posted 2007/03/10 at 18:39
I've been dieting since the start of the year, but Saturday nights I take off of my diet so I can indulge in my odd cravings. Even though I may not eat the best food on Saturday nights, I do at least try to keep my portions in moderation. (I don't think my problem with food is so much that I eat the wrong stuff -- although I could do with less carbs and more variety in what I eat, to be certain -- but I tend to eat way too much when I'm not dieting because the feeling of a full tummy is comforting to me.) Given that Toledo has more restaurants per capita than any other large city in the world, I have a lot of choices on nights like this, although I usually end up getting something delivered so I can watch my hockey.
Here's the thing, though. Domino's Pizza has been advertising a new garlic bread pizza on television these past few weeks, and it certainly looks great. The problem is that, for all that Toledo has so many restaurants, we don't have Domino's Pizza, or at least we don't have it now. We used to have quite a few locations, and there used to be one less than a mile from my house. (While we were out of the house after the fire, it changed to a Cottage Inn for some reason.) There was another location several miles south of here, but that one went out of business, and the Domino's that used to serve UT just up and vanished one day. The closest Domino's to me at this moment is the one in Bowling Green, which is a half-hour drive each way. I doubt they'd deliver that far, and even if they did (or if I drove down to get it), the pizza would probably be lukewarm by the time I got it back up here.
I could understand this if pizza franchises as a whole in Toledo were having troubles, but we've had at least five new chains open locations in Toledo in the past year. Not that I think Domino's is cream-of-the-crop pizza, but I don't think these new chains make pizza as well as Domino's. I wonder if Domino's just didn't find much success in Toledo, or if they did something like raise their franchising fees so much that these other chains started coming to Toledo in place of Domino's.
Where do you get that "Toledo has more restaurants per capita than any other large city in the world"? Certainly Madison, Wisconsin has more? I was in Madison back in January, and they had restaurants everywhere you looked.
And unlike you, I can post a source to back my statement up:
http://www.bus.wisc.edu/mba/why/madison.asp
"[Madison] also is believed to have more restaurants per capita than any other U.S. city."
Will you be saving your serving of crow until next Saturday? :-p
Have you ever been to Toledo?
I can't find hard numbers either way, but there are certainly enough places claiming that Toledo has that distinction:
http://www.10best.com/Toledo/locationDetails.html?tab=3
(then click on the "Facts" tab)
http://www.toledocitypaper.com/view_article.php?id=52
Perhaps this is one of those statistics that many cities claim, although I can certainly back the claim that Toledo often serves as a test bed for restaurants (and even fast food places) to try out new foods and menus. We love our food here in Toledo, and if you've ever been to Toledo, you'd know that it shows.
Have you ever been to Madison?
I think the top ten food cities in the US I have been to would be:
1. Madison, WI
2. Austin, TX
3. Mountain View, CA (Google, Netscape, etc. Hackers gots to eat...
4. Toledo, OH (yes, I give them props)
5. Chicago, IL (them people know how to EAT!
6. Reno, NV (I imagine Vegas has them beat, but I've never been there...)
7. Honolulu, HI
8. Ann Arbor, MI
9. San Jose, CA
10. Albany, NY
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon