Restaurant Foods We Love

It can be a chain, a mom and pop, or a local legend-there’s enough variety in restaurant choices to find favorites nearly everywhere! Here’s a quick update of some our recent encounters that we loved enough to recommend. First, if you find yourself …

It can be a chain, a mom and pop, or a local legend–there’s enough variety in restaurant choices to find favorites nearly everywhere! Here’s a quick update of some our recent encounters that we loved enough to recommend.

First, if you find yourself in Galveston, Texas, visit Gaido’s Restaurant along the seawall. We have this restaurant on repeat, and always get some version of their crab-stuffed shrimp.

Indulge in an appetizer from Gaido’s, too, like the breaded onion rings, above.

We mentioned chain restaurants, so First Watch gives you an opportunity to find one of the more than 500 locations across 29 states. We love their seasonal menu items, and this delicious sugar-rimmed drink was from their Fall line-up.

While Gaido’s is a local institution, Mama’s on the Hill, in St. Louis, Missouri, is all that and more to the people of St. Louis. It’s a family-owned restaurant that serves great pasta in an area where great Italian food is supreme. Try their Tortellini a la Pappa, with prosciutto and a creamy garlic Parmesan sauce.

Finally, we come to a homegrown favorite and a twist on avocado toast, found at JW’s Kitchen in Southwest Missouri. It’s in a trendy area called Farmer’s Park, and it lives up to the promise with a fresh version of Neighbor’s Mill bakery’s multi-grain bread, topped with pickled onions, egg, radishes, and lots more. Great for brunch or any time of day, particularly when paired with one of their fresh juices, like the combo of beet, cranberry, and more pictured in the background.

Restaurants are doing one of three things right now: innovating, recovering, or closing. Go support your local favorites and prevent that last from happening!

Destination: Rehoboth Beach, DE – Fin’s Ale House

Fin’s Ale House comes complete with outdoor dining and spacious seating inside. Ask around for a good restaurant in Lewes, Delaware, and the name Fin’s Ale House & Raw Bar is almost sure to come up. When it does, run, don’t walk. It doesn’t matter …

Fin's Ale House in Lewes, DE
Fin’s Ale House comes complete with outdoor dining and spacious seating inside.

Ask around for a good restaurant in Lewes, Delaware, and the name Fin’s Ale House & Raw Bar is almost sure to come up.


When it does, run, don’t walk. It doesn’t matter if you want to sit and the bar and shuck oysters, or if you want to sit on the dining side. Just go and enjoy being a bit pampered while you enjoy fresh seafood.

In our experience, the service was great, especially for a place where shorts and ball caps are not questioned. It’s tourist-town-casual-dine, but up a notch.

We spent time asking a few of our usual questions of the server. What is your favorite? What is most popular? Anything we should avoid?

Fin's Ale House Seafood BakeThe Seafood Bake is the perfect sampler if you want to taste it all.


He quietly warned us that the chefs often have a heavy hand with the white wine on the Seafood Bake, making it watery, not better. We dared it anyway, and it must have been a good night—the flavor combination was delicious. Shrimp, scallops, flounder, crab cake, and a light sauce with Florentine butter, which is a mix of cultured butter, olive oil, and lemon, often with other seasonings or a bit of brandy thrown in.

Fin's Ale House Crab CakesThe Crab Cakes were full of fresh crab, not filler.


He made sure we knew that the Jumbo Lump Crab Cakes weren’t your ordinary fried circles. No, they are pure crab, broiled and delicious. Hint: Ask for them to be delivered piping hot, as there appeared to be a tendency to let them sit just a little too long.

Fin's Ale House pastaThe Seafood Pasta from Fin’s Ale House.


We also took his recommendation and ordered the FINS’ Shellfish Pasta. It proved that you can take some of the same seafood and make it taste totally different. This dish had the shrimp, scallops, and lump crab meat, but was mixed with a delectable lobster cream sauce and served over penne pasta.

Specials when our party of three was there included a lobster roll made with “FINS’ famous lobster salad,” and a Spicy Grouper Scampi, using one of the daily fish selections. As good as it sounded—pan seared fillet, linguini, sun dried tomatoes, asparagus, garlic white wine, butter, capers, and crushed pepper—we stuck with the regular menu. We could also have gotten Pecan Encrusted Mahi or Horseradish Encrusted Halibut. All for another time.

