O'Charleys - Southport, IN

We visited O'Charleys this past Sunday after church. We were promptly greeted and seated by very polite hostesses. The waitress was at the table as we were being seated. Some may find this an interruption, but with hungry children, I find this to be impressive. It allows us to get drink and appetizer orders in quickly.
Not 2 minutes after we sat down our drinks and rolls arrived. This is EXCELLENT service in my opinion. Drinks and an appetizer, even if it's just bread, quickly occupy children and bring smiles to their faces. This type of service gets rave reviews from me every time.
The childrens meals were inexpensive, but not cheap. I still use Bob Evans for the best childrens meal price base. There was plenty of food to split between the children ordering only 2 meals though, so the quantity was great.
I ordered a wonderfully prepared salad and my wife got a nice pasta dish. I had about 1/2 of my meal to bring home for later as it was HUGE. When I asked for a box, I was even brought a small container with extra dressing to take home. That is very impressive that they think of the customer tlike this.
We were very impressed with the service, speed, and quality of food. Good chance they'll see us again some Sunday soon.

O'Charleys: (Southport, IN)
Food: 5/5 - Perfectly prepared, and sent me home with extra dressing!
Service: 5/5 - Waitress was excellent. Very prompt, very polite, and never had an empty glass on the table.
Price: ~$33 - Inexpensive.

Pizza Hut, Shelbyville, IN

I haven't written a review yet, and I have visited this restaurant at least 4 times since starting this blog. That's not fair. This place has been great every time we go. The service is great and the staff is very friendly. The food is pizza and breadsticks. You can't really do it GREAT in my opinion, but it can be done wrong. We've never had that problem here. They seem to get it right every time. The facility is clean and the service is prompt and attentive for the children. Very helpful when they are hungry and thirsty!
Drinks are always promptly brought out, and we always have drinks. Rarely is there ever an empty glass on the table.

Pizza Hut: (Shelbyville, IN)
Food: 4/5 -Always on the money, and pizza rarely gets a 5 from me.
Service: 5/5 - Waitresses have always been excellent and polite.
Price: ~$30 - Inexpensive for 6 people.

Chilis 2 for $20 vs. Applebees 2 for $20

On the surface, these deals look identical. From what we've experienced over the past 2 weeks, having visited both, there is a big difference.
First, portion size. The amount of food we were served at Chilis was considerably more than the same priced meal we received at Applebees.
Second, quality. Personally, I never thought this would be an issue, but the food at Chilis was much better prepared and flavorful than what we got at applebees.
Third, free dessert! Yes, at Chilis, you get a dessert! At Applebees, you don't. May not seem like much, but It's definitely nice to have it be a part of the deal. We actually had take home boxes for both of our meals, but made sure we had room for dessert. (chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and fudge? How do you turn that down??)
Also, the day we went to Chilis, we only had 2 of the little ones with us, and the food we ordered was more than enough to feed all 4 of us. Yes, we may be overly frugal, but I see no point in paying $5 for a plate of macaroni and cheese or a toasted cheese sandwich. I think Bob Evans is the only one who has the pricing right on childrens meals. ($2-$3 range).

Anyway, after all that, I think Chilis 2 for $20 deal is the best deal we have found out there. The Chilis next to Greenwood Park Mall had excellent service. (Hostess was a bit of a snotty "too good for the world" blonde, but the waiter was great.)

Good luck in your dining adventures!

Chilis: (Greenwood Park Mall)
Food: 4/5 - Good taste and free desssert!
Service: 4/5 - Waiter was excellent. I never let the hostess attitude turn me away. Teenagers they put there seldom have the understanding of taking pride in a job. (Ok, rarely)
Price: ~$30 - Inexpensive for 4 people with dessert.

Applebees: (Shelbyville, IN)
Food: 3/5 - Food was average, no dessert
Service: 3/5 - Decent. Somewhat turned off by women with more tatoos than a hawaiian sumo wrestler, but that's just me. Her attitude wasn't much better.
Price: ~$43 - Average, no free dessert, and kids meals are overly expensive still

Dairy Queen, Columbus, IN

If I were to post that this was a pleasant experience, I would severely be understating the visit. Dairy Queen, in my previous visits to other shops, have been run of the mill, under-kept, teenager run, sometimes dirty places to run through and grab a quick bit of ice cream with the family. This facility, located off of US31 in Columbus, IN, was the exception to every fast food restaurant I know.
1. The staff - we have 4 children, ranging from a couple weeks old to 4yo twins. They are sometimes noisy, usually well behaved. On this trip, one decided it was meltdown time. (still not sure why) The staff were very friendly and jovial even through the tantrum. (Mom and dad were somewhat laughing also).
2. The facilities - Clean. I mean CLEAN! The place was spotless. Excellent layout. very spacious. Nice oversized booths that could fit 8 people easily were available. It was very open and friendly. And again, it was CLEAN. I guess this was a big thing for us. We don't often find places this well kept. It was very comforting.
3. Price - We got out and all 6 of us (ok, 5 of us) had a nice evening snack for under $15. That's a pretty good deal. Good food, excellent and friendly service, and a well maintained facility. If you haven't been before, you should go. The owners should be proud.

