Tacky Jacket Dinner Club

Early Bird Specials and All You Can Eat Tasties

2006-04-09T04:20:00Z

Okay, aside from Tacky Jacket restaurant reviews, I've been thinking about other topics that will make the content herein more useful and interesting. Two ideas come to mind, restaurants that offer Early Bird Specials and All You Can Eat tasties like crab and lobster.

So I'll be researching this further, meanwhile I invite anyone who would like to contribute to these topics to post a comment.

Tip - Dining with no reservation

2006-04-09T04:11:00Z

For your best shot at getting a table in a popular restaurant without a reservation, show up right when the restaurant opens. They'll often be able to accommodate you. Or if the restaurant has a bar, sit there and order dinner from the menu. This is a nice way to avoid the crowds and get better service since the staff is fresh and not already dealing with multiple customers. You might even save money on an early bird special. More to come on that...

Tacky Jacket goes to Charlie's Ale House

2006-04-08T03:33:00Z

Well I've got a bunch of years worth of restaurant reviews I could do to get started here for Tacky Jacket, but it seems best to start with the last outing.

It was Spiff's turn to wear the jacket and pick the location, which was Charlie's Ale House in Wheaton IL. The date was March 25th a Saturday. Spiff an I arrived about the same time, a little after 6pm. A note for those unfamiliar with the area, don't bother trying to find the address on the building (I couldn't), just look for the big clock. It runs backwards by the way. Anyway, it wasn't to crowed given the time, and we had reservations for 10. I'm not sure if reservations are required, I doubt it but perhaps Spiff will tune in and provide that info. The staff was nice and seated us right away, but of course no one else showed up for another half an hour. The staff made jokes at our expense, all in good fun, as they checked in from time to time.

As everyone arrived, dinner got started promptly by ordering appetizers, crab cakes and hot wings is all I can remember. Both were good, but it was entertaining to watch Blob break out in a sweat eating hot wings. Not because the wings were particularly hot, he just started visibly sweating after about three bites. Very funny.

As for the dinner selection, nothing really jumped out a me to order and the prices seemed a little on the high side, but I've seen plenty worse. I ended up ordering a salmon sandwitch...it was dry and not a lot went into flavor. The drinks on the other hand went down great. Woodchuck Cider is what I had and it had my taste buds jumpin'. If you're looking for a change from beer I highly recommend you give it a try. It's made by Green Mountain Cidery in Middlebury, Vermont.

Even though dinner didn't do much for me, it was a nice evening. The staff was fun and it was a pleasant atmosphere.

Tacky Jacket Goes Online

2006-04-07T19:27:00Z

Well the Tacky Jacket Dinner Club has been meeting for several years now and it just dawned on a couple of us... hey we should have a website! So now the website is in progress and wouldn't ya know it, this handy dandy quick blog tool comes with it for free. So now we have a blog too.

Anyway for those of you that are wondering what this is all about, the Tacky Jacket Dinner Club started informally around 1998. Somewhere along the line we stopped in at Bob Chinn's Crab House, drank a bunch of Mai Tai, and the next thing ya know the waiter was giving us this REALLY tacky blue and orange fish covered jacket. After much laughter, someone put the jacket on and suddenly our group outings became the Tacky Jacket Dinner Club.

We all get together a few times a year for an outing ...often followed by a PyroBlazers Event (www.pyroblazers.com). The rules are simple, whoever picks the restaurant has to wear the tacky jacket during dinner, and at the end of dinner the jacket gets handed off to someone new who picks the next location.

So now that the Tacky Jacket Dinner Club is going online, a few of us have decided it might be fun to do reviews of the restaurants we visit. No sure what else will pan out, but time will tell.

Stay tunned for more...