares about their guests and at least wants to recover a situation rather then fuel the fire.

I went to my lunch under the impression that it was a working lunch of some kind, maybe a brainstorming meeting about the lack of customer service and how they could have better served the guest, ME, and that we would have lunch on them. As it turns out they just wanted to meet me and tell me they were sorry and give me a gift card ( VISA) in the amount of $100.00 for my inconvenience. The lunch was on them, but it was intended for me and a guest..I think. DANG IT!!! I told my husband later, had I known, we could have had a nice lunch on them!!! LOL..well, I am not greedy but I got the impression that this is what they wanted!

All in all the management, NOT the kitchen management, cares about their guests and will do what they can to recover a situation. That is a good thing and the reason I will continue to be a loyal guest of Longhorn Steakhouse and so should YOU. i believe the way the kitchen manager handled this situation in the beginning was not the way that Longhorn wants to treat their guests.

OH and the sunglasses? I have NOT gotten them replaced yet….Longhorn never found them, but I do appreciate the fact that they have said they will continue to try and find out what happened that night.

We dined at Bonefish tonight and as usual it was a wonderful dining experience!

If you have never been to Bonefish then I have only 2 words for you…..OR maybe a picture is better than TWO words!

IF you do not recognize this picture let me enlighten you.

The above picture is only one of the BEST appetizers in the world! Bang Bang Shrimp! YES….ask anyone about Bonefish and if they know of it they know of Bang Bang Shrimp!

We go to Bonefish just for this appetizer, well, my husband goes for the steak as well and the gorgonzola butter! He loves it although tonight I think they went a little heavy on the blue cheese rather than the butter.

The location that we frequent, now that the Avon location has closed, is the one in Greenwood Indiana and the one in Orlando! Just to back track here a little, I cannot imagine what would possess the powers to be to close the Avon location!!! Crazy! The place was always busy when we were there. I talked to the manager about it and she would not say, this was the manager at the greenwood location ( maybe a assistant manager) she would not say but said she hoped we would just visit them instead. She seemed rather uncomfortable about the conversation..whatever! If anyone out there knows why they would shut the Avon location, please let me know!

The Greenwood location as well as the Orlando location are great. We have always received excellent service while visiting. The food is always good. The restaurant gives you a nice night out if you want something a little bit higher ended then Applebee’s or LONGHORNS! HA! You knew I would work Longhorns in here somehow………. we are talking about FOOD aren’t we?

The restaurants are clean and the staff is always friendly. Maybe a little too efficient tonight. We were not finished with one course and then another one would come out. It would probably have been better if they slowed down a bit, but the person who brought out my salad ( not our server) said he would take it back because it appeared that maybe they were rushing us…no,no…that is ok, maybe you could just get us some silverware?? LOL

Other than that one fau paux the evening was perfection. The steaks were excellent as was the Bang Bang Shrimp, as IF it could be anything but perfection!

OH and the bathrooms?? YES, clean!! And very nice. Thank you!

So eat bang bang shrimp and be merry for tomorrow they might shut down your favorite location without any good reason, at least one that they will share with you!