Almost novel experience

I remember Sizzler growing up and our family went there on occasion, if I remember correctly. That said I can’t recall exactly where they were located any more. Then I came to Australia and found they existed here. Turns out it’s been THE place to go for family get-togethers most of the time I’ve lived here. Even our family used to go there occasionally and it worked out even for the vegetarians in the family. But in that last several years, we haven’t been there at all as it’s been too poor value for money to make it worthwhile. The location nearest us, however, has often been crowded despite the increased prices.

The company here in Australia has had some difficult days and most of the restaurants closed over the past few years. There were three left in our state. Unfortunately COVID made sure these didn’t survive and an announcement was made several weeks ago of the impending closure of the remaining restaurants.

Both the boys have fond memories of going there in the past, and we all like their cheese toast a lot. We had a plan to make a final trip there. They close on Sunday and we went there today. We had to stand in line for an hour before being seated. Social distancing wasn’t too good there but we did our best to manage. We finally got to the front and place our orders but were told it could be half an hour or more for meals to come out. We were okay with that seeing we’d already been waiting so long. Anyway, we had the salad bar to help us along.

There were a few issues along the way with the meal. The restaurant was obviously understaffed and the poor people working were doing multiple positions. The cutlery was lacking at the salad bar and there were limited plates and bowls. Soup spoons were in abundance but we almost never have that. The Scientist stopped a worked to see about a fork as there were only knives available. I got a meal that was mostly typical for me. I mainly went to get the baked potato and the salad bar. Too bad there wasn’t an option to get the potato only with salad bar.

The salads were not really all that great and the selection was quite limited. It used to be there were some savoury items included but aside from some shrimp fry and scalloped potatoes, there wasn’t any. They had taco shells and salad fillings but no protein available. The Scientist order just a one trip meal but he had barely enough to satisfy him.

Then the dessert bar was out of almost everything and the soft serve machine looked pretty awful for the vanilla…There didn’t seem to be enough people to keep things going.

There seemed to be nobody to bus tables for quite some time. Most of the ones around were empty with dishes left behind for most of our visit there. There were staff that came around but they were in such a rush that some tables weren’t quite as clean as they could have been.

What was good were the staff were quite good and treated people well. The cheese toast came out promptly. We weren’t crowed in like sardines…well there are regulations on the crowds so that shouldn’t have been an issue. The boys managed the people really well and even went up to the salad bar without one of us along. My baked potato was cooked well. :)

So was a day of some nostalgia for us and a kind of novel experience since it’s been so long since we’ve been there.