Fin's Ale House Fin’s Ale House has a choose your own fish dish.


Fins is also known for its Build Your Own Fresh Fish aboard. The instructions are simple:

1. Select a fish from the daily rotating selection
2. Select a preparation (e.g. broiled, grilled, blackened, or even stuffed with crab imperial)
3. Select a sauce—citrus hollandaise, lobster sauce, lemon shallot cream, Creole sauce, and more


Just like that you can have the seafood dish of your dreams.


Oh, and if your tastes spin to the more exotic, they offered a Spanish Seafood Paella that sounded amazing. It was made with all the standards, including scallops, mussels, shrimp, clams, fish, lump crab meat, calamari, Andouille sausage, and saffron rice. This alone proves both the versatility of the restaurant and its commitment to fresh seafood.

We did feel the need for a crusty bread basket to sop up our sauces, but didn’t see it on the menu and one wasn’t automatically offered. Next time we’ll ask.

Because there will be a next time.


Photos by Paul K. Logsdon

Watch “The Restaurant Operator” From 1946 — a 10-Minute Time Capsule

“Everybody likes to eat!” exclaims the narrator of this educational film from 1946. “Whether it’s a hot dog at the county fair or a full-course dinner at the Ritz, there’s no denying that people like to eat.” That’s hardly a revelation, but the …

“Everybody likes to eat!” exclaims the narrator of this educational film from 1946. “Whether it’s a hot dog at the county fair or a full-course dinner at the Ritz, there’s no denying that people like to eat.” That’s hardly a revelation, but the point was to show that there’s a thriving industry — restaurants — “doing over $2 billion of business annually” ($864 billion in 2019).

“The Restaurant Operator” is part of a series called “Your Life’s Work” from Vocational Guidance Films, Inc. It’s fascinating on its own as a time capsule (the clothes, the restaurant signs, the interiors) but also shows how far the industry’s come (and sometimes how similar it is to today).

It starts with familiar-sounding retro-schmaltzy infomercial music and a deathly serious male narrator setting the scene. Over ten minutes, he explains that there are many types of restaurants these days and (here’s the crucial thing) that operating a business requires more than just great cooking skills. Aunt Martha’s eatery does not succeed despite her prowess in the kitchen; her business didn’t get the foot traffic needed (sound familiar?).

Below are some highlights with timestamps.

Types of Restaurants

1:34 Table service includes coffee shops and tea rooms

2:20 Self-service includes cafeterias and buffets

2:43 Counter service includes the corner drugstore, an “outgrowth from the serving of ice cream” and luncheonette

3:15 Drive-in or curb service is like a “restaurant, soda fountain and picnic all rolled into one.”

4:20 Emphasis on handwashing and strict sanitary conditions

4:48 Nearly all the women wear hats when seated at the restaurant.

6:10 Meet Aunt Martha and see her delicious pies, puddings, and muffins (“mmm-hmm”)

7:30 Newspaper shows headline with “50% Restaurants Fail First Year”

More credits:
Manuscripts by Arthur P. Twogood
Professor Vocational Education Iowa State College
From the Prelinger Archives

Jets GM Joe Douglas tips big amid coronavirus pandemic

Joe Douglas left around a 100 percent tip on a recent order at New Jersey restaurant.

Preparing for the NFL draft and 2020 season didn’t stop Jets general manager Joe Douglas from ordering takeout, even in the midst of a pandemic.

Restaurants and their workers have been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus outbreak and calls to shelter in place and social distance. So, when Douglas recently ordered from the River Grille in Chatham, New Jersey, he made sure to leave a very generous tip.

The girlfriend of a bartender at the River Grille posted a photo on Reddit of Douglas’ receipt. On it, he tipped $100 for a $106.90 order. She went on to say Douglas ordered and tipped this well the past three Sundays.

“I’m already a Jets fan,” she said in the post, “but this makes me love them that much more.”

Douglas will continue to prepare for the season and the draft from the comfort of his own home. He, along with the rest of the Jets’ personnel and the league, will complete the draft online, according to a memo from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

If the Jets GM orders in or picks up takeout for his draft day spread, whoever is supplying the food can bank on a big tip.