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05 July 2001

Time Warp

We just got back from an unintended trip to the Triple A Restaurant, north of the Heights beside the Farmer's Market. We were on our way for cajun seafood at Floyd's, but the place was closed for remodeling. For some reason, a chicken fried steak struck my fancy, so off we went to the Triple A, which some people swear has the best chicken fried steak in town. After tonight's rendition, I'm one of those people.

But that's not really my point. The interesting thing about tonight's trip to the Triple A was that there we were, sitting in diner (restaurant is a stretch) within the inner loop (barely) of the nation's fourth largest city, and instead it felt more like a restaurant in the middle of rural America. Indeed, it felt like a slightly larger version of the Wynona cafe, located in Wynona, Oklahoma, about 10 miles south of Pawhuska, where I grew up. The place has the same sorts of specials -- greasy "homestyle" cooking that just cries out heart attack and clogged arteries accompanied by veggies, of course (who says the heartland doesn't have a sense of irony!) -- the same sort of unpretentious but functional decor, and the SAME CLIENTELE. The place was full of an assortment of older working people (no yuppies -- maybe aside from us?) the same sorts of people you'll find having an early dinner at virtually any small town diner in America's heartland any night of the week. Common folks. The sorts of people whose values you might laugh at every once in a while -- until you decide you're ready to buy a home, have children, and raise a family (at which point they suddenly become model neighbors).

Anyway, it wasn't the usual crowd we see in Montrose's establishments. Sure, Montrose has a diversity of its own, but the "heartland crowd" (for lack of a better term) is definitely underrepresented. I didn't even realize it existed in Houston.

[Posted @ 08:53 PM CST]


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