Red Robin

I had dinner tonight with some lovely ladies at Red Robin.  I love a couple of things about this restaurant.

#1 - Freckled Lemonade.  Now I'm a lemonade lover for sure.  In fact, when I feel like soda, it's common practice for me if I get a drink at a fast food place to do half lemonade, half sprite, or orange soda, or grape soda.  This is partly because I'm becoming less of a fan of carbonation the older I get, so the half lemonade makes for a more palatable mix, but the other half of the reason is probably just that I love lemonade, and the freckled lemonade (a.k.a. strawberry lemonade at Red Robin is delish.

#2 - The fries.  They make these big fat - you can really taste the potato and not just the fried part - steak fries.  Add some of their signature seasoning and dip in ranch and YUM!

#3 - The memories.  Considering we didn't even have a Red Robin in our part of the state growing up, it's kind of ironic that my two favorite memories of Red Robin are from High School.

First - The Chemistry Bet
One year of high school, I took a chemistry class.  We had a somewhat eccentric chemistry teacher in my high school who said and did funny or strange stuff (like celebrate mole day).  Well one day, a student who was working as an office aid interrupted our class for some reason and while the student was leaving Mr. Shell called out something to the effect of "Why don't you draw me a map to Red Robin".  The student said "okay" and hurried on his way.  We were all a little confused, thinking that either this was just another one of our teacher's crazy quirks or the continuation of a previous conversation.  Well one of my classmates said "He's not gonna do that." To which our teacher replied. "You wanna bet?"  Well, the bet was made.  I don't remember the terms exactly, but they were good.  Something to do with missing quizzes if Kyle won, or some sort of indentured servitude if it went the other way.
Well lo and behold the next day in class, Mr. Shell plopped down a hand-drawn map to Red Robin in Boise on Kyle's desk and proceeded to outline all the unsavory tasks he would have to complete in the near future.  Turns out the office aide was a senior chemistry student who was also in one of his classes, so convincing him to actually draw a map was a cinch.  Poor Kyle.

Second - State Track
The first time I actually ate at Red Robin was during a later trip to state track.  We arrived in Boise and went to Bronco Stadium to get a feel for the track and have a little workout.  Afterwards, the bus took us out to eat.  Most of the team went to Olive Garden, but a few of us ventured across the road to Red Robin.  There were four of us at my table and we had a great time.  We drank lots and lots of lemonade (being a bit dehydrated following our earlier practice) and had some great food and conversation.  Well by the time we were done we were all well fed, hydrated and feeling good.  Suddenly completely out of the blue and out of the mouth of one of the quieter boys on the track team came the words, "I think I need to let out my pants."  Needless to say we burst out laughing at his serious and completely unexpected declaration.  To which he just shrugged and said, "Hey, it was good food.  .  . "  In any case, I will never forget that first trip to Red Robin and have loved it ever since.