Food: 5/5 It's tough to get ice cream wrong!
Service: 5/5 Very friendly and superbly maintained facility
Price: <$15 Cheap. Excellent value for a great break from the day.

Pillsbury Fudgy Ice Cream Sandwiches - Yum!

I got on Pillsburys email list, and every once in a while they send me something I HAVE to try. Look slike this is tonights project. Seems simple and the kids will have a blast helping me put them together. I'll post the results.

SEE THE PILLSBURY PAGE HERE

I will put their recipe here, as I'm sure at some point the link above will not work.

INGREDIENTS

1	roll (16.5 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated chocolate chip cookies
1/2	cup hot fudge topping
1	pint (2 cups) vanilla ice cream, softened

DIRECTIONS

1.	Heat oven to 350°F. Line two 8-inch square pans with foil. In each pan, place half of cookie dough; press evenly in bottoms. Bake 14 to 17 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pans completely, about 20 minutes. Press edges flat.
2.	Remove cookies from pans by lifting foil. Invert cookies onto work surface; remove foil. Spread each cookie with fudge topping. (If topping is too firm to spread evenly, warm slightly to soften as directed on label.)
3.	Return foil to 1 pan; place 1 cookie in pan, fudge side up. Spread ice cream evenly over fudge topping. Top with remaining cookie, fudge side down. Place pan in freezer for at least 1 hour or until firm.
4.	Remove cookie sandwich from pan by lifting foil; remove foil. Cut into 12 sandwiches. Wrap each in foil. Store in freezer. Let stand at room temperature 5 minutes before unwrapping.

Home Made Pizza - Make it fun!

Last night we made "home made" pizzas for dinner, and the children loved it! A lot of the fun for 4 year olds is just getting to aprticipate in the process. I should have taken pictures, but the camera was tied up at the time with our newest baby (less than a week old!) so I didn't think it was worth stealing the camera for a blog.
Simple ingredients are best. For the sauce, we've had great luck (and found great flavor) from a (oh, I'm about to say it) GENERIC Kroger brand Pizza Zip. It's pretty darn good! We've tried a lot of different ones, and this one seems to fit our taste the best. If the kids like it, it's hard to protest.
We use rolled sausage, just cooked up (browned) well before we throw it on. The dough was premade a while back by mom. She made enough for 4 crusts and froze them in balls. We can now thaw them out whenever we want pizza and it works great. We also bought a package of Pepperoni, not brand specific. We made 2 cookie sheet size pizzas out of all of this. For Cheese, we use (again generic!) Kroger brand shredded cheeses. Mozzarella, cheddar, whatever we have on hand. We are not cheese specific.
The children love being a part of spreading the sauces, meats (pepperoni and sausage), cheese, and miscellaneous extras. We added chopped mushrooms and pineapple tidbits this time. It also teaches them that actual WORK goes into making dinner, and they seem to realize how much effort mom and dad put into keeping them fed!
We baked them at about 375 for approximately 20ish minutes, until the cheese had melted and the dough was good an fluffy.
Cut into squares about 3x3 the children loved it. Our 16mo old ate 2 pieces, and each of the 4yos ate at least 3 pieces. That's pretty good eating for children! Add a cup of Apple Juice and they are happy as clams.
Total price I would put at under $15 for all of our ingredients. This meal fed 5 adults and 3 children. That's tough to beat for a process that involves the children and gives them a sense of accomplishment.
Give it a try! Make your children an active part of making the food, and you'll be amazed at how much they enjoy saying "Daddy, I made this pizza!". The smiles on their faces make the meal 100 times more rewarding and tasty.

Subway - South Side Indianapolis (five points and emerson)

With all of the hype around Subways $5 footlongs, this store is doing it right. EVERY footlong on the menu is only $5. Can't ask for much better than that. My wife and I usually split one, then get a couple kids meals for the little ones. With drinks and a bag of cookies it all comes out to less than $20 to feed the family. That's a darn good deal in my book. Kids meals are healthy, as they can get a juice box and apples as a side. Very handy. They also get the typical "kids meal" extra, this time it was a very neatly packaged MLB towel (washcloth size). Entertained the little ones enough to be worth it.
Very clean and very friendly staff. A fast food restaurant that does it right!

