I'd rather eat with the gypsies than with the Upper Krust any day.

I'm a Welsh rabbit sort of girl. My dream (honest) is to have a small, cozy little cottage of a diner where I serve really excellent campfire foods. The menu will be small but everything will be made out of the very best plebian ingredients. Meatloaf, chili, mac and cheese, biscuits/gravy, pot roast, corn muffins and homemade breads, etc. A coffee cup kind of place where I get to make everything myself. I'd LOVE to do this.

And I'd like to have a tarot reader on hand for the occasional upset customer. Would be soooo cool. Sort of like the place in the book Dogs and Goddesses. Only with a bigger menu (they only did baked goods, heavy on the cookies)

It sounds like it would be an absolute wonderful place. :)

:) thank you, Tulip.

mmm yum. When's dinner?

so do it -with the damp campfire..... a real one, yes. How awesome to see your baked potato come striaght off the fire, or be able to turn up and toast your own dog without having to start the fire, and to make smores for dessert.....

You want to eat children? :eek:
If you're doing all the cooking, unless you prepare ahead and warm it up as needed, everyone would have to show up at the right time or have a long wait.
Let others do the cooking and you can shmoose from table to table, like Toots Shore.

There's a restaurant somewhere that I remember hearing about on the Food Network, where they don't have a menu--dinner is whatever dinner is that night, just like you were going to Grandma's house to eat. You might have your choice of a few sides, but if it's meatloaf night, you're having meatloaf.

The Pennsylvania Dutch have restaurants like that. No menu, long tables, everyone sitting together, with all the food served family style. If you don't want it, don't take it. If you take it, clean your plate. ;)

There's a restaurant near my dad's place like that. You have to book a couple of days in advance, and then when you get there, you just get what's on the menu that night. I've never been, but Dad goes now and then. He says the woman who does the cooking is brilliant and the food is always good.

I love the idea of that sort of eatery, but with all the people out there with special requirements for meals, you would be looking for that market where people aren't such fussy eaters. The place near my dads is in the country, so that's probably an advantage with their style.

Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House in Savannah, Ga. is like that. Only they will usually have a few choices of meat and several sides. The "cooks" bring all the food to the huge tables where everyone sits together and you pass the food around. "Pass the buicits, please". So quaint and comfy. And you meet people from all over the world.
If you visit Savannah, it is located on Jones St. just off Drayton St.
I love it, but if you're going, be there a while before they open coz the line sometimes reaches around the corner. Usually by the time they open the doors, you are all fairly well acquainted. Cool.