Food : 4.5/5 - excellent as always
Service: 4.5/5 - Fast and efficient as expected.
Price: <$20- Cheap. Excellent value

Bob Evans with children, Greenwood, Indiana

Normally I have excellent experiences at Bob Evans. Yes, we do the typical "Sunday after church" lunch trips out to eat, probably more often than we should, but I had an excellent weekend and was looking for a little rest (I didn't want to do dishes!).
Service at this location is typically top notch. Kids meals are in the $1.99 - $2.49 range, very respectable. We fed the whole family for under $27. Tough to beat. Problem was, the service (I think it was just this server) was HORRIBLE. This is really the first bad review I've written, so I'm not that good at it.
We arrived and waited over 10 minutes to even get to put our drink order in. Children don't wait, and it really wasn't that busy, so we were confused. We ordered out food at the same time, thinking she might not make it back the same day to take that order. Drinks took at least another 5 minutes. Seemed excessive for the partially empty section we were in. Food came about 2 minutes later. That was nice. We had asked for an extra plate, as we usually steal some off of everyones plate for the baby. She doesn't eat that much. That never came.
When we were asked how everything was, we again asked for the plate, and drink refills. None of them ever came. As we were packing up to leave, I was asked if I wanted a to go cup. I asked "for what?" "Oh yeah, " she said, " I forgot to get you all refills! I'm sorry." At that point we just wanted to leave.
The food was excellent. The service was not. I'm sure we'll be back. Either the waitress was new or having a bad day. As we'd never seen her before, I'm guessing new. I'm also guessing by the tip I gave her, if it's similar to what others would get service wise, she'll be looking for a new job soon, or getting a LOT better at her job.

Food : 4.5/5 - excellent as always
Service: .5/5 - Didn't really happen.
Price: $27 - Cheap to inexpensive range. Excellent value.

Texas Roadhouse with children, Columbus, IN

To start off, I really like Texas Roudhouse, so this may be a bit biased. Had to get that out of the way, but we have had great service every time we have gone.
For the children, on Tuesday evenings, our local TR has kids night. They have games at the front door, and usually have the local fire department or police out front with a car/truck they can climb around in to look at. Talk about fun factor for the little ones!
Food is good, and ours usually eat most of it up pretty well. Again, the typical kids menu items with chicken strips and such. Sometimes ours like to get grilled cheese, and they even choose the applesauce as the side most often. Prices are very inexpensive for the children, which works out well. Often times we are able to get only 1-2 meals and split it between all of the children as they are n0t yet big eaters. This helps a lot with cost also.
Free peanuts at the table are always fun for the kids. Messy, but fun. I'd much rather they make a mess at a restaurant than in my dining room, and it seems to be the norm there, so we have fun with it.
Drink choices are standard for the children, and again they often choose milks. Sometimes I think we got lucky with our childrens preferences.
The atmosphere is alive, with constant "Yeehaw"s for birthday guests, and with all of the commotion and noise, kids can be kids and nobody gets bothered. (most of the time)

As for price we usually get out the door in the $35-45 range, which is average. I think that's a bargain for the amount of food, exciting distractions, and the atmosphere. Well done TR.

Red lobster with children, Columbus, IN

Ok, for a lot of people, this may not be the best option, as often children don't like seafood. We happen to be lucky in the fact that our children eat what is put in front of them, because we will NOT be the type of parents that let them be picky, so they usually eat.
For the children, they have a typical kids menu with chicken strips and such, usually works out well for the kids. One thing our oldest (twin boys) really like is the appetizer with calamari and vegetables. They really like the calamari. If you don't tell them at first what they are eating, it's just another fried food to them with a tomato sauce dip. The vegetables with the are usually prepared very well with peppers and broccoli and a typical ranch dip.
We usually get the chicken strips for the children, sometimes the macaroni and cheese or the popcorn shrimp. If your kids are adventurous with food, and aren't too afraid, at $5 each, it's not a bad deal. they also have milk and chocolate milk. The kids enjoy milk, so that works out well.
Being that we have twins, they get a lot of attention. The staff is very courteous and usually does something fun with them: walks them around the restaurant showing them all of the fish and paintings on the walls, brings out a live lobster for them to touch. This really adds to the value in my mind. The children enjoy going there and look forward to it.
One thing the usually helps is to be friendly to the staff. They work just as hard as the rest of us, and they seem to appreciate a polite customer. I have not had a bad experience in the 3 years we have been going to the local Red Lobster. That says a lot.

Price point wise it usually falls into the $45-55 range with tip. Yes this is pushing it, but mom and dad like the food, and the children enjoy the experience.

Dining out with kids - Why I'm blogging

I've started this blog as a father of 3, soon to be 4 children, all under the age of 5. We dine out probably more often than we should, but there are times it's just easier to pay for it than to have to clean it up!
My blogs should come after each adventure, or to introduce new ideas for staying in and making meal time "fun" for the kids.
I'll try to point out what the children do and don't like, and give a decent price point comparison. I'll also point out what mom and dad do and don't like.
For price point, I'll consider anything under $25 as cheap. $25-35$ inexpensive. $35-45 as average. Anything above $45-$55 as pushing it, and above that, Are you kidding me?. These price range may not fit your budget, so adjust accordingly, but remember, there will be 6 mouths to feed in my comparison. Take that into account.
I'll give a few starters for places we've been recently and how we've faired.